Is my husband being unreasonable not to employ a smoker?

[Yowey]

As he is an ex-smoker himself, i feel that it is hypocritical of him.
Adivce would be greatly appreciated.
Yowey.

I know I shouldn't comment but why post asking for opinions and then flounce when (a range of) opnions are proffered?

[completely baffled]

Agree with Onager.

'tis a slippy slope.

And I do wonder if smokers are emerging as the scapegoat de jour, whereby people feel free to offer all sorts of opinions on limiting their rights to this, that and the other.

Limiting rights of certain individuals as members of a certain group is always a bit dodgy and has rippling implications. So, YABU.

But, hey, you're not here anyway.

KCAI - Ooops. Same mistake here.

I used to work in a office and the 'smokers' used to dissapear for 10 mins at a time at least 4 times a day.
They were taking the piss. If they are so addicted they should wear a nicotine patch or chew some nicotine gum.
Why should they go outside and pollute the air?
It would be like employing alcoholics and letting them drink at their desk.
They are both addictions and individuals must make sacrifices if they want to get jobs.
I'm a total non-smoker by the way and my mum is a chain smoker, so yes i am angry at smokers.

Fine point about MNers posting from work. I'm sure my MN habit took up more time than the odd fag break last time I had a 'proper' job...

I've got my hard hat ready

Ripeberry "I am angry at smokers" Really? Why?

Smokers - the 5th column of the workplace - the enemy within.

They "unwork" with their regular breaks from the workface - subtly demoralising the other model workers, who watch them scampering outside for a merry fag-break, and become discontented and less willing to contentedly slave away, without a thought of slacking off.

And outside, they form networks of gossip and solidarity, undermining the clear structures and hierarchy of the workplace; undermining the bosses authority by bitching about him/her/them.

And they opt out of the imperative of spending all their wages on the children/families/home and thus conforming to the reproduction of the capitalist-consumerist nexus of affective normativity.

How very dare they?

And they smell.

All the reasons above, because i had to take all the phone calls in our office, whilst at least 4 colleagues used to go out together.
I was not allowed to have a 'break'.
If we went to the loo we were timed and they used to come along to the rest room and tell us to hurry up .
Also i hate cigarettes and what they have done to my mum.
There is plenty of help out there to give up, save some money and look after yourselves.
I'm in my bunker now.

You were timed going to the loo?

i thought that only happened in the sort of places that the film "Dirty Pretty Things" was about!

I suspect that your anger might be better directed ... .

Unless you have a relative who has been ravaged by the effect of cigarettes and who 'lives to smoke' then you would be like me My mum has Demtia, does not care for herself, he skin is yellow, her right hand especially her index and middle finger are black (cannot be scrubbed off). She can hardly walk, but if you take her cigarettes away from her she will crawl on the floor to get them.
That is what cigarettes do to you.

Lol ripeberry, I have no intention of jumping at you!

I just find it odd to be angry at a whole group of people because of the way a few people have behaved. It is sad about your mum and there is nothing worse than seeing the damage a parent can do to themselves and not be able to do anything to help/stop them.

WRT your place of work, yes that was rubbish but I think you will proabably find that kind of behaviour the exception rather than the rule.

Being angry takes up such a lot of energy, isn't it better to just write off the people who did you wrong as idiots and leave it at that?

WRT alcoholism, I kind of see your point except that a smoker does not become gradually more and more incapable of doing their job through the day - to the point of being potentially dangerous and/or a liability.

This was in a call center, where they time everything and listen into everything and you are filmed all the time. It was great leaving that place (14yrs). But i stayed as i liked most of the people there, but the management was rubbish.
Yes, i'd better re-direct my anger and make a note to myself to not look at threads about smoking.
To your good health!

Ripeberry, that is what cigarettes can do to you, it is not an unavoidable end, although I do understand your pain at her situation.

Ripeberry - I can see that this is really personal for you and this forum is not the place to approach that. So I won't. At the risk of coming across as annoying, I'm going to leave that as a deeply personal comment and make any other posts very general and impersonal.

Some firms DO give workers allocated time allowed for 'comfort' breaks.

I was watching that Dispatches programme this week about the debt collectors and the undercover guy revealed how he was allowed 8 minutes of loo breaks a day.

I'd never be able to: pee, reapply makeup, send a few texts, bitch to a colleague, comfort the girl that's crying in there (there's always one) and pose in front of mirror checking how big my: arse, stomach, boobs looked in eight minutes a day...

Thank you cherryblossoms

The thing that pisses me off about the anti-smokers sentiment - and i think it's a sentiment that people are expressing more and more - is that it's targetted at individuals.

And it really pisses me off because tobacco is still a legal drug; drug use is legally limited but fairly prevalent within our society, so you could argue that, despite restrictions on advertising and so on, there is still a subtle push to tobacco addiction.

And tobacco companies are enormously powerful and until recently were able to use that to advertise their wares and suppress anything negative.

It's just way too soon and too simple-minded to demonise and penalise those who are addicted to nicotine.

Ripeberry - no worries. I mean it; anything I say is, truly, general.

It's not just a legal drug, it's one that makes the government a vast amount of money. If we all gave up smoking at once, they'd have to find something like £12bn in extra taxes (last time I checked, fags have gone up since, I think).

Smokers contribute many times more to the (ahem) coffers than even the most extreme calculation of the burden of smoking-related disease, however heavily you try to weight the figures to get the 'right' answer. AND they die younger, saving the state even more billions in the costs of long-term care.

This does not, of course, making smoking a good thing. But please vilify smoking not smokers. Or even tobacco companies...

Aaarrggh!

That reads as just hideously disingenuous. It really was meant as a response to OP and also because I've noticed that there is a degree of random hostility to people smoking outside bars and pubs and things, since the smoking ban.

It's small but discernible.

Fwiw I think cigarettes are pretty terrible (cards on table) and am very angry at the power the companies have had to promote their wares - and i guess I have views on the ills of society that can make some people prone to (various) addictions.

But I would hate to see individuals targetted.

I certainly agree with that Cherry, there seems to be little or no blame aportioned to the people who are supplying this drug - yet a dealer of other drugs - equally as addictive and harmful would be locked up for a very long time - in fact drugs which are less addictive and less harmful carry a high penalty for dealers.

The fact is that we are being indoctrinated into vicitimising a group of people and the reason for it is so that the people who smoke can be held accountable and get all the blame, become the scum of society, which diverts attention from the fact that the "powers that be" have done the minimum possible to tackle smoking because revenue made from the sale of cigarettes is huge. The powers that be cannot actually afford for everyone to stop smoking, if all smokers stopped tomorrow the country would actually be in deep doings. If it was not a problem then they would have long ago made tabacoo illegal and started supplying something to help withdrawal on the NHS - like methedone for heroine addicts.

i'm clearly ranting here. And should stop but ...

I have another, slightly weird, worry, about the whole anti-smokers thing and it's this ... .

We may well be in for some hard years ahead. And there will be a lot of free-floating bad feeling, and discontent, and so on.

And it will be very easy to target various groups/identities/individuals as a focus for that bad feeling and to then share out resources according to who is deemed more or less worthy of those resources. Or as a focus for what what should be politically directed ill-feeling.

So I do think we should try very hard not to allow ourselves to be drawn into that and to resist any invitation to do so.

PMSL @ 'frequent shitters'.

Yeah, they should be vilified as well as they stink!