My company decided that employees were taking too many smoke breaks, which was cutting into their productivity. They decided to take our end-of-the-year bonuses and start a new “Kick the Habit” program. Each smoker was to be given a daily dose of Nicorette to help them start curbing the habit.
A week before the program was supposed to go into effect, the financial numbers for the actual cost of the program came out. My company decided that it would cost too much to buy Nicorette for all of the smokers, so they decided to substitute packs of gum instead. Each smoker was to be given a pack of gum weekly.
The first day of the program the managers came around and handed each smoker a single stick of Extra gum. When asked what happened to the entire pack of gum, the managers responded that this gum would last an extra, extra long time and the smokers would just have to make it last the entire week.
Shortly after, we received an inter-office memo stating that upper management had found a way to cut costs and that each of the executive officers would be receiving a raise in pay. Our end-of-the-year bonuses were never reinstated.
That was five years ago.
