Have Another Cigarette

Blind to the wind, the news and the culture
Deaf to the sound that leaks from your voice
Take a deep breath and pray for a second one
Have another cigarette
-Splender, "Have Another Cigarette"

Since moving to "Deseret", I've become more acquainted with Mormon culture than I ever thought I might. As most people know - and I already knew - they're not big into the whole "smoking" thing. I, unfortunately, am.

My only other employer in the area was an international company with a more-or-less secular outlook. Most of the other employers in the area, however, are run by members of the Brethren and tend to legislate approach smoking along those lines (to the extent that the state hasn't already, which isn't much).

The long and short of it is that they strongly discourage smoking. While they don't go as far as to ban smokers from working there (as a former employer out east in "Dixona" did), it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that my vice would not go over well.

In an office with 150 employees or so, I am the only one you'll ever see smoking. Periodically an irritating coworker named Paige would join me, but for the most part I've been out there alone or with the company that occupies the floor below us.

On one occasion, I was hanging out in the breakroom eating lunch when someone in the Processing department - whom I'd never spoken to - came up to me and expressed admiration for my "bravery." She isn't the only one that has said as much to me. Apparently I wasn't the only smoker. Just the only one that wasn't worried about losing my job.

Since the outside of the building is operated by the company downstairs, there isn't anything they can do about my smoking down there, so I can't be fired. It has, however, become clear that I do not have a future with this company because of my personal vice. First, it makes the fact that I am not LDS abundantly clear (which matters out here) , but mostly it's that I'm not only a heretic but a sinner.

But today, for the first time, the Process center employee joined me. Not only her, but a new employee, and someone from the employment agency that placed the new employee here were out there as well.

On one hand, it's inconvenient. I smoke in part for solitude (which, like that Nicorette commercial, is ironic because I used to do it to meet people). But now that there are more than a couple of us out there I'm a bit worried that the company is going to find a way to crack down or that the company downstairs will get worried about liability or somesuch and they'll cut me off.

But that's okay. The way I see it I'm leading a private rebellion.

Three and counting...