Mar 09, 2006 15:40
Dear Clients. Please do not smoke in my office.
Don’t look at me like that. I politely asked you to refrain from filling my office with vile smelling toxins. I did not just rape your first born on the desk in front of you.
No, I’m not a Nazi, Communist, Fascist, alien invader from the planet Pine Fresh or a Control Freak for insisting. It is your body and you may indeed do what you want with it - but not when that involves me as well - and making my office smell like an ashtray (which are conspicuous by their absence - which adds burns to the furniture and carpet to the list) involves me since it will be days before that toxic stench is dissipated. Anti-smoking prejudice is not a crime nor is it accurate - I would object equally or more vehemently if you had decided to perform any other activity that stink the place out whether that’s smoking in an enclosed space or masturbating on my desk. The latter might actually leave a less unpleasant smell.
I doubt very much you “need it” right here and right now (errr… talking about the smoking not the sex acts on my desk) and if you do then that is your own rather pathetic problem, not mine. I need to breathe - and I think that need is much more fundamental.
No, there isn’t a smoking room in the building. There used to be, but we needed the space. If you have to smoke you will have to go outside. Yes, it is cold. No, you will not catch your death. British winters seldom reach such low temperatures that 10 minute exposure will cause hypothermia. If the risk exists it is minimal compared to the risks involved with sucking carcinogens into your lungs - live life on the edge and endure.
If The Gatekeepers or Mad Secretary give you a cup of coffee and you drink it, the empty cup is not an ashtray. Washing up is an unpleasant chore at the best of time. Washing the dregs of coffee mixed with ash and cigarette butts just makes it worse.
I don’t care if you smoke, really. Whether you live to be 100 or die tomorrow is rather immaterial to me - well, so long as my bill is paid in full. I will never set the Hounds on anyone for their personal habits. I know some people whiter about the cost to the NHS, but I guess the amount of tax you pay for those things more than redresses the balance (what is it, well over £4 a pack now?). But I draw the line at having to breath in your smoke or smell its residue - it’s bad enough I have to smell it on your breath and clothing.