There’s a lady somewhere in my office building that I surmise takes a smoke break every single hour. Every time I go to the gym, I will inevitably see her walk past the windows to where all the smokers tend to congregate, which is horrifyingly over a section of the Colonial Pipeline gas main that made national headlines a few years ago.
The thing is, as much as I’d like to, I don’t go to the gym at the same time every single day, I have to be fluid with the times in which I go, depending on my workload and any scheduled meetings on a daily basis. So I’ve been to the gym as early as within the 10 am hour, as late as the 3 pm hour and at any time in between.
But it does not matter what time of the day in which I go to the gym, I will always see her trudge past the gym windows to go take a roughly 20 minute smoke break, or whenever she gets done with dicking around on her phone and milking her smoke.
That being said, I’m really curious what she actually does for whatever company she works for, and I can’t imagine it’s something remotely essential or necessary, considering the fact that a person who literally works maybe 30-35 minutes of every single hour is in the position, because factoring in the walking time, and elevator time into each smoke break, that’s what I’m assuming she actually at her desk/workstation, regardless of if she’s actually working or not.
I know the hiring process is not supposed to demonstrate any sort of bias or discrimination, but honestly if I were ever back in a position of hiring people, I think I’d try to find out if an applicant were a smoker or not. And if they were, throw their application in the trash, because I can’t imagine that short of being Good Will Hunting genius, a person who works 3/5th of the time of someone who doesn’t smoke, will actually outproduce in the long run. Last time I checked, smoker isn’t a race or a class of person that has any consequence for discriminating against and if it were up to me, I wouldn’t want any smokers in my workplace if I ever were in control of one.
Just the sight of this person kind of disgusts me. I’m not trying to get all high-and-mighty on someone, and I seldom thing I’m above most things or most people, but considering the work ethic of Miss Chimney, who stinks like one, and I can tell when she’s been in the elevator recently, because she leaves it stinking of smoke, I do kind of look down on her. If I were her employer, I’d be aggravated as fuck knowing that she’s burning 20-25 minutes every single hour of every single working day trolling around outside dragging on a bunch of cancer sticks on company time.
If it were up to me, once this kind of bullshit gets on my radar, I’d consider making a case against it, and start extrapolating their wages against how much time they’re actually present in the office, and see what happens afterward. I’d wager the behavior corrects itself more likely than not, and that they might look for an exit strategy, to which I would say good riddance, may I get a replacement that doesn’t smell like an airport smoking lounge.
It’s the kind of behavior my old cunt of a boss would embark on, but if there’s one thing that I would agree with her is that time theft is still theft, and I sure as fuck don’t want any thieves on my team. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have team members that are equitably present, and also don’t smell like fucking alleyways behind Chinese restaurants.