The smoking thing is actually really cool because one it helps maintain equality with Paid time off and it also helps discourage people from smoking since vacation days all at once instead A few hour increments spread out is much more desirable.
6 Days sound about right. I can't tell you how annoying it is for co-workers to leave, no matter how hectic the work load is, saying "I just gotta have a cigarette." They will, of course take their scheduled breaks too, no matter how many cigarette breaks they've had. Coffee drinkers are just as bad, come in, clock in and immediately leave to get coffee. Again and again, leaving for another cup. A soon as the first cup is finished; Bathroom Break! I once had a new job that I really enjoyed. I'd clock in and immediately begin working. I became aware that other members of my peer group were talking about me making them look bad. They clocked in and headed to the company cafeteria for 30 minutes of coffee drinking before working at all. I really just have never cared for coffee, but I had to join them to keep the peace. When I was in hiring positions, I avoided hiring smokers. They often smell bad, one guy interviewed with a grey handlebar moustache tinted nicotine yellow from chain smoking. It looked like he had a sick canary on his upper lip...I can't imagine how many smoke breaks HE would have taken!
My Australian shepherd puppy had Anisocoria one day after she had been outside. I was the first one to notice it and it freaked the hell out of me. Luckily, nothing bad happened to her and it just went back to normal after a while
Wow, Sentinelese Islanders... imagine living somewhere for 60,000 years and never having built anything. Just living in the jungle and spearing a monkey for breakfast, and probably sleeping on the ground in a pile of leafs...no clothes, no sidewalks, no buildings, no farming, no medicine for when you get sick... thinking a helicopter is a god-bird come to attack you...damn...
The smoking thing is great in my opinion. It frustrates me that smokers get rewarded with regular breaks particularly in the summer. Quite a few at my work place take 10-15 minutes every hour which quickly racks up over the course of a day let alone a year. where others only get a lunch break and usually can't get drinks throughout the day unless they bring a flask. It just encourages people to smoke. A friend that has smoked for as long as I have known him mentioned that they used to only have a couple a day and only started smoking heavily so they could benefit from the breaks. It doesn't incentivise people to quit and those who don't are penalised with an increased work load. If they gave everyone a set amount of break time it would be better for everyone as people would be less pressured to smoke
yeah birth rates are declining RAPIDLY even here in america and a lot of people blame it on the dating scene (now wholly wrong per se) but in reality it's very likely due to a phenomena that occurs in nearly every species as it reaches it's apex of it's possibilities where it's birth rates begin to decline as the living conditions become impossible to sustain further generations at the rate of growth they are at, so a simple way the species fixes it is by the complicated chemicals in their brains saying "hey have less kids" so they do just that and the population declines rapidly, then begins to either die off completely as something else arises to take advantage of said weakness or the population slowly but steadily recovers
so likely it'll just fix most of the issues that arise with ridiculous population density, or people on the fringes of our horrible disgusting cities will die off, our population won't feel as though our actual numbers are dropping as we keep ourselves densely packed into one place, and it will continue to drastically fall until suddenly cities are impossible to sustain and everywhere will more or less start looking like the boonies, but more technologically advanced with better knowledge and resources
I'd be ok with that if my company actually gave smoke breaks... its 5 hours, lunch break, 3 1/2 hours or more then home. No 10 min breaks or really any breaks besides lunch.
You are warned at the beginning of movies that it contains 'smoking' along with the other warnings about sex, violence, epilepsy inducing flickering lights, and the proverbial partridge in a pear tree...maybe it's just American and British Movies.