Why do people smoke?

[redneb]

Maybe a more balanced way to deal with smoke breaks would be to say that employees are entitled to a set amount of breaks during the working day and it is up to them how they are used, whether that be eating, smoking or nipping off to the shops, that way non-smokers wouldn't consider they were being disadvantaged by not going for a fag every hour or so.

If a non-smoking employee expected to be granted time out of their work routine to go and satisfy any other addiction, whether that be having a bong, surfing porn or flicking through the pages on NSC they would probably face dismissal!

I'm not sure companies are obliged to provide smoking breaks. Companies have to be reasonable when it comes to things like going on toilet breaks but are allowed to ask smoking employees to reduce the time from their lunch break should they want to.

In my last company, there was this woman who was monitored and it was recorded that 40% of her time was in the smoking shed. Companies can stamp down on that.

 

[bhaexpress]

It winds me up the way some people are so anti moking but are happy to pollute our atmosphere with swearing and not controlling their kids and also dont mind being unhealthy by shoving junk food down their throats.

Live and let live a bit maybe.

Agreed.

 

[bhaexpress]

It winds me up the way some people are so anti moking but are happy to pollute our atmosphere with swearing and not controlling their kids and also dont mind being unhealthy by shoving junk food down their throats.

Live and let live a bit maybe.

Agreed.

 

[Sheebo]

Shall we just change our £20 bet to 3 packs of fags.

No chance i'd buy straights - used to but now just a pouch of bacca a wk - i get it cheap too

 

[franks brother]

In 1950, the Medical Research Council published a study on lung cancer.
In the 649 cases reviewed, 647 were smokers. At the time 80% of men and 40% of women were smokers.
It's incredible that it took over another 20 years for the smoking/cancer connection to be widely acknowledged, and
about 35 years before any real action to address it.
You have to say the tobacco companies did very well.
How many people died needlessly in the mean time, and how much did it cost our society

 

[Deleted User X18H]

When I started my latest job this guy asked about smoking breaks the HR guy said as a joke I think we don't have them but you could just stab yourself in the heart at your desk.

 

[drew]

Having a cigarette is enjoyable, especially with a beer, a cup of tea, first thing in the morning, in times of stress, during a work break, following sex, or after a meal.

Lots of things in life are bad for you, smoking is one of them, but some people have no intention seeing their lives into fragile and uncomfortable old age.

Not always ignorance, just an alternative life philosophy.

I'm aware of the risks, even if they are exaggerated, but I still love smoking.

I very much think an addict considers his heroin fix as enjoyable and may not see it as a dependency. There are some posters who seem to be smoking as little as one or two a day but in the main, I suspect most smokers smoke because they have, to varying degrees, become dependent on the effects of nicotine.

Maybe a more balanced way to deal with smoke breaks would be to say that employees are entitled to a set amount of breaks during the working day and it is up to them how they are used, whether that be eating, smoking or nipping off to the shops, that way non-smokers wouldn't consider they were being disadvantaged by not going for a fag every hour or so.

If a non-smoking employee expected to be granted time out of their work routine to go and satisfy any other addiction, whether that be having a bong, surfing porn or flicking through the pages on NSC they would probably face dismissal!

What should happen is that anyone who takes a smoking break should be allowed but that the time taken should then be added to the end of the working day.

Probably the main reason that smokers get such a raw deal from non-smokers is because historically, most smokers were arrogant in that they didn't care about those around them when they lit up. If you went out for a meal nothing would spoil it more then some arrogant shit on the next table lighting a fag and then spending most of his time with his arm on the back of chair with the smoke wafting in your direction (nothing that is other than shit food!) Then, since the 80s when more and more smoking bans were introduced by companies, the tide began to turn and in truth, there is probably an element of payback. However, smokers have always bleated on about their right to smoke but ignoring the rights of others not to, no more so than when parents smoke in their cars with their kids in the back! 'Hey, their my kids so I have every right to f*** up their lungs'.

 

[tedebear]

Isn't it interesting that the non-smokers on here are coming over all rather high and mighty and the smokers far more philosophical about life.

If people want to smoke - let them I say. On their own terms in their own houses and as long as not in public places, then let them get on with it. It truly is their own business. Alcohol can kill just as much and we look apon it very differently! How many arguments/gbh/murders happen when someone who has a screw loose is full to the gills of 8% cider? At least if you smoke and keep it to yourself the only one you're harming is yourself. My Pop made it to 86 on around 8 Tooheys 2.2 pilsners and anywhere between 20 and 40 Malboro red a day. He smoked in the garden and his study only and drank only in his study unless the cricket was on. His death was unsightly but all of us knew why and dealt with it. He knew he'd come acropper and seemed to think leaving a fortune would make up for it. It didn't but it was too late for him to realise by the time he was under his beloved peach tree.

If you smoke and don't affect others (ie don't smoke in the car with your kids in the back) then I don't mind. If you drink and don't affect others (ie don't attack other people when a conversation would do) then I don't mind.

Its when you make it my business that I get annoyed. My life is mine to live and I'll live it how I choose.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

I agree that no-one who drinks, eats junk food etc really has the moral high ground to criticise smokers, provided their smoking doesn't affect others in any way.

However, I think the point of this thread was to discuss why people do smoke. My understanding (as a non-smoker) is that it is enjoyable insofar as it is satisfying an addition. However why inflict that addiction on yourself in the first place? Having smoked on occasion, I can't say personally that (unlike alcohol and other addictive things) it has any pleasurable impact - until you are satisfying an addiction. But maybe its just me and some people really did find smoking enjoyable before they needed to do it...

