Every day I rush to work — a rat in a race of all mankind. Sweating, pushing, shoving, I hustle to the office to get there on time. After I grab the morning coffee I always notice “Mark” with his jacket on, heading OUT of the office. I’m trying to focus and get my day started while Mark has a different plan in mind.

Mark is smoker. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against smoking, nor fellow co-workers that smoke. I am simply jealous. Jealous in the fact that Mark can take 4-5 smoke breaks per day without raising any red flags.

After several months of watching Mark put on his jacket and go for smoke, I became curious as to the length of time for each smoke break.

There was only one way to find out — track the smoke breaks. For this test, I decided to log the date, temperature, type of jacket worn, time of day, and duration. It was tough to log EVERY smoke break, considering meetings and the general busyness of work, but I was able to log 20 smoke breaks in a one month period.

Table 1

Trip #	Date	Temperature	Jacket	Out	In	Duration
1	2/1/2010	35	Jacket	2:56 PM	3:02 PM	06:18
2	2/1/2010	35	Jacket	4:24 PM	4:29 PM	05:48
3	2/3/2010	38	Jacket	3:51 PM	4:02 PM	11:13
4	2/8/2010	27	Down Jacket	8:32 AM	8:44 AM	12:30
5	2/8/2010	38	Down Jacket	3:16 PM	3:31 PM	15:13
6	2/11/2010	32	Sweatshirt	11:14 AM	11:26 AM	12:44
7	2/11/2010	35	Sweatshirt	1:23 PM	1:36 PM	13:00
8	2/11/2010	35	Sweatshirt	2:39 PM	2:51 PM	12:52
9	2/12/2010	31	Sweatshirt	9:44 AM	9:53 AM	09:34
10	2/12/2010	37	Sweatshirt	3:18 PM	3:32 PM	14:00
11	2/16/2010	32	Sweatshirt	8:53 AM	8:59 AM	06:00
12	2/16/2010	32	Sweatshirt	9:56 AM	10:03 AM	07:14
13	2/19/2010	38	Sweatshirt	9:28 AM	9:36 AM	08:10
14	2/25/2010	33	Sweatshirt	2:32 PM	2:42 PM	10:16
15	2/25/2010	33	Sweatshirt	3:51 PM	3:57 PM	06:34
16	3/3/2010	33	Sweatshirt	3:06 PM	3:22 PM	16:02
17	3/4/2010	40	Sweatshirt	9:38 AM	9:46 AM	08:50
18	3/4/2010	42	Sweatshirt	11:05 AM	11:15 AM	10:55
19	3/5/2010	36	Sweatshirt	10:06 AM	10:15 AM	09:23
20	3/8/2010	50	Sweatshirt	10:22 AM	10:34 AM	12:12

Now that we have the data, what kind of conclusions can be made? Well first off, when Mark’s supervisor walks by and asks about his whereabouts… I can give a more definitive answer. Not simply, “He’s smoking”.

Rather, I can confidently respond… y = 0.0126x + 10.308

That is Excel’s way of providing me with Miss Cleo psychic powers.

Based on this graph, Mark’s next smoke break should take around 10 1/2 minutes. I’ll be sure to post the results (any bets on the over under?)

What is even more surprising is Mark’s use of his winter wardrobe. To maximize smoke breaks, one would obviously want the warmest jacket. Not the case. The sweatshirt is the outerwear of choice and maybe for good reason. The down jacket paired with a hot cigarette may cause discomfort, despite the increased duration of the smoke break. Mark is sticking with the sweatshirt.

This is by no means a rant on smoking at the office. I just wanted to provide the facts to the rest of the group — the non-smokers. While a cigarette break isn’t exactly productive, a non-cigarette break appears even less productive. Simply put, non-smokers would look bad if they wanted a 10 minute breather outside.

Let’s run some quick figures on compensation. Say a smoker is paid $60,000 a year. That equates to about $4.81 every 10 minutes. Assuming 2 smoke breaks per day (I consider this low for Mark), that is roughly $2,300 a year.

How about I keep that cash and Mark can keep puffing away.

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