This is the second of a series in which we ask loyal YesButNoButYes reader and commenter to discuss how he'd handle himself in an awkward situation. Last time, he clued us in to proper bathroom stall etiquette. This time, we ask him to tackle smoking in public.
I'll admit it. I've smoked a few cigarettes in my day. Not to the point of earning the addiction distinction, but enough that I've woke up the next morning wondering why my mouth tastes like I licked a sewer grate. Usually I'll smoke when I'm stressed out, drunk, stuck in traffic, or I want to flirt with a hot girl and the only way to approach her is to ask to bum a smoke. However, my smoking has definitely waned in the past five years, especially in the face of harsh regulations about smoking in public restaurants/bars. And trust me, I'm grateful for the laws. I'm not as tempted to smoke and my clothing doesn't reek at the end of the night.
I work in a large building in Manhattan. Like most buildings and public places in New York, workers are not allowed to smoke indoors. And yet, at all hours of the day, there are usually groups of 3-5 people smoking outside the doors of the building. So, no matter how hard I try to escape the smoke filled tunnel of doom, I usually end up leaving work smelling like a French prostitute. This is to say nothing of the occasional fits of coughing that accompany walking through the smokers' area.
So Dave, what should I do?
I work in a large building in Manhattan. Like most buildings and public places in New York, workers are not allowed to smoke indoors. And yet, at all hours of the day, there are usually groups of 3-5 people smoking outside the doors of the building. So, no matter how hard I try to escape the smoke filled tunnel of doom, I usually end up leaving work smelling like a French prostitute. This is to say nothing of the occasional fits of coughing that accompany walking through the smokers' area.
So Dave, what should I do?
- Do I confront the smokers and ask them to move? Keep in mind, smokers are generally surly especially mid-cigarette. They don't take kindly to interlopers interrupting their tobacco fix.
- Do I ask the building to create a smoking exit section ala 1950's segregated Mississippi? What if they policed the area and asked smokers to move to non-entry/exit ways?
- Do you know of smoke resistant clothing?
- Do I preach to them about the dangers of smoking and the potential illnesses they're inflicting on us non-(or mostly non)smokers?
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Maybe you could......cope? You're only exposed to it for how short of a time walking through to the doors?
And how much 'bad air juju' are you exposed to while driving your car or walking in the city? Much more than 2.5 seconds past a group of smokers.
I'm a smoker talker.
So put up, or I shove one in your eye.
As an on-again, off-again smoker, I'll try to give some answers to these questions:
-I wouldn't confront the smokers. Smokers, as you said, are generally grumpy people (there's a reason most people start smoking :P) and with today's rising regulations it seems as if they're constantly being herded. (On a similar note, there's a funny Onion article about smoking banned everywhere except one room in Montana...not sure if that's the exact state, but the concept is true) Let the smokers finish their smoke and don't say anything to them.
-At the business I'm at, they have designated areas where you can smoke or not smoke, and the employees seem to be fine with that. Does the building own the sidewalk in front of it? Or is the property only from the bricks inward? I'm not sure what Manhattan or any of New York is like (I'm from a town that looks like ants in comparison) so I can't completely answer this question.
-I know that cotton is the biggest offender; you might want to invest some time researching this one. But if you're looking to not stank it up, then avoid cotton--it'll follow you till the morning.
-You think smokers really care about the potential illnesses, etc.,? First off, passing by a smoker is not the end of the world; if he's chain smoking in your face, it's different, but a bit of smoke is not catastrophic, especially if the majority of your time is spent not around smokers. (Again, I know New York is a big city, and I'm sure there are a lot of smokers, but there's probably a lot of other smog there as well) It's like walking into a bakery and telling all the customers that the sugar really isn't good for you: if they didn't want to be eating all that sugar, they wouldn't be there. Likewise, if they didn't want the diseases or contribute, they wouldn't smoke.
Kind of muddled thoughts, but that's what happens when you respond on the button.
yeah i wouldnt worry too much, its just a few seconds right. maybe try to find a different uhhh viewpoint.... on the scent of cigarrettes, rather than french prostitutes. i personally like the smell of smoke, i think im just to afraid/broke to join the smokers
i never smoke, as i matter of fact have never even tried it... well not nicotine ones at least. i really hate the smoke and odor yet almost everyday have small pockets of time where i too have to cross "smoke tunnels" i simply walk by a bit faster and thats it. most people, even smokers, know what that can bring on so the preaching wont do much. i think the best is to get it over quick and thats it. it cant be more than 1 or 2 minutes at a time.
