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Smokers need not apply

Cuddles said:
I'm very much an anti-smoker, but yes, this is going way too far. I dislike smoking when it forces me to inhale other people's smoke. When that's not the case, people can smoke all they like and I don't care in the slightest.

I'd actually say the same for any drug, habit, belief, or whatever. As long as someone is competent and non-disruptive while at work, I don't give a damn what they get up to in their free time. They can spend every minute away from work as high as a kite, as long as they're sober while working it's none of my business. I think it's insane that employers are allowed to hire and fire people based on things that have absolutely nothing to do with their employment.
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Bravo Cuddles. Good post. Thank you. :)
 
My husband's mother died of lung cancer. She wasn't a smoker. She got it, they think, from years and years of working in chicken houses, breathing in the powdered chicken droppings in the air.

I wouldn't work for anyone who thought they could tell me how to live off the job.
But since it seems to be a growing trend, I'm glad I'm nearer the end of my life than the start of it.

Good luck with your future, youngsters. Whatever kind they allow you to have...
 
Lolly said:
I have a really sensitive nose and cannot bear cigarette smoke or the smell of stale cigarette smoke, but I too think this goes too far.

As long as it is legal, an employer should not dictate to an employee how he or she spends time outside of work. As long as you are willing and able to, and do, toe the company line when you are on the job (ie no smoking, no encouraging others to take it up, recommending to patients that they quit, etc) then you should be able to do whatever legal activity you like when you go home, even if it's stupid and bad for you.
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You know, i have wondered this.

There are agents one can put on tobacco ( though their main use is marijuana I am quite the fan of using them on my cigars. ) that make the smoke taste, and more to this point, smell quite different. I wonder if smokers en masse adopted these products if the " passing by a cloud of smoke" hatred would decrease?

As someone who really dislikes cigarette ( i smoke small cigars most of the time, and the smoke is quite different.) smoke, i find when i offered the product to friends who smoked , the smell became much more bearable.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Also, smokers are entertaining to be around because you can tell when they're jonesing for a cigarette and getting antsy and irritable, and that's the perfect time to schedule an emergency meeting about their projects or a performance review, or invite them to explain to their boss's boss exactly what's going on with that vital issue they aren't aware of but should have been.
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You know, maybe it is just me, but i find your statement is 100% true about cigarettes. People do tend to get really angry when they cannot smoke.

But

Personally i find that now that i smoke small cigars ( colts, or captain blacks. ) i do not have that " Need" to smoke. ( and yes i inhale them.) I enjoy it, when drinking i tend to go overboard, but i do not have that irritability, or jitters that i did when i smoked cigarettes.

That being said i am sure gram for gram, they are just as bad for me, but as far as having to stand outside in the freezing cold because i need one, for example, i just don't have to.
 
TragicMonkey said:
We had an issue at my work with one employee who was an alcoholic. She was actually drinking liquor at her desk all day. But when her manager started the motions to fire her for it, HR said that as long as the drinking wasn't affecting her work or creating a disruption, there was no justification. Especially funny since this is a notorious "at-will" state. The lady did end up getting fired eventually, but only because she stopped showing up to work at all.
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You know, same basic situation at my old job, but the guy was disruptive and useless.

I was good friends with a supervisor, and this guy ( who was also a friend of mine, albeit a ' see him at the bar and hang out' kind of friend. ) started in on a slurring threat/rant against him, culminating in him attempting to get up out of his chair and start violence, but the guy simply fell out of his chair, laughed about it, and went home.

When i asked the supervisor told me it would be entirely too much trouble to fire him for being drunk, and it would be better to just let him get himself fired for other reasons. Problem was, at that time the quality of agents was rapidly deteriorating , and sadly he managed to keep the bare minimum requirements to work.

( on the flip side, this same guy in a drunken stupor at work defended someone at length. Not a bad guy, just someone i wouldn't think of employing. )
 
joobie said:
i think it's going too far, although where i work smokers get more breaks. i used to sometimes make a phony gripe about this when i was a drinker - why can't i take a 5 minute break for a beer?

then i found out that i am allowed to carry a .04% BAC at work.
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REally? So they actually have a policy that says " if you smoke you are allowed to take extra breaks, if you don't your s.o.l." , i find that a bit strange at least. And if it is a real policy i would say that it is the non smokers being discriminated against, and you should do anything you can to have it changed.

