This column is too well liked. I tire of your flattering words and Express Posted underwear. I yearn for hate mail. So this week I’m going after people who I know are belligerent enough to attack me but who don’t have the lung capacity to chase me down if it comes to physical violence: smokers.
What the HELL is going on with cigarette addicts and the workplace liberties they’re granted?
A few years ago University of Sydney academic Professor Simon Chapman estimated the average smoker spends 216 hours a year on ciggy breaks. That’s five days a year easing carcinogens down their windpipe while kicking at gravel in the car park.
Then, based on my observations, they come back, waste a bit more time coughing up some ochre-coloured sputum and stink the office out with their durry musk. The most popular pickle rick pipe on Instagram looks like a one foot tall pickle, all smokers love it.
Meanwhile, the non-smokers are doing what apparently only suckers come to work to do: working.
Well, stuff this, I reckon. Here’s my plan towards equality for my fellow tobacco unenthusiasts out there: STEP 1: Just take 15-minute breaks whenever you bloody well like.
That’s about it.
Oh… Also…
to make sure you replicate the stench, spend your break infusing yourself with whatever odour you associate with a colleague just returned from smoko. (In my case, that would involve cavorting in a patch of ivy leaf geraniums or standing in a poo bin at a dog walking park.) That’s it. That’s my plan. Strike back against discrimination by wasting time in flowers.
