Leon Bollerup

Some of us are just about old enough to remember when you could smoke in offices. I actually remember my old boss (don’t worry, I shall not be naming names!) lighting up in the evenings after everyone had gone home (well most of us, clearly I hadn’t but then I was a bit of a swot), well into the smoking ban. He probably still does. But that was in publishing, where being drunk all the time and smoking like a chimney are de rigeur. Outside of the publishing world electric cigarettes are now the only way you can smoke in the office (and of course legally electronic cigarettes should be the only way you can smoke in any office).

So who cares? My old boss certainly didn’t, but then he was right out of the old school. Ash all over his blazer, half a bottle of Merlot to the wind most of the time. That’s an attitude that modern workers simply can’t have anymore, not if they want to keep their positions. So if you want to get your nicotine hit and you don’t want to get on the wrong side of your own boss, who’s probably way more new school than mine was, it’s electric cigarettes or nothing.

See, the only way people who do not use electronic cigarettes can get their hit at work these days is by going out for a cigarette break. Now, the more stressful or involved your job, as a nicotine user, the more likely it is that you will want to smoke. So you end up trolling downstairs every ten minutes, coming back out of breath and stinking of smoke.

Your more angelic colleagues start giving you the bad eye because you smell so bad. If it was only the smell you could probably put up with it. After all, smokers can’t smell what they smell like so that doesn’t really matter to you unless you are particularly sensitive.

No, the problem for smokers who don’t use electronic cigarettes is much more fundamental than that. Why, say all your co workers (and quite rightly too, to give them their due), should he (or she) get to nip off every ten minutes just because she (or he) smokes? A heavy smoker could end up doing an hour’s less work than everyone else and never being penalised for it.

So your choice becomes: smoke electric cigarettes instead, which means you can stay at your desk and work just as hard as everyone else; carry on as you are and risk the ire of your manager; or go on regulated, unpaid cigarette breaks, which penalise you for what is essentially an illness. You’re an addict, after all: and in most cases addicts get treated with an amount of leeway commensurate (up to a point of practicality) with the severity of their affliction.

Nicotine addiction is one of the worst addictive illnesses there is. Electronic cigarettes are not a cure – they can’t be, they’ve got nicotine in them – but they are an excellent palliative. They’re socially acceptable and it is completely legal to “smoke” them indoors. They give off no second hand nasties and there is no pollution or tar in the vapour they emit.

Ecigarettes mean you can work all day and all night if you like, puffing on nicotine whenever the craving grabs you. I suppose if you really wanted to extol their virtues you could even say that they actually impress the boss. After all, you’ve gone to the trouble of doing something about your habit.