I mean, what is to stop a non smoker from saying they smoke , and just hanging out outside for 5 minutes? Do they follow them out and make sure they are smoking?
 
This is very surprising to me, because in my experience, health care actually has a lot more lax drug policy than most other employers. I've worked in several of the top hospitals in the country, and in every single one of them, the only anti drug policy was "don't do drugs at work." No drug testing, no stipulations that you could be fired if it was found out you did drugs, nothing like that. Granted, these were all in Massachusetts, which as a state is more lenient towards drugs, especially pot (which is decriminalized) than others. But still, other employers I've worked at other than hospitals had drug policies and stipulated that you could be subject to drug testing, or I had to take a drug test to apply for the job.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
This is very surprising to me, because in my experience, health care actually has a lot more lax drug policy than most other employers. I've worked in several of the top hospitals in the country, and in every single one of them, the only anti drug policy was "don't do drugs at work." No drug testing, no stipulations that you could be fired if it was found out you did drugs, nothing like that. Granted, these were all in Massachusetts, which as a state is more lenient towards drugs, especially pot (which is decriminalized) than others. But still, other employers I've worked at other than hospitals had drug policies and stipulated that you could be subject to drug testing, or I had to take a drug test to apply for the job.
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That is a poor policy in my opinion.

As someone who is planning on going into the medical field, i agree with the don't do drugs at work ( obviously. ) , and i would agree with no penalty for non prescription drugs ( well, pot, but i could see others able to make a case for other drugs.) , i think that someone found abusing prescription drugs in a health environment should be fired within seconds.
 
We have set policies for discrimination that is not allowed in the hiring process. Discrimination in general is not a bad thing.

An employer could decide not to hire me because they thought I parted my hair funny for the interview, or that I had an annoying laugh. But not hiring a smoker? OMG civil rights violation!!!
 
From the link in the OP:

“We felt it was unfair for employees who maintained healthy lifestyles to have to subsidize those who do not,” Steven C. Bjelich, chief executive of St. Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo., which stopped hiring smokers last month. “Essentially that’s what happens.”
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In that case, in the interests of fairness to employees who "maintain healthy lifestyles", I anticipate that Bjelich will now stop hiring fat people, as they have a much higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer compared to the those of normal body weight. Go Bjelich!
 
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Tsukasa Buddha said:
We have set policies for discrimination that is not allowed in the hiring process. Discrimination in general is not a bad thing.

An employer could decide not to hire me because they thought I parted my hair funny for the interview, or that I had an annoying laugh. But not hiring a smoker? OMG civil rights violation!!!
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I think it is moreso the stones required to make it an official policy. If a workplace had an on record policy to not hire those with a funny part, or an annoying laugh, there would be a ruckus raised. The problem is an employer will not make that an official policy.
 
sadhatter said:
That is a poor policy in my opinion.

As someone who is planning on going into the medical field, i agree with the don't do drugs at work ( obviously. ) , and i would agree with no penalty for non prescription drugs ( well, pot, but i could see others able to make a case for other drugs.) , i think that someone found abusing prescription drugs in a health environment should be fired within seconds.
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Well, the thing is that there not being a drug policy doesn't mean you can't get fired for drug use. You can still get fired for bad job performance. There was an alcoholic doctor at one practice I worked at how got fired after he showed up for surgery drunk.

And with perscriptions...the thing is that being in healthcare doesn't mean you have access to prescription drugs. I volunteered and worked in hospitals all through high school, and have worked in hospitals for years, and I've never been in any kind of position where I had access to prescription drugs. And it's not like you wouldn't get fired for stealing perscription drugs whether or not we have a drug policy.