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

Thing is, smokers don't seem to realise that they take that smell with them long after they've had a fag.

Sometimes I've had to move seats on a bus because somebody has sat in a nearby seat and has REEKED of stale smoke. This is especially awful on a nice crisp fresh morning. The smell hangs on their clothes and hair. you may not have seen them smoking but the smell is unmistakable and not at all attractive.

Also, some say smoking won't kill you but it's the smoker on the bus who is having to cough all the time. maybe they get so used to having to clear their throats every min or so that they just don't notice.

 

[tedebear]

However, I think the point of this thread was to discuss why people do smoke.

But thats a daft question - they smoke as they are addicted. Whether they feed their addiction once twice or twenty times a day - thats all it is.

The more relevant question is why in this day and age people (mostly young people) take it up!

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Stale smoke on someone who has just had their statutory 5 minute fag break can give me a sore throat for the rest of the day. Why should pointing that out make me high and mighty? And why is it acceptable to pop out for a cigarette every hour or so but not a beer? After all they both bring tax to the economy.

 

[tedebear]

Stale smoke on someone who has just had their statutory 5 minute fag break can give me a sore throat for the rest of the day. Why should pointing that out make me high and mighty? And why is it acceptable to pop out for a cigarette every hour or so but not a beer? After all they both bring tax to the economy.

Really? Why don't you move away from them then? or ask them to move away from you?

It is acceptable to go out to smoke as the effects of the need are far more agreeable with daily life than alcohol is. You can smoke and occupy a job, but you can't drink to the same scale and actively hold a job. The comparison between the detimental long term effects of both are comparable. Just take a look at the percentage of younger women with liver disease.

Should we ban both and pay higher taxes

 

[Super Steve Earle]

We work in the same office. That's the way it is. He arrived a year ago, nice bloke, wouldn't dream of asking him to move and I'm sure you would agree, it's not socially acceptable to ask. I've been settled at my desk for eight years and have no wish to move. I just have to suck it up, literally. Or I suppose I could pop out for a beer till the corrosiveness of the smoke passes.

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I started smoking at boarding school. It was strictly forbidden, but felt rebellious against the system. Head out in the dark with a tube of toothpaste in one pocket and a can of Lynx in the other. A huge amount of girls smoked at my school, so it was a good chance to meet the ladies after hours. It was also fun when there was a raid of the various smoking spots. Disappear into the fields, the adrenaline rush.

I then joined the Legal & General and the work was SO bloody boring, a cigarette break was a perfect escape.

I did quit, but then didn't bank on cigarettes being 30p a packet on my gap year. I didn't smoke a huge amount, but then the long afternoons when the rain came were spent smoking weed (and tobacco) so eventually I got hooked.

I guess I have never really wanted to give up. I did at one point and it lasted a few months, but then I suffer(ed) from depression and smoking was an outlet.

I still smoke, but i am getting hooked on the gym and sooner or later, I shall (be hoping to) say enough is enough. It started off as being enjoyable and now it is just a habit. I don't like the cost.

None of my close friends smoke and when we head off to the pub or I go and visit someone, it is a bit embarrassing saying 'be back in a minute'. Particularly rude if it is just two of you.

GRRRR. I'll give up tomorrow

 

[tedebear]

We work in the same office. That's the way it is. He arrived a year ago, nice bloke, wouldn't dream of asking him to move and I'm sure you would agree, it's not socially acceptable to ask. I've been settled at my desk for eight years and have no wish to move. I just have to suck it up, literally. Or I suppose I could pop out for a beer till the corrosiveness of the smoke passes.

Personally if his smoking is affecting you that much then I'd see if there were an alternative....socially acceptable or not. I would actually think he'd understand and probably doesn't realize how much he smells, as he probably can't smell it?

 

[magoo]

I've never been a smoker and it also baffles me why people do it. It doesn't make you look hard or cool for a start. It smells terrible and it tastes terrible.

I can't stand to be around people that are smoking as the feintest whiff of it in my lungs makes me absolutely choke.

 

[garethlewes]

The problem is if a non-smoker got up as often as a smoker did and just went and stood outside they'd be hauled in front of the boss and questioned for wasting time.

I'm not sure I can support the idea that workers should be allowed to take time out from work to smoke.

Smoke during lunch break fair enough, but businesses shouldn't be obliged to allow workers to satisfy their addiction outside of periods such as lunch breaks.

Don't know if this is you personal view but I do also think its annoying that smokers just up and walk out when they have to. I know a few people that just go outside for a walk/stretch their legs whenever someone in their office goes out for a cigarette. Their boss doesn't do anything about it.

I think the question why do people smoke is a broad question its like, why do people start drinking similar principle. Some people see smoking in one light and are high and mighty about their viewpoint. I don't smoke but couldn't give a flying f**k if someone does, the thing I do find annoying, when i go to the pub etc, when i go out with say 6 people and 4 of them smoke they all just up and go outside for a smoke leaving me and one other person just sitting in the pub, you can never get a proper conversation going, the worst bit is when its a game of pool and then someone goes out for a smoke i just feel like the smoking is more important than people.

 

[driddles]

I find smoking is a communal thing. I believe two smokers standing around outside a pub are very likely to start talking to each other more so than two non smokers. There's just something about smoking together that makes people want to chat, at least with older smokers.

I don't smoke often anymore, when I do I sure don't care about the smell. I find people wearing any amount of perfume far more offensive than people that smell of smoke.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

But thats a daft question - they smoke as they are addicted. Whether they feed their addiction once twice or twenty times a day - thats all it is.

The more relevant question is why in this day and age people (mostly young people) take it up!

Did you deliberately ignore the rest of my post?