For a lot of professions, the smoke break is one of the only moments of peace you get all day.

It’s also a time to bond with your coworkers, to laugh a little bit out around the back of the building as you pass a cigarette between the two of you.

And sometimes it’s just a moment of relief, because after dealing with entitled customers all day, you might just need a puff of that Marlboro to keep you from ripping someone’s head off!

So when this user’s boss limited his team to one smoke break a day, he retaliated by making sure that one break took as long as humanly possible!

See for yourself how he did it!

Boss says contractors can only have one smoke break during our shift

I work on a building site. We’re renovating a building on a university to be ready for the students in September, so we’re on a pretty tight schedule.

Despite this, we’ve been making good time.

I work on the electrical team with 6 engineers including me and the supervisor.

We had just finished installing some lights so me and two others headed off to the smoke shelter while the supervisor sets up the next job.

There’s no general policy about smoke breaks.

As long as you’re getting your work done in reasonable time, you’re pretty much free to do whatever as long as you don’t mess around.

This helps to keep work morale high. We generally take about 5 minutes.

But his boss apparently viewed their “routine” smoke breaks much differently!

As we’re stood there talking, the site managers walks past us. He didn’t say anything but we could feel him staring daggers into us.

We just smiled and continue talking.

After we finish, we walk back on site and get our next task. The day continues as normal.

The next day, we’re informed by the supervisor that we will only be allowed to take one smoke break per day, and we would need to let him know before we took it.

And he said this new rule had an immediate effect on his crew’s work ethic!

We protested, but supervisor told us it was out of his hands. While we only took around 3/4 smoke breaks, there was a noticeable drop in morale for the day.

Little did they know I was planning my revenge.

You see, a few years prior I had taken a trip to Cuba and brought back some cigars.

I slipped three into my bag before I set off to work the next day.

We finish off a task and let the supervisor were taking our smoke break for the day.

I headed straight for the break room to grab my cigars and meet my co-workers at the shelter.

When his coworkers saw the stogies, they immediately knew what was up!

Barely able to contain my smile, I ask “Hey, wanna try a cigar?” Their faces light up as they realise my malicious compliance.

They told us we could only have one smoke break. They didn’t say how long.

About 15 minutes in and our cigars halfway finished, the site manager spots us and comes over to ask what the heck we thought we were doing.

We just told him we were taking our smoke break and we just wanted to make the most of it.

He let out a loud laugh and we continued talking for a while.

Needless to say, the higher ups weren’t thrilled about their little scheme, so they actually agreed to give them back their regular smoke breaks!

He let us know that people higher up in the company weren’t happy with the progression even though we were ahead of schedule.

We told him how we usually take smoke breaks between tasks and how this wouldn’t affect our productivity.

He gave us permission to take smoke breaks whenever we want since we seem like good people.

Just don’t bring any cigars and don’t tell the other workers.

Our supervisor nearly doubled over with laughter when we told him.

Yes, it was dumb, and yes we could have lost our jobs over this. We’re lucky he had a good sense of humor.

Was it worth it to see the look on his face? Absolutely.

They said one smoke break per day, and however long it was, it was at the end of the day only one smoke break!

Reddit sympathized with his story.

And this user said being a contractor only made the relationship with his “boss” more complicated

This user suggested he give his boss a choice between cutting their smoke breaks or staying ahead of schedule!

And finally, this person with exquisite music taste took the opportunity to make a Steve Miller Band reference!

Moral of the story?

Don’t mess with a man’s smoke breaks, especially not a man in construction!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.