I'd like to see how he'd cope with being born with a second penis on his back.
Send the dry-cleaning bill to all of the politicians who passed the law banning smoking indoors, which created this unintended consequence.
Did anyone notice the guy's handle is Arthur Digby Sellers? Google it.
That is amazing. "Bulk of the series, Dude."
A doff my cap at that one.
You are going to have to use some tact when approaching the smokers. Remember smokers are angry people. They are especially angry that they are kicked outside to do their business.
I work with a smoker and by the time he has to head outdoors to take a smoke break he’s not only angry but he is shaking like a homosexual eating a hot dog.
Most smokers, when its smoke break time, are not going to even consider politely leaving if asked to leave. Odds are that they will gang up on you and mentally rape you so violently that you’ll be praying for an all-inclusive vacation in a Guatanamo Bay holding cell.
Preaching to the smokers would be as effective as a Reverend Wright sermon at an Aryan Nation get-together. They know smoking is bad and they have made that decision.
Asking the building to create a smoking exit is a good idea but should be used as a last resort. If word got out that you pioneered that idea, the smokers may give you the worst 30-second piss pounding of your life. Fortunately for you they smoke and would have to take a break after 30 seconds.
As for smoke resistant clothing, I recommend Carhart FR clothing, its not very business like, but it will withstand the smoke, and it is Fire Retardant if the smokers try to light you on fire.
So, this is what I’d do.
Go to the store and pick up a gold bell just like a salvation army Santa would carry.
Put the bell in one suit pocket and a coffee mug in the other.
As you exit the building, pull out the mug and the bell and stand right in the middle of the smokers and start ringing the bell.
As you are ringing the bell, single out each smoker. Look at the first smoker and tell him or her that you are collecting money for sick kids, keep a large smile on your face. Ask them if they have any money to spare. Ring the bell loudly as you speak loudly. Then step in front of the next smoker, be close, I would say 3.5 ft would work. Tell him or her the same line. Continue to do this until you have personally hit up each smoker for a donation. When you are done, step away still facing them and continue to ring the bell for a couple of minutes and leave.
Repeat this process every day for a week or until the smokers have found a new place to smoke, they will leave, trust me, they will leave. People go to great lengths to avoid charity beggars. Do this and you will soon find yourself heading for home each night smelling like a Heather Locklear fart. Not to mention you will more than likely walk away each night for the first week with a little cash for the sick children. I think you would be safe to justify that you are a sick child from the second hand smoke. So enjoy yourself.
A word of warning:
If in the process of ringing the bell, a smoker gets fed up and tries to jack you, remember to keep the coffee mug in your dominant hand. Quickly throw a wide hook with the bell as a stunner shot followed by an overhand haymaker with the mug, (just like you are throwing a fastball.) I jacked a guy with a porcelain coffee mug once and I’ll just say it was not a pretty sight.
Best of luck.
Dave
I remember in Ohio that they fine people $50 per butt they toss on the ground when they are caught.
Okay but how to you stop the advances of the fun loving bikini smokers who pop out of your TV and show you how much fun smoking can be?
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/431394/
I wonder if Arthur Digby Sellers posted that from iron lung... And I wonder if he's in an iron lung because of secondhand smoke...
I would speak to your building manager and set up a designated smoking area close enough to the door to not make people mad, but far enough away so that nonsmokers are not troubled.
Many cities and sates have ordinances in place to do just that. Also, some buildings have well ventilated smoking rooms (usually in the basement) where people can go enjoy a square.
If you is are quick on your feet, you could get a squirt gun. Simply spray the end of the offending cigg and run like hell. You might even get one of the custom face masks (a bandit would be good).
I must have offended people with that one.
I'm guessing the comment "shaking like a homosexual eating a hotdog" didn't sit too well. Am I wrong?
Or was my solution just so crappy that it didn't warrant any responses from the YBNBY staff except for, what seems like a little damage control from Baierman.
Or did the coffee mug over the head freak someone out?
That part was of course a joke.
Love Dave
Dave,
I believe that everyone is out trying to capture the exact essence of a Heather Locklear fart. I know I was momemtarily sidetracked ...
