Annoyingly there can be slight imbalance. If a smoker takes 10 min break every hour, it's seen as "ok, he's just having a smoke". If a nonsmoker takes the same 10 mins break to check on their phone, or just chill outside, it's "oh, I've noticed you're away from your desk quite often". It's not a rule, but I've seen this happen more often that not.
Actually, where I live, people working with monitors have 10 min break every hour, by law. Most people dont use that. And no, I have never heard a case where a non-smoker was bullied for taking a 15 minute break. Never. I guess I should praise my place of birth and workplace.
Maybe you should, because I've experienced it a few times. Not in recent years though, as smoking has become a minority thing in all the offices I've seen in the last 5 years.
Yes. Actually I've not noticed it in the last 10 years and seemingly everybody has stopped smoking, but before that...
Taking many smoke breaks per day - no problem. Standing in the office kitchen for 5 minutes with a fresh coffee "why aren't you working" in voiced form or just the looks.
In some companies we just made "team smoke breaks" with non-smokers randomly joining, either to chat or continue discussing work and I felt that was the best solution (unless people wanted to be alone for 5 minutes). Either you have stuff to talk about anyway or depending on the ratio of smokers to non-smokers there was some form of interaction.
