When I lived in Ireland I used to smoke at work - right in the office - imagine it, I had an ashtray on my desk!!
When I moved to America I was astonished at the attitudes towards smokers. I was made to feel unwelcome in a lot of places, I even got verbally abused by several strangers for lighting up. Anyway when I started working here I just never got into the habit of bringing my cigarettes with me. You see I actually hate the smell of smoke-stained clothes/hair - weird I know, for a smoker. But I couldn't bear to be stinking of smoke while at work. I have my cigarette in the morning and then take my shower and when I get home at night, I light up immediately. Yeah I'd like to be able to quit and I think that physically I could do it but it's the strange habit thing that gets me buying another pack - I like the comforting thing of inhaling and the holding of the cigarette and the entire action of it. I know that sounds very strange but there you have it. Chewing gum or eating does not fill the void. I have one of those fake cigarette thingies to imitate the action but I still haven't quite gotten to the stage of quitting completely. One day ...
Oh and the taking a break thing - it takes a couple of seconds to jot down when your coworker gets up with ciggies in hand and when they sit back down. It was all the movements of these people that actually disturbed the flow of work so we jokingly started to make note of how many times they did so. Realizing my next-door colleague got up, including bathroom breaks, 25 times in one day made me a wee bit annoyed - since, because she was missing so often and for so much time, I got stuck with her work as well as mine! After some discussion with others we told them (yes we actually told the smokers!) we would be making a note of their movements because we found it unfair. This was a place that was ultra-strict by the way. The rest of us could not move without getting berated for wasting time, however the smokers were given automatic rights the rest of us didn't get. Workers wasting time is ongoing in some places but smokers get special privileges that they should not be entitled to. There is no other habit that would allow the time spent away from work - think about it, I like to drink, so should I be able to nip to the pub for a quick one several times a day? I think not! How about nympomaniacs? I hear that's a disease, right? Should they be allowed several quickies a day and the boss not bat an eye? Or cocaine users, or ....
I'm an exsmoker who used to smoke at work - it was okay in the old days. I can see the reasoning now for making people go outside, but when it first happened to me at someone's house, back in, what, around 1970, I was astounded. Now I agree with a clean air policy.. and I can see the point re perfume if it really bothers people. I did work once in a place where we all got the secretarial office manager to speak to an employee who failed miserably about human hygiene..
On breaks, it has luckily been my lot, almost wherever I have worked over the years, to have a position where as long as I got the job done a break was fine. Back in my lab days I used to come in a little late, take a little long lunch on some days (perhaps none on others) and almost always worked a lot of hours overtime over a week's time - sometimes a whole lot. (We often used to have to go in to change dialysis systems, or re run a test... ) Same in landscape architecture, a field in which all-nighters used to be the way to go on some occasions. No one minded if someone went shopping once for an extra 45 minutes after lunch when that kind of effort was part of getting projects out. One office later changed to more ordinary hours by adding double the people for somewhat less money I was out of there on my own by that time working for myself but still visited them for lunch meetings sometimes. Both kinds of offices could work for different types of people. I guess I liked the intensity of the project work when it was happening, even if I would have complained..
At this point I would go berserk if my time were watched by someone. It's true that I have contracts I make with deadlines, but I arrange my time within that my way.
Huskar
One more hypocracy in our society.
Instead of curbing the tobacco cultivation we are torturing the innocent law-abiding citizens.
I am a chain- Smoker DUNHILL( British)
I had skipped my holiday because of this LIFE STYLE.
This hypocratical culture is all pervasive now.
I will die with a DUNHILL in my mouth and laught at the new hypocracy.
Rama Fuchs
The modern moral puritan is not much improvement over the old religious puritans, both assault humanity in the same way, demanding that humans be other than what we are. And they will never stop, if they get their way with smoking they will move on the the next great evil, which it appears will be eating the "wrong" things. Then after who knows, maybe another run at banning alcohol. I wish more people would join me in telling these fools to shut up and sit down.
Quote:Nanny Nation
SEATTLE ?- Here on the West Coast, we sort our garbage ?- or else. We rummage through our food scraps, just ahead of the worms. We take our little canvas bags to the grocery store lest we get caught with the embarrassment of a dreaded paper-or-plastic denouement, and the scorn of neighbors.
If we smoke cigarettes, we do it in the alley ?- huddled with the other losers. We've banned junk food from our school vending machines and soon ?- in 32 square miles of Los Angeles where a moratorium on new fast food restaurants will be in place ?- it will be treated like tobacco: the cheeseburger as death-wich.
We do this because we're so-o-o-o virtuous, and our self-regard is tied to the size of our curbside proclamations. Mostly, we do it for others ?- the poor, the fat, the ill-informed. Of course, we would never smoke, or get caught finger-licking the extra-crispy runoff from KFC, or tossing a foil wrap in the trash.
Nearly every week brings news of another act of forced high-mindedness. Last week it was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom with a plan to start inspecting people's garbage, on the lookout to find someone who may have let a banana peel slip into the trash. Before that it was Seattle, which will soon charge people 20 cents a bag in the grocery checkout line.
It's not just us Left Coasters. New York has begun enforcing an ordinance that requires fast-food chains to post the caloric content of food on menus ?- in type as big as the menu item itself. How enticing: a fistful of calories on a bed of cholesterol, to go. Chicago, that city of deep-dish pizza and tailgate brats, has just been named the most meddlesome and restrictive in the country by the libertarian magazine Reason. Red states are more restrictive on sex and liquor; blue state prohibitionists tend to aim at garbage and tobacco. But as Reason noted, "Chicago gets moral prudery and public health fanaticism ?- the worst of both worlds."
Seattle was only number two. We'll show them in my fair city, once we have to start sorting our food scraps next year. And, playing catch-up, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels tried to ban lap dancers from moving within four feet of their customers, unleashing police with tape measures. The voters, mercifully, turned him down.
In Portland, Ore., which has somehow escaped excess civic nosiness, strip clubs proliferate in family-friendly neighborhoods, as commonplace as a burger hut. What's more, you can drink and gamble in the clubs. The city is said to have more strip clubs per capita than any other in the country ?- including Las Vegas ?- in part because of Oregon's liberal free speech provisions in the state constitution.And yet, the city, has low crime, uber-fit citizens, and it's clean. They do it all by example, not mayoral fiat.
At a time when so many people are losing homes and jobs, and making tough decisions about whether to fill a gas tank or pay health insurance, city governments should avoid counting calories and dispatching garbage police.
Government should empower us ?- to use the word so favored by activists. Make sure our food is safe. When products kill, make companies pay. Show us the way to a cleaner garbage stream. Lead by example.
But then, leave us alone. These dictates and fines and inspectors ?- they only undermine larger efforts and encourage ridicule. Conservative talk radio on the West Coast would have to go silent without the fodder of strong-armed earnestness from city halls in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle this summer.
San Francisco already has one of the highest recycling rates in the country. Do they really need city inspectors out poking through the trash can? Besides, if you make a fruit forbidden, it only becomes more enticing. After Oakland schools banned junk food from vending machines, I went there to have a look at lunch hour. Lo and behold, students walked more than half-a-mile ?- a sprint, almost ?- to make it to the nearest mini-mart for their sugar highs and empty calories. At least the ban encouraged exercise.
If blades of grass or apple cores find their way into my garbage, I'm in trouble. But, ever thoughtful, Seattle officials have given me a way out. It's now legal for city residents to own pygmy goats, which ?- we are told ?- can be used to process yard waste in an eco-friendly way.
Ba-a-a-ah.
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/nanny-nation/index.html?hp
