Take a look around you at work today, and point out the smokers. Now think about how much time they spend taking smoke breaks. Think it's a little unfair since you're a non-smoker?

We asked the question last week, because of an article that Halo Cigs published, called "Trading in smoke breaks. They found that smoke breaks total about 6 full work days a year. A company in Japan actually turned a complaint from a non-smoker into a benefit, by giving non-smokers an extra week of paid vacation to equal time smokers get for their smoke breaks. So Halo Cigs surveyed over 1,000 people to see if they feel this should be done here in the U.S., and 80% of non-smokers would like an extra day or two off in trade for not smoking. 14% want a FULL week off.

If you take an average 8-hour work day with a smoke break every 2-hours for 10-minutes, that's 40 minutes a day additional time that non-smokers aren't getting the luxury of taking -- just because they don't smoke!

We took our own local poll on this, to see how many St. Cloud area employees feel non-smokers should get some extra paid time off for not taking smoke breaks. We only heard from non-smokers odd enough, and here's what those folks around here said:

60% - I'm a non-smoker and would like one or two extra days off
20% - I'm a non-smoker and would like a full week off
20% - I'm a non-smoker and don't think we should get any extra time off

I guess their national poll is pretty close to the opinion of our local poll. I really think employers should take a look at offering this or something similar!

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