Oklahoma lawmaker: Let businesses fire cigarette smokers

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
reply to post by olaru12

 

Boy am I glad I don't work for YOU.

No problem I don't think you have the education for me to hire you anyway: if your posts are any indication....

Originally posted by olaru12

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
reply to post by olaru12

 

Boy am I glad I don't work for YOU.

No problem I don't think you have the education for me to hire you anyway: if your posts are any indication....

edit on 21-1-2013 by olaru12 because: (no reason given)

edit on 21-1-2013 by olaru12 because: (no reason given)

Strong punctuation awareness. Dat dere superior ejucationz at work

And you edited your post two times while stilling failing to realise that there's a comma after 'problem', or that the colon after 'anyway' doesn't make any sort of sense.

Been doing this in Republican run Texas for years. Many businesses won't hire a smoker, and you sign papers upon hire that you understand that if you are found to smoke, you will be terminated. many also have put programs in place to help their employees quit smoking for this purpose.

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

1/2 a million people die every year on average because of cigarette smoke.
Some 50K of those people who die from cigarette smoke were killed by second hand smoke.

But with that tidbit of info aside, why should anyone be forced to pay more for someone who is doing something that will eventually kill them? Or may even kill someone else.

Your freedoms begin where mine end. And vice a versa.
Your freedom to smoke shouldn't overlap my freedom to breath clean air.

edit on 21-1-2013 by grey580 because: (no reason given)

Lock yourself in a garage with a few smokers as they smoke.
-worst thing that will happen to you is that you may cough and smell bad.

Lock yourself in a garage with a car on.
-What happens next?

Your second hand smoke arguement is preposterous.
If you don't like cigarette smoke, then don't stand next to a smoker.

Personally I would just fire all smokers in general, before I took a desk job I worked construction for 13 years, and have to say smokers are the absolute worst workers you can have work with you, work under you, or just work around you in general. They are some of the most lathargic useless wastes of space a smoke break every 15mins while the non smoker gets the job done. It seems they can't multi-task at all, seems there hammer or wrench fails to work with a cigarette in there mouth. So I can see how this effects the bottom line. I personally while formman of a concrete crew had many people go work else where and would pick only non smokers as my help for the day. And I did it on purpose everytime and they knew it and commented on it, and I would just tell them I want workers who get jobs done and you just are not it. Plain and simple the person who does not smoke takes there alotted breaks is much more usefull to me than the guy who decides he's banged two nails and now needs to refresh the nicotine in his system.

So I say all places should enact this, don't like it get a job where they allow you too smoke, too many times I have watched a stand about do jack all while others get the job done.

SaneThinking

Originally posted by grey580
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

1/2 a million people die every year on average because of cigarette smoke.
Some 50K of those people who die from cigarette smoke were killed by second hand smoke.

But with that tidbit of info aside, why should anyone be forced to pay more for someone who is doing something that will eventually kill them? Or may even kill someone else.

Your freedoms begin where mine end. And vice a versa.
Your freedom to smoke shouldn't overlap my freedom to breath clean air.

edit on 21-1-2013 by grey580 because: (no reason given)

you haven't had clean air to breath your entire life, so why ask for it now? no thanks to big corp's and yours and my cars, electricity and so on, there will not be clean air coming anytime soon my friend. nor will there be clean water or uncontaminated food so get used to it but, picking on and singling out people who smoke will get you no where.

the radiation from Fukushima alone will take years off of your life. demanding less rights for certain citizens will always come back and bite you in the ass.

Originally posted by SaneThinking
Personally I would just fire all smokers in general, before I took a desk job I worked construction for 13 years, and have to say smokers are the absolute worst workers you can have work with you, work under you, or just work around you in general. They are some of the most lathargic useless wastes of space a smoke break every 15mins while the non smoker gets the job done. It seems they can't multi-task at all, seems there hammer or wrench fails to work with a cigarette in there mouth. So I can see how this effects the bottom line. I personally while formman of a concrete crew had many people go work else where and would pick only non smokers as my help for the day. And I did it on purpose everytime and they knew it and commented on it, and I would just tell them I want workers who get jobs done and you just are not it. Plain and simple the person who does not smoke takes there alotted breaks is much more usefull to me than the guy who decides he's banged two nails and now needs to refresh the nicotine in his system.

