Why are smokers allowed to have time off 7 September 2006
Often thought about the work environment and wondered what compensation non-smokers get while their puffing colleagues are outside on the footpath fagging up?
New anti-smoking laws in pubs and restaurants have spawned a newer phenomenon – the street smoker during recreation hours.
You’re walking home from the movies and they’re outside the bar, smoking away, talking amongst themselves or, worse, loudly on a mobile because they can’t waste those smoker moments when they could be filling in a friend on what they’re missing and all the related tattle.
You have to cross the street to avoid inhaling their fumes or, worse, listening to their conversations.
But what about workplace smokers. It seems to be all right to vacate your desk, take the lift down 33 floors and stand on St George’s Terrace and have a cigarette.
Do eaters get the same time breaks?
What would your boss do if you were some fat guy (or even a thin guy with a tape worm) and you pulled a donut from your top drawer once an hour and stood on the Terrace munching away?
You could argue that you are addicted to donuts – perhaps you’re formerly one of New York’s finest – and have as much right to an hourly munch as cigarette smokers are entitled to their addiction and office break.
Which brings me to the point. Where I work they are starting to check on how long people are in the gymnasium and whether they are using it during working hours.
The argument, quite reasonably, is that you are paid to work and exercise should be a recreation taken during a lunch hour or in non-work periods.
Okay, say the slim, taut ones but what about the faggers? Surely they collectively spend more time during the day sitting in the courtyard smoking than we spend in the gym.
Let’s say the employee uses their half hour lunch break as gym time and another half hour in the gym is offset against the smoking time taken by others. It’s an argument with foundation and discriminatory if disallowed.
Also, people who are keeping healthy, giving themselves a heightened chance of living longer and remaining a faithful employee till pasture time would be the preferred employed than those who may end up with a debilitating if not terminal illness that interrupts or abbreviates their career.
In other words, penalties are being imposed on the healthy while the unhealthy are swinging the lead.
Then you have the in-between group. Those that don’t smoke or go to the gym during work hours. How are they to be compensated for spending no company time doing what they like best?
Perhaps they should have to stop typing on their unread Blog site to keep them in line? Tricky one isn’t it?
I WRIGHT 