ON HOLD: Ban The Smoko

[Australian rePublic]

[title] Ban The Smoko

[desc] Employers across the country have come to you to demand you to permit them to refuse to hire smokers

[validity] smoking must be legal

[option] "These dammed smokers are a nuisance!" states @@RANDOMNAME@@, the manager of Dick's Ball Shack, a sporting goods store. "They waste our time smoking, and expect us to pay for it. And if they can't have a smoko, they get cranky. Meanwhile, non-smokers are inside being productive! Allow us to refuse to hire smokers!"
[effect] smoking is synonymous with unemployment

[option] "Are you kidding?" asks @@RANDOMNAME@@, who's having withdrawal symptoms since @@HIS@@ last cigarette, 10 minutes ago. "We have every right to have a job! So what if we need smokos every now and again? We can do our jobs most of the time. Now, do you have a lighter?"
[effect] lazy employees often take up smoking

[option] **Puff** "None of this would be a problem if we could just smoke at work," reminds @@RANDOMNAME@@, filing your office with cigarette smoke **puff** "just let us smoke inside whilst we work, and that'll solve the problem!"
[effect] nurses often puff cigarette smoke in their patients’ faces

[option] "Cigarettes are a bloody nuisance!" Complains @@RANDOMNAME@@ "We should just bloody ban them!"
[effect] tabaco is the most sold item on the black market

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

[title] Ban The Smoko

[desc] Employers across the country have come to you to demand you to permit them to refuse to hire smokers

Do you actually need a special permission for that? Some real-life employers do refuse to hire smokers, and I don't think there is a special legislation that gives them the right to do so. I'd say people just allow it, because it appears like a common-sensical thing.

[Sacara]

Description is really weak.

To answer FuF, employers can certainly ban smoking on location, but 29 states in the US+ DC prohibit employers from refusing to hire people because they smoke outside work.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

[title] Ban The Smoko

Title doesn't reflect the issue. Try to find something that highlights the central dilemma of whether employers can refuse to hire smokers. A good approach might be to make it also about dismissing smokers, and call it "No Smoke Without Fire"

[desc] Employers across the country have come to you to demand you to permit them to refuse to hire smokers

Yeah, that's an issue idea outline, not an opening description. Give it a bit of story and human interest. People like to hear about things that happened to people.

[validity] smoking must be legal

Capitalism too, I reckon.

[option] "These dammed smokers are a nuisance!" states @@RANDOMNAME@@, the manager of Dick's Ball Shack, a sporting goods store. "They waste our time smoking, and expect us to pay for it. And if they can't have a smoko, they get cranky. Meanwhile, non-smokers are inside being productive! Allow us to refuse to hire smokers!"

The humour here is too tangential to the topic. Maybe have the manager be puffing a cigar. Drop the last sentence, and make it more of an in-character proposition, rather than just restating the issue premise.

[effect] smoking is synonymous with unemployment

Way too on-the-nose. Give it some funny. Maybe something about "cigarette breaks can last dozens of years" or something like that.

[option] "Are you kidding?" asks @@RANDOMNAME@@, who's having withdrawal symptoms since @@HIS@@ last cigarette, 10 minutes ago.

Yeah, you're repeating option 1's information about smokers getting cranky. Mix in some new information and new humour. Maybe "asks portable oxygen-delivery technician @@randomname@@, lighting up with one hand, and hefting a leaky gas cylinder with the other."

"We have every right to have a job! So what if we need smokos every now and again? We can do our jobs most of the time. Now, do you have a lighter?"

Try to mix up the voices of your characters more. Right now all of them sound like good bloke Aussies down the sports bar explaining it like it is. Fine for one character to be that, but give each their own voice.

[effect] lazy employees often take up smoking

Again, too direct.

[option] **Puff** "None of this would be a problem if we could just smoke at work," reminds @@RANDOMNAME@@, filing your office with cigarette smoke **puff** "just let us smoke inside whilst we work, and that'll solve the problem!"
[effect] nurses often puff cigarette smoke in their patients’ faces

This one is getting there! I'd take out the puffs, and use words to describe it instead.

[option] "Cigarettes are a bloody nuisance!" Complains @@RANDOMNAME@@ "We should just bloody ban them!"
[effect] tabaco is the most sold item on the black market

Such lack of imagination here.

Find a more interesting approach for the ban option. Maybe you could have a public health officer proposing that "people should be allowed to smoke so long as they do so in an environment with no chance of inhalation of toxic chemicals by any other person or themselves." Find a fun way to offer a ban, that isn't just "ban smoking!"

You're a funny writer, Aussie. You can do better. Don't drop the issue, but make it better.

[The Sherpa Empire]

This is the first time I've ever seen the word "smoko."

I think there should be some discussion of healthcare costs (an issue in the US because many people are on employer-sponsored health insurance) and/or the need for more sick days. Something that would explain why they are refusing to hire smokers instead of just limiting the number of breaks people can take.

[Trotterdam]

Do you actually need a special permission for that? Some real-life employers do refuse to hire smokers, and I don't think there is a special legislation that gives them the right to do so. I'd say people just allow it, because it appears like a common-sensical thing.

It could be covered by anti-discrimination laws...

Banning your employees from smoking in the workplace is one thing, but should employers have the right to refuse to hire people who only smoke at home, just because they're smokers?

For that matter, should employers have a right to say that their employees are allowed to smoke in the workplace, even though this would unfairly alienate non-smoking employees who have to choose beween putting up with it or losing their jobs?

[Barunia]

This is the first time I've ever seen the word "smoko."

I think there should be some discussion of healthcare costs (an issue in the US because many people are on employer-sponsored health insurance) and/or the need for more sick days. Something that would explain why they are refusing to hire smokers instead of just limiting the number of breaks people can take.

This is an Aussie Republic thread

It's Aussie slang. Actually, while smoko can mean a ciggarette break, it can also refer generally to a quick break, often in more trade-based work, regardless of wether smoking is actually done during it.

That being said, how about an option for non-smokers, demanding the sam number of breaks as their smoking counterparts?