So I say all places should enact this, don't like it get a job where they allow you too smoke, too many times I have watched a stand about do jack all while others get the job done.

SaneThinking

You shouldn't talk about ALL smokers as if you know each one personally.
I'm sure I know quite a few smokers that could out work you. (Don't know you, but just saying, don't speak for everyone that smokes)

reply to post by TrueAmerican


TrueAmerican
I'm a non smoker never have smoked because of medical reasons but i look at this as pure discrimination, plain and simple. There are hundreds of choices that could possibly lead to poorer health, just like smoking could.

If a job fires you for lateness behavior, absentee behavior, incompetence, being intoxicated ( or whatever ), these are legitimate claims, but this seems out of whack.

This to me is total invasion of privacy it is none of the government's business if someone smokes because it is medically risky. Our freedom in this country is slowing being eroded away..peace,sugarcookie1 S&F

I can fortell the future of this thread......

It will be non-smokers pointing fingers at the smokers...
While the smokers proclaim, "hold up man, let me light my cigarette before I explain my views. Wait, you got a lighter?"

As a non-smoker I am appalled at this behavior. Sure it can be irritating as a non-smoker as all the smokers go on breaks every now and then leaving you to work by yourself (happened to me all the time in the Army), but I also realize that for the 5 - 10 minutes it takes to smoke a cigarette isn't much anyways. Also who is to say that when they are working for the 50 minutes of the rest of that hour, they aren't working extremely hard?

Smoking and drinking are personal choices. What I may or may not do while not at work shouldn't matter at the business. Only if my private life starts to impede my public work (showing up intoxicated, lack of sleep causing me to sleep at the job, etc) should something be done.

reply to post by resoe26


Speak for every single smoker I have ever worked with, they seem entitled to have break whilst everyone else works sorry but not on my watch. Hence the reason I would have only non smokers on my crew, men who came to work to do a job, got the job done and knew when to take breaks.

And yes you do not know me so make all the statements you like about my work ethic, i prefer to enjoy a hard days work and get satisfaction out of completing the duties set before me, and in my years can only speak from experience on what I have seen, and thats smokers being half as productive as any member of my team that is a non smoker.

So I stand bye what I said and fire them all, over the course of the day a smoker will smoke a pack of smokes (20) with each one taking 5 - 10 minutes to smoke, times that by 20 and on the long scale you have nearly 3 & 1/3 hours of wasted time. Me as a foreman looked at that as time that the project suffers from, sorry but I am not gonna be the guy the super lights up cause the project isn't on time or progressing because I have lazy entitled smokers on my crew who waste up too 3 hours a day. So you can say a smoker can out work anyone but spend a day on a site full of guys all trades and just try to add up all the wasted time, I was astonished when I did from the birds nest looking into the pit one day absolutely blew my mind.

SaneThinking

reply to post by SaneThinking


See you speak for the smokers you work with.
Maybe if your work regulated thier "smoke breaks" you wouldn't be whining.

You're speaking of a construction job aren't you?
I know many folks that work while smoking.
(obviously there was a lack of a boss figure at the work site)

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Does this go towards obese people as well?

reply to post by resoe26


Ha ha ha you go and try to regulate when these people smoke you'd have guys lined up at the porta potty smoking in the boys room playing it off as a crap. People would defeat any system that was in place, it has been tried before, and being the guy who has to oversea a min. of 5 up to 15 or so people would be hard to police the whole group. At our trades meetings it was always discussed the time wasted on site and smoking was always a topic for conversation but not much could be done without revolt since on most construction sites you have a majority of the workers who smoke.

Thats why as I said I made sure I didn't have them on my crew, and it worked well for the time I worked in that industry I was happy work was done on time and efficient, so yes the people I have worked with and witnessed working, worked less than the non smokers. Thats the point I have come to acertain from my observations, so in turn firing workers who are less efficient, less productive and who take 3 hours to smoke a pack all while having there alotted breaks would be good for business and a good idea, as well as not hiring smokers in the first place, would in turn be more productive for the company, projects barring other set backs maybe finishing earlier.

So in closing as I said fire them all, don't hire them at all and make more money and run a more efficient business, by not having time constantly wasted by a persons, personal habit.

