I knew someone who didn't smoke but said they did when they started a job. This person knew they needed a five minute breather every hour or so and figured it wouldn't work out just to say as much. So instead, whenever they needed to hop outside for a breath of fresh air they'd say "Okay, I'm going out for a smoke now; I'll be back in a sec."

I think this was sheer genius.

LOL you sound like my colleague. I smoke and sometimes he says exactly that. My reply to you is how many times a day do you have your head buried in your phone throughout the work day? Probably more than the time a smoker goes out during the day. Your cigarette break is your phone. Why don’t you quit that?

Smokers are jokers.

"if you cant beat em, join em." i started smoking at one workplace because i got sick of seeing them go outside all the time while i was sitting at my desk.
on guy i worked with got up and left for 10 minutes to smoke every single hour, thats over an entire hour a day of company time. and he stank up the place

commentor above has a point about the phone people though, thats an epidemic at my workplace. at any given time about 60% of the workforce is looking at facebook.

This would never have been tolerated at my place of employment.

You can get several smoke breaks (each up to ten mins) throughout a shift but I cant check a text when its slow. Fascinating.

Smoker leaves for five or ten minutes depending how far they have to go to outside. They smoke and come back in and start working again.

An addicted phone user at work:
Constantly texting and using their social media while focus is taken off of the work they are getting paid to do.

Do you see the difference? I see the difference.
Here's an idea...how about us smoker start smoking inside the workplace again. This way we don't have to leave our desks for five to ten minutes. Will that cure your problem....or start a new one? Us smokers also wouldn't stop working to smoke. Addicted phone users stop working to use their device. Again, do you see the fricken difference or should I go on more?

So no smokers aren’t addicted to their phones? Riiiight.

What kind of place do you work where smokers get more breaks than non-smokers? I've never worked anywhere this was allowed.

The point is how the two differ. The OP has a problem with smokers leaving the workplace for five minutes. You now threw in a new variable which is not what the OP is talking about. Stay up to speed. I am a smoker so I will defend other smokers. I am not an addicted phone user myself. I know how technology is bad for the human race. That’s a different conversation for another time. May I suggest you get together with people of the like and spear head a new break time for addicted phone users. See how that goes for you. Listen, my coworker is on his phone more than he works. I’m not kidding. Soon iPhone users will be able to tell how much you use apps and their phone in general. I already told my coworker I want to see his usage real bad when the statistics are available but he won’t show me. He knows he logs at least 12hrs straight on his phone during one day. He even texts and drives...not so much now since he was caught and fined. He’s a good example of how bad your phone usage at work is. Trust me. Now back to your comment. It has no relativity to the OP’s post or even my post. If you can’t see the difference between the two then you are an addicted phone user. If you hate that I smoke and get to have breaks..I equally hate how much you use your devices. Maybe take up smoking then you can check your Instagram and Facebook more when you’re working.