I’m tired. Still. 8+ hours of sleep, and it took all the effort I had to get out of bed this morning.
Personally, I don’t care to be around cigarette smoke because it normally gives me a bad headache. I don’t think I would ever take it to the extreme of the small “No Smoking” circle stickers on the windows of the car I parked next to this morning. Little 1″ circles, one on both sides. Just looked odd, and obviously stood out.
Speaking of smoking, as I walked in the office building door there were 10 people outside smoking. It was 9am. How can that many people need a cigarette break at 9am? (I watched 4 of the 10 come outside, so they weren’t stopping and having the last cigarette before they went inside.) I don’t get it.
Drug Ruling Worries Some in Public Housing (NY Times, Free subscription required) Here’s the scoop: 79 year old man could be kicked out of his public housing in Oakland because the “Supreme Court upheld a federal law that permits the eviction of public housing tenants if a family member who lived in their unit, or a guest, was arrested on drug charges.” I say if it is a one-bedroom apartment you should have a clue if someone living with you is doing drugs. Then again, if you’re partially paralyzed and your live-in caretaker hides crack pipes in your apartment, is that really your fault? So … what do you think?
16 replies on “Off the Top of my Head…”
I don’t think that they should uphold that law. There are too many cases wher it is not your fault, ie someone hides thier drug use. It worries me that this can be used as a method of evicting people who you personnaly consider undesirable.
RE: the smokers. I swear, my brother and dad would take as many smoking breaks as they could. Even if they just had one at 7:30 on the way to work, if they had to step out to go to the hardware store and get something, they’d smoke on their way there.
I’d guess I’ll have lung cancer just from being around them!!!
In this case, the elderly man’s new caretaker was stopped coming into the building and found with crack. When asked who she was visiting, she said it was the man she had been hired to care for.
Evidently, she had not used drugs in the building, and the man had no clue that she was a drug user.
While it seems very unjust to me that the man should be responsible for the actions of someone he didn’t really have any control over, that isn’t really the issue raised before the court. They had to decide if managers of public housing had the right to evict a person for their drug use, or that of their visitors. The court upheld the right to evict.
The housing managers have not yet evicted the man, while the case was pending, and they say that the eviction is unlikely. They want to negotiate another outcome with the man’s lawyers.
The case really went to trial as a test of the limits to the housing manager’s authority.
An old boss of mine was like that with the smoking breaks. Would walk from her car to the door first thing in the morning with a cigarette in hand and not 5 minutes after being at work, she would announce that she was taking a cigarette break. Geez!
It always irked me to no end that because I *didn’t* smoke I didn’t get a comparable telephone break, snack-room break, “leave me the #$%^! alone because I’m on break” break, etc. I don’t mind it for one. But it should be the standard for all. Just like Todd being unable to surf now if it’s not his lunch hour — but the coworker next to him spending a good 45 minutes outside each morning each day smoking and that being “ok”.
Oh, I’m with you, Robyn. Poor Todd. I think he deserves a surfing break 🙂 Even if I wanted to take a break, anywhere to get fresh air outside is clouded with smoke at the real break time. And the words that would get talked behind my back if I went out and just stood out and breathed the fresh air BEFORE the official breaktime are enough to make me stay inside!!!
*hangs head in shame* I’m a smoker however I couldn’t agree with more with all of you. I’ve never understood it either. In fact, I actually feel guilty whenever I take a break, even though I only take them twice a day, (10:30 am and 3:30 pm for about 5 minutes each) and cut my lunch our down to 45 minutes. Unfortunately I make up for it when I get off and light up almost immediately on my way to the car.
I hate being a smoker… I truly do. I only wish I loved myself enough to give it up. Because basically that is what it boils down to for me.
I don’t have issues with people that smoke, or even the smoking breaks. It just amused me to see so many of them out there at 9am. It was like they were getting together for coffee or something. Just a big ol’ social gathering. Reminded me of the episode of Friends where Rachel tries to smoke so she can hang out with her boss in the smoking area!
Fortunately for me, here they are cool about the fact that we are all people – and if I want a 10 minute blog surf break no one freaks out.
I used to work with people who all took their smoke break together. It was like they were in a club. And I am right there with Robyn about how those of us who don’t smoke, never really get a break. Everyone thinks that their “quick favor” is okay, since you are “just right there”. As far as the Public Housing drug related issue, I don’t think they should have a blanket rule. I think each case should be handled individually.
guilty as charged, when i worked in the office I probably took about 10 smoke breaks a day. now that I’m out in the field I can light up whenever I feel like doing so. most smokers take extra smoke breaks to get out of work (I know I did)…
Being a smoker truly is like being in a club. It’s wrong that smokers get more breaks; I agree with Robyn. Come June 1st (my set date), I shall be smoke free!
Yeah, I don’t have a problem with smoking or smokers taking smoke breaks — I just get really irked when management will approve “smoke breaks” but refuse to allow non-smokers equal break-time. I never was quite able to prove that chocolate addiction of mine…requiring an extra trip to the vending machine every three hours. 😉
There was a series of “Dilbert” cartoons awhile back, where Wally decides to take up smoking just so he could have more breaks!
I have worked in the restaurant biz for years, mostly as a cook. In just about every one of these jobs, I was the only non-smoker. So we’d get a slow moment, and everyone would go out for a smoke…I got stuck *holding down the fort*.
Of course, while everyone was out puffing away, things would get busy, and I would have to handle things by myself. No one would come back in and help me until they finished the damned cigarette, no matter how many times I hollered at them to *get their bums back in here*.
So I ended up doing a lot more work than my co-workers did…picking up their slack and all. Yet…in one job, I caught hell for taking time off when Mike was in the hospital after his heat attack…and in another, I was asked to postpone my wedding because they date I planned wasn’t convenient for THEM.
In both cases, I can safely say that my co-workers took more time off with smoke breaks than I ever took as legitimate personal/vacation time!
And yes, I ended up quitting both those jobs, rather than putting up with this abuse. Who needs it?
Re: the smoking… i quit smoking approx. 46.5 hours ago and now i’m finding all these entries about smoking… i think it was fate i stopped (either that or insanity, ugh! make it stop! lol).
Re: the elderly man…
I don’t really think it’s fair that HE get kicked out because of someone else’s actions. especially if it’s a case where he was dependent on the other person and had no idea.
I smoke and I have always had office jobs where I could smoke in my office so I don’t relate to the smoking “break” thing but that would irritate me if I was a non smoker. I personally don’t have a desire to quit but I am definitely a consciensous(?) smoker and always have been. I don’t like to smoke around those who don’t and I never smoke around my kids. We don’t smoke in our house so I actually don’t smoke all that much 🙂 but I could see how people who don’t smoke would be put off by it.
I’m a smoker, and before I started working out of my house, I realized that smokers took more breaks. I just simply offset my hours to compensate – stayed later at work, or came in earlier or whatever was needed to get the job done.
Our bosses never really gave much of a crap about what hours we kept – as long as the work was done on time and with quality we were free to set whatever hours we wanted. And breaks. But to share the load, I made sure that no one could accuse me of taking too many breaks.
This worked.