However, you know, now that I think about it, I wonder if there is a separate drug policy for people who DO work with perscription drugs? I'd never actually considered that possibility before. I know of people who work in these fields who talk openly about smoking pot, but that doesn't mean there isn't some stipulation in their contract regarding abuse of prescriptions.
 
nimzov said:
And lung cancer treatment is very expensive.
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I will wager that you are spouting opinion and not fact. IMy hunch it is actually fairly inexpensive compared to other terminal illnesses.

Show some evidence that lung cancer is more expensive that the median terminal illness costs.
 
Schrodinger's Cat said:
Well, the thing is that there not being a drug policy doesn't mean you can't get fired for drug use. You can still get fired for bad job performance. There was an alcoholic doctor at one practice I worked at how got fired after he showed up for surgery drunk.

And with perscriptions...the thing is that being in healthcare doesn't mean you have access to prescription drugs. I volunteered and worked in hospitals all through high school, and have worked in hospitals for years, and I've never been in any kind of position where I had access to prescription drugs. And it's not like you wouldn't get fired for stealing perscription drugs whether or not we have a drug policy.

However, you know, now that I think about it, I wonder if there is a separate drug policy for people who DO work with perscription drugs? I'd never actually considered that possibility before. I know of people who work in these fields who talk openly about smoking pot, but that doesn't mean there isn't some stipulation in their contract regarding abuse of prescriptions.
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I agree that , for example in a hostpital , you are not guarenteed to be able to snag the drugs yourself. But you have more access to people that could do that for you. And regardless of if your getting it, for lack of a better term, in house, abusing a product you work with, just seems the height of sketchy to me.

As well, stealing drugs, sadly isn't as hard as one would think. In ontario, where i am, 1/3rd of all drugs are used for a non legitimate purpose. Frightening , imho.

As far as pot, well, i don't know. Personally i have avoided it, in order to not jeopardize my future career ( i used to enjoy it quite frequently. ). But in the same sense, i have not seen anything stating " Smoke pot on your spare time and get fired." i am just playing it safe. ( hopefully by the time i am a pharmacist, this will have changed, but if not, whatever, i would rather have a satisfying career than smoke dope. )
 
You know, what is stopping someone for saying " No i don't smoke at home.". No matter how yellow their teeth, or how much they smell of smoke, one cannot prove what they do or do not do at home. And i doubt the employer is going to be sending P.I.'s to the employees home.
 
FYI, I know the general public tends to associate lung cancer with smoking, but it's not a one-to-one, always sort of relationship:

You can get lung cancer from smoking, yes.
You can get lung cancer from other causes.
You can get other kinds of cancer from smoking.

Ticks me off that some lung cancer patients get the "you deserve it" treatment despite never having smoked, and some bladder cancer patients are very surprised to get their diagnosis because they assumed it would be their lungs to go, not their bladders. I think smoking would be less popular if more people knew they weren't just risking lung cancer and bad cough, but instead having to have doctors stick a tube up their urethra and pump burning fluid in there. Not much fun for women, and even less fun for men.
 
sadhatter said:
You know, what is stopping someone for saying " No i don't smoke at home.". No matter how yellow their teeth, or how much they smell of smoke, one cannot prove what they do or do not do at home. And i doubt the employer is going to be sending P.I.'s to the employees home.
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They test you for nicotine*. They'll know.



*actually, Cotinine, a derivative.
 
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JJM 777 said:
"Unreasonable" is a subjective thing to decide, but the Prime Minister of Finland once said in a press interview that all tobacco products could be banned "from the next generation", expressing an idea that the current generation of smokers can grow old with their habit, but smoking would be illegal for the rising new generation, until finally tobacco products are totally illegal in 50 years or so from now.

That is how far it can, and probably somewhere will, go.
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That will never work.
 
sadhatter said:
You know, what is stopping someone for saying " No i don't smoke at home.". No matter how yellow their teeth, or how much they smell of smoke, one cannot prove what they do or do not do at home. And i doubt the employer is going to be sending P.I.'s to the employees home.
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There is a nicotine test, some companies that have a full non-smoking policy will test for it like some companies who drug test regularly.

Here's a company who will fire you if your spouse smokes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/14/AR2006101400105.html
 
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