As well, as I have said you don't know me at all, yet still go for a personal attack against the person I am insinuating that I do not do my job properly. A bit of a low blow but then again your some anon person on a site full of people like minded so I should expect none the less.

SaneThinking

reply to post by SaneThinking


Nothing that I wrote was a low-blow.
If you must insist that it was ridicule, then I would say it was a slap in the face.

You are pointing fingers at EVERY smoker like they cannot work a full day without wasting 3 1/2 hours of work time smoking. That is pure ignorance. I didn't know you KNEW every damn smoker in the world.
--You can't honestly sit there and think EVERY smoker can't work a full days work... or can you...

guess I should have expected at least one person to be a complete trip here.....

I think this should work both ways. If a business owner wants to fire or not hire a smoker in the first place, ok. But a business owner should also be allowed to decide if he wants smoking allowed in his business ie a bar. If one is not allowed then the other isn't, if one is allowed then the other should. We are talking about business owner's rights.

Agreeing that a business owner should be allowed to fire a smoking employee but then agreeing with States banning smoking in businesses is hypocritical.

Originally posted by SaneThinking
Personally I would just fire all smokers in general, before I took a desk job I worked construction for 13 years, and have to say smokers are the absolute worst workers you can have work with you, work under you, or just work around you in general. They are some of the most lathargic useless wastes of space a smoke break every 15mins while the non smoker gets the job done. It seems they can't multi-task at all, seems there hammer or wrench fails to work with a cigarette in there mouth. So I can see how this effects the bottom line. I personally while formman of a concrete crew had many people go work else where and would pick only non smokers as my help for the day. And I did it on purpose everytime and they knew it and commented on it, and I would just tell them I want workers who get jobs done and you just are not it. Plain and simple the person who does not smoke takes there alotted breaks is much more usefull to me than the guy who decides he's banged two nails and now needs to refresh the nicotine in his system.

So I say all places should enact this, don't like it get a job where they allow you too smoke, too many times I have watched a stand about do jack all while others get the job done.

SaneThinking

Did you make those remarks for effect?
Tell you what, let me be presumptive this time, and say those guys took their breaks just to get away from you!

reply to post by smurfy


No i made the remarks after watching people take breaks over and over again while on tight schedules to complete tasks. I witnessed with my own eyes wasted time daily in the construction industry why would I be looking for effect? It's the truth, if I was in charge of hiring I would make it manditory you do not smoke or only smoke on alloted breaks to increase productivity, which it would. People who smoke work less that people who do not, that is my personal observation and stand by tha,t if passed and able employers should fire those who carry on in an unproductive way, if that means there smoke breaks are deemed unproductive than so be it. They should be fired my bosses always made a point of keeping on task and made mention to smokers when smoking couldn't you be working at the same time. Not only me who notices it, maybe I notice more as a non smoker, because I see me working while an other is just taking a "smoke" break. So I don't know what answer you were looking for but this is the one you get. Not looking fo effect just stating my observations from working in said industry.

And if thats what ya think you are entitled to your opinion, but I'm sure my guys didn't mind me cause I feel regardless of title everyone has a job to do and I always led by example. So again your entitled to speak your mind and I'm just as entitled to laugh it off as sound passing on the wind, no harm felt.

SaneThinking

Originally posted by Carreau
I think this should work both ways. If a business owner wants to fire or not hire a smoker in the first place, ok. But a business owner should also be allowed to decide if he wants smoking allowed in his business ie a bar. If one is not allowed then the other isn't, if one is allowed then the other should. We are talking about business owner's rights.

Agreeing that a business owner should be allowed to fire a smoking employee but then agreeing with States banning smoking in businesses is hypocritical.

Just to propound the obvious, if the owner is a smoker allow them to not hire, or fire non-smokers, or anybody if they chew gum, or pick their nose, or scratch their arse, belch or sneeze uncontrollably.
Health paranoia is so epidemic these days, I don't think humans belong on this planet at all !

Originally posted by SaneThinking
reply to post by smurfy

 

So again your entitled to speak your mind and I'm just as entitled to laugh it off as sound passing on the wind, no harm felt.

SaneThinking

So am I entitled to laugh it off, No harm felt. Funny though, all in my team smoked and they all got the job done, more often than not, ahead of time.
Where you are coming from, it makes one wonder how mission control got a man on the moon with all the smoking that went on there?