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Smoking: the office partition
By the summer of 2007 England is set to be virtually smoke-free, with a blanket ban on smoking in all public places - and that includes those designated puffing rooms in the office. Does this spell the end of fag feuds in the workplace?
Eleven per cent of non-smoking adults are exposed to tobacco smoke at work and according to Professor Jamrozik's calculations, approximately 700 people a year die from lung cancer, heart disease or stroke because of passive smoking at work. Bar and pub workers account for a large proportion of these statistics, but this is a problem for office workers too.
Smoking in the workplace has been a growing issue of contention since the beginning of time, becoming one of the most emotive and potentially damaging to office harmony and the biggest issue in the office rights' battle.
And now that the non-smokers have won the battle with a total ban, what affect will this have in the office?
'Smokers are bone idle and should be sacked,' says Sarah, a conference manager in London, who's fed up with colleagues regularly popping out for a fag.
'Anti-smokers are holier-than-thou, self-righteous, small-minded bigots' replies Louise, who works in the same office as Sarah and suffers the daily indignity of sheltering in a freezing doorway to smoke.
Until the new law comes into place, employers can provide their workers with specifically designated smoking areas within the office. Sophie, a PA in an investment bank says 'We have a rule in our office that people can smoke in their own offices after 7:00pm - but the smell still seeps through to our open-plan deskspace. Knowing who's around and who smokes does effect my decision on whether to do some overtime that evening.'
But not all offices are so accommodating. For those who send their smoking employees outside, the source of friction - the fag break - remains which can prove problematic for company productivity. In 1996, one study estimated that lost productivity due to smoking was costing employers in Scotland more than £1.2 million per day, or £292 million per annum.
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