Gamer Fired for taking "Pokemon Breaks."

[GoaThief]

Yea we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I just don't see it as a chemical addiction what so ever.

Well just know that you are absolutely and provably incorrect, smoking is physically addictive in addition to mentally. I suppose you also think the earth was created by an omnipotent being in seven days too?

Hilariously, the only places on the internet I could find that supported your incorrect argument was some sketchy pro-Israel propaganda site and "ScientificPsychic.com".

 

[GoaThief]

/snip

Your religious stance matters not a jot, merely the point that you are using the same flawed logic and reasoning creationists are.

Anyway, don't waste that finger time. It's ok to admit you were wrong, even if it's just to yourself.

 

[Strazdas]

Jeff Barnes, an employee at a McDonalds in Augusta, GA was recently fired from his job. The circumstances themselves are unclear, but from what sources gather, Mr. Barnes spent a week recording the times each day that his fellow employees were allowed to take for smoke breaks while still taking a lunch break.

At the end of the week, he averaged it out that employees that smoke were getting roughly three five minute breaks a day just to smoke a cigarette, and decided to take a few breaks of his own to bring out his DS and play Pokemon.

After being confronted about this by his boss, he explained his point to her that allowing employees to take extra breaks just because they smoke was unfair, and that he should be allowed his own "smoke" breaks to come outside and play video games, so long as they were kept about the same length of an average cigarette.

Mr. Barnes was fired for his behavior and his attitude.

Now before anyone says anything, lemme be clear. The story you've just read is completely fictional. (mildly based off an experience from my own life, but I didn't get fired, just kinda yelled at and got called a smart-ass...)

But to me it raises a couple questions

1. Do you think people should be allowed to take breaks like this? Is it unfair that just because someone smokes, they get to take extra breaks? Even if they're only for a couple minutes at a time.
2. Given some of the news stories we've seen on this site, would you actually be surprised if a story like this popped up for real, and what do you think the general reaction would be?

1. I think people should not be allowed to take smoke breaks. cant live without smoking every hour? your problem.
2. Such stories are reality to some. Ive seen people fired for "being in the toilet too long".

 

[GoaThief]

/strange waste of finger movement

You're still here? That "evidence" you linked to from here [http://www.unlearnsmoking.com/index.htm]? Quackery, pure and simple. Go and get some from a recognised body on health or similar, aye?

Just keep arguing from ignorance and then accusing other people of lacking critical thinking

Say what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/5/1103.full.pdf
http://ehealthmd.com/content/what-smoking-addiction
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000953.htm
http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/E/22017/24546/357075.html?d=dmtContent
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM198811173192005
http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(03)00198-3/abstract
http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=CJP.011.0135A

Of course, you're now going to go and contradict science with your pro skeeelz. You've already been proven wrong and a liar, smoking IS physically addictive and you keep replying after you say you won't.

 

[GoaThief]

I didn't say it was evidence, I said you didn't look far because you claimed there was one place that said the same thing and it was an Israeli propaganda site. Keep up with your own arguments man.

You probably use a different localised version of Google to me and probably used different wording, which provides different results. Either way, the point was and still is these places are a minority, you understand that concept, yes? Just as creationism-promoting websites are a minority.

I also never said I wouldn't reply, I said it's not worth wasting finger movements on you, which I still maintain to be the case.

Define "wasting finger movements" - are we not talking about typing? A reply in other words? If that's the case, then yes you are still "wasting finger movements" when you explicitly said you wouldn't. That makes you a *drumroll* liar.

And when did I lie or get proven wrong exactly?

See above.

I already told you I'd go and look up some of the actual studies, I just can't really do that right now without access to summon. Well I could, but it would take far too much effort.

Or you could stop making weak excuses and just look at the links I've provided for you which required such amazingly specialist resources and techniques such as Google and uh, copy/paste.

Smoking is psychologically and physically addictive. Scientific fact.

Also notice how you completely took the civility out of an entire thread.

No, I'm just blunt as I have little time and respect for wilful ignorance. Insulting, I am not.

 

[tharglet]

Wouldn't be surprised if it happened - there's plenty of shitty employers out there.

As for my experience - I don't smoke or whatever, but I've had the opposite experience... being told I can have a no-smoking smoke break if I want to. Then again I work with computers, so breaks are prolly a good idea .

Ofc, if you're not getting the breaks, there's a right way and a wrong way to approach it. If you're being "clever" to justify having the odd 5-min break through the day, then people aren't going to want to honour your request. There's plenty of valid reasons to justify it, without having to resort to "but heee gets it".

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

They get five minute breaks, we don't smell.

Win/win.

(But in all seriousness, I'm pretty sure that over here - UK - you're entitled to a lunch break and then two 15-minute breaks, so you shouldn't need any extra time for smoking. And if you do, well, tough.)

That is what we get at my workplace (in the US), so the laws might be similar. And if you can't get through an 8 hour work day with a total of 1 hour in breaks to smoke, you have addiction problems.

