astercontrol:

As a form of social bonding, “small talk at work” is pretty much the same as cigarette smoking

specifically, like cigarette smoking in a workplace like some of the horror stories I’ve heard about food service jobs

the kind of workplace where there’s not nearly enough breaks, but the people who smoke, specifically, get extra breaks approved by the supervisor

(because you just can’t expect to deny a smoker their smoke break, right?)

and while they’re on break, whoever doesn’t smoke has to be the one who does ALL the work

and your only way to escape this is to choose to smoke even though you don’t want to

(which also would mean NO work would get done during the times when you’re currently the only one working. and this would have its own consequences for everyone)

sure there are workplaces where the supervisors don’t encourage smoke breaks. And likewise there are workplaces where supervisors tell employees to stop chatting and focus on work.

but in my experience, they much more often lead the small talk… make it harder for everyone to work… treat the one non-smalltalker who does all the work as a suspicious antisocial weirdo… and then later reprimand the whole team for not getting enough work done. For Some Reason. Totally unrelated.