Otherwise, another spledid contribution. Can't wait for the next challenge.
Tim
Sorry Dave... my lack of response was not due to offense or shock. I wanted to see if more people would comment before I chimed in.
As always, your insight was poignant, funny, and slightly offensive. But if there's one thing I've learned here at YBNBY, it's that we offend everyone. In fact, those who aren't offended should BE offended that we haven't paid them much attention. (I'm looking at you Eskimos)
Yeah, Dave is smokin today.. :-P
I am deeply offended by my last comment.
Tim,
Thanks buddy. As one of the few who can truly say that they have encountered a "Heather Locklear fart" (and yes it is more than a smell, it is an encounter) I would say that the smell is a mixture of hot apple,twinkies, and a crispy creme donuts store.
Echowood,
Its all good. Someone from YBNBY edited a statement that I had made a few weeks ago similiar to this one in question and I figured that I had become a turd in the YBNBY punch bowl with a similiar comment.
Glad your not a puss.
Trailwaze,
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Ooooo! A sailboat! Pretty....
Try again hombre.
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Now you're getting paranoid, Dave. No-one's editing you. .
Paranoid Schizophrenia
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Schizophrenia (SKITS-oh-FREEN-ee-uh)---one of the most damaging of all mental disorders---causes its victims to lose touch with reality. They often begin to hear, see, or feel things that aren't really there (hallucinations) or become convinced of things that simply aren't true (delusions). In the paranoid form of this disorder, they develop delusions of persecution or personal grandeur. The first signs of paranoid schizophrenia usually surface between the ages of 15 and 34. There is no cure, but the disorder can be controlled with medications. Severe attacks may require hospitalization
(cribbed from http://www.healthsquare.com/mc/fgmc2415.htm)
Signs/Symptoms
Schizophrenia usually develops gradually, although onset can be sudden. Friends and family often notice the first changes before the victim does. Among the signs are:
Confusion
Inability to make decisions
Hallucinations
Changes in eating or sleeping habits, energy level, or weight
Delusions
Nervousness
Strange statements or behavior
Withdrawal from friends, work, or school
Neglect of personal hygiene
Anger
Indifference to the opinions of others
A tendency to argue
A conviction that you are better than others, or that people are out to get you
(cribbed from http://www.healthsquare.com/mc/fgmc2415.htm)
Scar-
I made a comment about 2 weeks ago.
It was the
"Tyra Banks Scoup!"
by Johnny Wright
After a confusing conversation I wrote:
"I'm more confused than a queer in a hotdog factory"
It came back
"I'm confused. Could we get some clarifications?"
Somebody edited the statement.
Check it out, I commented after the sensorship,
It's all there.
Trail,
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Ooooo! An oil tanker!
......B
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...IIIIII
...RRRRr
....DDD
On May 30th Dave did say after the I'm confused part
"I can't believe I've been sensored????? :)"
I am scanning but my sensors are not picking up readings of censorship....
The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees:
Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.
Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.
Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.
Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.
(cribbed from http://www.aclu.org/about/index.html)
T-wayze
I think you may be on to something with the Schizo stuff.
No your not
Maybe he is
No he's not
Yes
No
I can't stop the voices.
The ACLU is to protect Black Guys like my self.
It's not for Crackers lik ya'll.
Oh wait, I'm White
no I'm Black
No I'm Eskimo
Stooopppppp the voices.
When I went to college, I thought to myself
"I want a job where I can drive someone schizophrenic from hundreds of miles away."
Thank you YBNBY, for helping me fulfill my dream, thank you.
Ironically, Cigarettes are often used as a form of therapy for Schitzophrenics, something in them calms the mind.
Check out this, again I'm using the { } for the text and putting the link at the bottom:
{Why do schizophrenic patients smoke?
Persons with serious mental illness, especially schizophrenia, smoke at much higher rates (45% to 88%) than those without mental illness (23%). Patients with schizophrenia also have a harder time in quitting smoking. Researchers have found this when they looked at abstinence rates in smoking cessation trials using nicotine replacement patches (36% to 42% abstinence in schizophrenia) and bupropion (11% to 50% abstinence in schizophrenia). In comparision, non-psychiatric smokers have higher abstinence rates at the end of such trials (50% to 75%). Below are two studies that were published this month, that discuss why this may be.
