Robert,
You’ve recently been talking about the loss of individual freedom for smokers in public or private places. We’re you aware that there are corporations that will not hire someone if they use nicotine? Covenant Health Systems, and no doubt other corporations, exclude applicants based on nicotine use. They go so far as to test applicants for nicotine and will not hire them if they are positive. What’s next? Excluding potential employees based on BMI, medical history or family medical history?
We live in a country with a deterioration of work ethic, shortage of nurses, doctors and other skilled and caring people that truly WANT to take care of people, and we are excluding them based on one personal choice.
Think about that the next time you have a love one in the hospital and there aren’t enough nurses or the ones they have are marginal caregivers at best. The difference between someone that is highly skilled and experienced vs. someone with limited skills and experience. Someone with real work ethic vs. someone that is just there to draw a pay check. Someone that wasn’t hired based in one personal choice vs. short staffing. Life vs. death.
Leah
A brief response from Pratt:
I’ve covered these stories. I don’t like it but these are private entities and they have a right to set their own rules. I’ve a bit more problem with UMC, etc. being taxpayer owned, setting such policies.
I’ve spoken at length about how unwise such policies are – especially that from CPRIT which seems to assume that no great science breakthrough could come from a researcher who uses tobacco despite evidence that many of our greatest scientists have been tobacco users.
Out here in the real world we are lucky to have an employee that shows up every day to work. Who gives a darn if they somke ciggarettes or not? I even pick the butts up and put them in the trash myself.
The last political group to be this aggressive on tobacco was the nazi party. Many corporations have had their hr departments infiltrated by extremists. In a recent interview I had for a senior engineering position at a major firm, the first half was about diversity. They didn’t seem to care if I knew anything about engineering.