 

[keinechance]

I already told you I'd go and look up some of the actual studies, I just can't really do that right now without access to summon. Well I could, but it would take far too much effort.

Or you could stop making weak excuses and just look at the links I've provided for you which required such amazingly specialist resources and techniques such as Google and uh, copy/paste.

Smoking is psychologically and physically addictive. Scientific fact.

He already said that he acknowledges that there are chemicaly addictiv substances like nicotine, but he doesn't believe that there is enough nicotine in cigarettes to trigger the chemical addiction:

Yes, and they're two very different things.

Nicotine is a very small part cigarettes. If you took it in a pure form then yes, it would be highly addictive. Just like if you consumed pure caffeine that would be monstrously addictive.

A person who smokes is not chemically dependent on nicotine, they're psychologically dependent on the act of smoking.

 

[Cridhe]

This thread is soaking wet with tears and smells of baby food.

OP: Don't be that guy.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

This wasn't a problem in my previous job. I worked 10 hours a day and we had two breaks, the first being 30 minutes the second being 15. It was on a factory floor, so there was no nipping outside for a quick fag. If you wanted to smoke you had to squeeze it in next to your lunch. A lot of people I worked with ended up quitting smoking within a month or so. I guess it's hard to notice your nicotine withdrawl when you're already being drummed to meet high standards of box packing.

In short I'm a non-smoker. I understand that there are a lot of reasons why someone might start smoking, as well as how hard it is to stop, but I don't think that they should get special treatment. At my first job everyone was allowed 20 minutes of personal time on top of their lunch, this was a universal policy and it was this 20 minutes in which you had to smoke, get your tea/coffee and snacks etc.

 

[GoaThief]

Listen, lets just wrap it up. I'm not saying that smoking doesn't have a physiological effect, it clearly does.

Right, that's settled then. Smoking is physically addictive, you cannot claim otherwise so stop attempting to.

There are shades of physical addiction (dependence), just because withdrawal doesn't involve you shivering uncontrollably in pain whilst you lose control of your bowels - aided by audio and visual hallucinations of course - it doesn't mean that the lesser severity no longer makes it physically addictive. As an aside, smokers do tend to start out only having the very occasional cigarette then gradually move up to more, so I'm not sure where your increased dose theory not being applicable is coming from.

I think a new topic is required for your opinions regarding substance dependency though.

All the best, see you elsewhere on the forums.

 

[Baneat]

You should have kept doing it anyway, then sued when he/she fired you.

Good luck. I believe there are smoke break regulations that allow employees them by law but no such thing for a nintendo DS.

Smokers get more than enough shit already, people here have seriously suggested banning smoking in one's own home (I thought they were making a reductio ad absurdum argument against the smoking bans at first). Leave Britney alone.

Yeah, I know. I've never bought onto this need to bully smokers. It's exactly their choice, and their right, to do what they want with their own lives. The disgust these forumites are expressing are ridiculously over the top; this is the type of irrational hatred our country needs to protect our minorities from, even minorities like smokers who are unfashionable to defend.

I agree, if you agree that your freedom to smoke stops at blowing your smoke into my face.

Don't stand in my way if it bothers you. [..]

Does that also go for you when I fart in your face?

Good job snipping the important point of the post. I'm not standing in front of people and blowing smoke in their direction. I'm standing outside with plenty of free space blowing upwards and standing away from a bus stop if others are on it. I deliberately don't draw smoke from the cigarette if I'm passing children on the street. You have absolutely no right to complain, and if you fart in my face you're just a dick, there's no involvement of rights in the equation.

 

[keinechance]

You should have kept doing it anyway, then sued when he/she fired you.

Good luck. I believe there are smoke break regulations that allow employees them by law but no such thing for a nintendo DS.

Smokers get more than enough shit already, people here have seriously suggested banning smoking in one's own home (I thought they were making a reductio ad absurdum argument against the smoking bans at first). Leave Britney alone.

Yeah, I know. I've never bought onto this need to bully smokers. It's exactly their choice, and their right, to do what they want with their own lives. The disgust these forumites are expressing are ridiculously over the top; this is the type of irrational hatred our country needs to protect our minorities from, even minorities like smokers who are unfashionable to defend.

I agree, if you agree that your freedom to smoke stops at blowing your smoke into my face.

Don't stand in my way if it bothers you. [..]

Does that also go for you when I fart in your face?

Good job snipping the important point of the post. I'm not standing in front of people and blowing smoke in their direction. I'm standing outside with plenty of free space blowing upwards and standing away from a bus stop if others are on it. I deliberately don't draw smoke from the cigarette if I'm passing children on the street. You have absolutely no right to complain, and if you fart in my face you're just a dick, there's no involvement of rights in the equation.

You are taking an action that some people find distasteful.

If you are smoking in private then I don't have a problem with that, just like I said before.

But if you are smoking when others are present, and they don't like it, then you are bothering them, even if you "don't go out of your way to annoy people".

And if your response to that is "Don't stand in my way if it bothers you." then you are acting antisocial.

If no one else is present when you smoke, than no one stands in the way of your smoking.