The German article (Cattapan-Ludewig et al) reviews studies that discuss why individuals with schizophrenia smoke chronically. Certain thinking patterns are affected in schizophrenia including sustained attention, focused attention, working memory, short-term memory, recognition memory and even processes that are preattentive (eg reflexes). Some studies have suggested that there may be improvements in these areas after treatment with nicotine. So, it maybe that nicotine is used as a "self-medication" strategy by those with schizophrenia to improve these difficulties with attention, cognition, and information processing as well as the side effects of antipsychotic medications (eg extrapyramidal effects).
The second recent study (Dolan et al) specifically looked at what happens if a smoking cessation intervention is used. They investigated whether the presence of these cognitive problems prior to smoking cessation treatment was associated with smoking cessation treatment failure in schizophrenia as compared to non-psychiatric control smokers. They looked at performance on neuropsychological tests of thinking, planning, visual-spatial skills and attention.
After going through the smoking cessation program, those with schizophrenia who initially had more difficulity with visual-spatial skills, thinking and planning prior to the starting the program, were significantly less likely to quit smoking. This was not true for controls.
Interestingly, they also found that differences between quitters and non-quitters were not likely to be related to the medications or depressive symptoms. Previous work has shown that treatment with atypical antipsychotic medications can reduce smoking behaviors in schizophrenics, so in this study the relationship between impaired baseline neuropsychological test performance and smoking cessation outcome was not likely related to improvements produced by the medications.
They conclude from these results that in schizophrenia, neuropsychological problems are associated with smoking cessation treatment failure. There are parts of the brain that are affected in schizophrenia (eg prefrontal cortex or PFC) that control certain chemicals (eg dopamine). Based on the results here, it maybe that patients "self medicate" to remediate the chemical imbalance in the brain (dopamine hypofunction in the PFC) which may help with certain difficulties with thinking tasks involving this PFC area and might explain why there is smoking persistence in schizophrenia. With the higher risk of nicotine addiction in schizophrenia, comes a greater risk for the development of smoking-related medical problems and mortality. So, it becomes important to develop improved methods for smoking cessation in schizophrenia.
In terms of clinical interventions, the authors suggest that programs aimed at remediating PFC-related neuropsychological deficits may assist patients in efforts to quit smoking, especially for those with more severe difficulites. The authors report that there are mixed findings about the impact of medications on these cognitive problems. Some have found that risperidone can improve spatial working memory deficits, others have found that clozaril helps with psychomotor speed, attention, verbal fluency & executive thinking, while olanzapine may also help with thinking and planning. The authors also discuss other non-medication based interventions such as Neurocognitive Enhancement Therapy and Cognitive Remediation Therapy which involve intensive practice of skills found to be deficient in schizophrenia.
There are several limitations of their study including small sample size, the use of two separate clinical trials with different pharmacological smoking cessation interventions (bupropion in schizophrenia patients and selegiline in controls), lack of long term evaluation, multiple statistical comparisons, no measure of pre-trial IQ, and smoking deprivation.}
Link:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/002907.html
Don't think that saying "Quit smoking already!" or "Nice stink!" or something like that doesn't have an effect.
It does. It becomes cumulative. Lots of people quit because of nagging.
You seemed to have too few answers available. How about you just suck it up and go in through the access tunnel? I'm not a smoker, but I have noticed (especially after a longish visit to the UK) that smokers are harassed, intimidated, looked down upon (I do this one myself a bit), and hounded by the law into a kind of "It's not illegal *yet*, but you sure suck, you child rapist looking motherfucker" semi-legal limbo.
Their position is a literal case of marginalizing: they are herded into tinier and tinier places in the public spheres already (you think they want to be sitting *outside* in a shitty yankee state instead of a logical, rationally placed smokers lounge like they used to have?), so hows about you be the only person in Manhattan who isn't a self-righteous prick to the smokers or who treats them like they're partially de-weaponized uranium? I guarantee you you'd be the only person in Manhattan *not* willing to lecture them on the dangers of smoking.
Smokers aren't surly, they're in heaven and you're interrupting them with an annoying or insulting line of inquiry they've been getting pretty regularly throughout their time being a smoker. It's like back when people used to assume black people were either doing something bad, had done something bad, or were about to do something bad: really fucking annoying after a little while, the difference being at least a few people felt guilty about treating black people that way, whereas no one feels bad about reading a smoker the riot act.
Too much to ask? Thought so.