Why "loss of productivity" is NOT an issue

[Bob Drzyzgula]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2001 at 05:34:07PM -0500, Jeff Bone wrote:
> 
> Each of the above scenarios --- picnic, bar, restaurant --- have occurred to
> me at various points;  slight variations on the latter two scenarios have in
> fact occurred with some frequency.  I have *no problem* endeavoring to keep my
> smoking away from those who find it unpleasant;  but that's not enough for the
> anti-smoking crusaders.  No, they want to make sure that nobody is *allowed*
> to smoke, *anywhere,* *anytime.*  Certainly not outside of their own homes,
> and probably eventually not there.

When I quit smoking, one of my biggest concerns was that
I'd become an ex-smoker, with all the zealous intolerance
that can imply. I think that I've done OK in this regard,
but it's always a struggle.

Anyway, I don't care if you do it in your home, in your
yard, or anywhere else that amounts to your personal
property.  I don't particularly care if you do it in the
smoking lounge, the smoking section of a restaurant, out on
the sidewalk, in a park, at the beach, or wherever. Perhaps
you should do it more, I understand it to be something of
a self-limiting process.

In the odd event that I were to be with my family in the
smoking section of a restaurant and happened to find you
there giving your lungs another coat of tar, you can count
on me to tell my daughter to leave you alone -- there,
the rules explicitly favor you. Yes, this is happened,
and yes, I've told her to cool it.

But if I'm sitting at a bus stop, please do *not* sit down
six inches away from me and light up.  Do this for me, and
when I find you sitting at the bus stop having a smoke,
I promise not to sit next to you and complain. Still,
when it is pouring rain outside and the shelter at the bus
stop is the only semi-dry place to wait, it remains pretty
goddamned rude to fill the whole shelter with smoke, and
were you to do that I might just have to be rude myself and
ruin your blissful, non-private moment with a complaint.
There are limits to my tolerance.

Not that you necessarily ride busses...

--Bob