Today I entered a magazine store to buy my favorite newspaper. I stayed longer as I was trying to spend some more money (I wanted to use the ATM card, and 2€ seems too cheap to do it. Some stores even forbid it, even though I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. But I digress.) I picked the newspaper up, put it on the counter and told the lady I was still looking for something more. Suddenly this guy walked in the store, smoking a cigarette. I didn’t like it. It was a small store, and even though I wasn’t immediately annoyed by the smoke, I would much prefer it if no smoke at all was present. I’m definitely not used to smoking being allowed in stores, particularly inside shopping centers like this one, and I asked the gentleman “Excuse me, do you think it’s ok to be smoking here?”. He didn’t say a thing, just stood there looking at me. Funny, if he though it was ok, why didn’t he just say it? After all I was just asking, in the most polite way I could. The lady behind the counter then said something like “just trying to create a fuss”, directed to the gentleman (but about me) I suppose. She then talked to me to say “Why shouldn’t he smoke, we sell tobacco and there’s an ashtray just there”. So I asked “So you (as in ‘The store’) are OK with him smoking here?” “Yes”. “Ah, I won’t be talking that newspaper then” and I proceeded to leave the store. I could still hear her commenting “just trying to create a fuss”…
Well I don’t like smoke. It annoys me and it’s bad for my health. I mean, really bad for my health… I lose my ability to breath normally after a very short period of time of inhaling smoke. And so I’m not OK with people smoking around me. I know a lot of people feel the same way, and that’s why I asked the gentleman my question. In the absence of his reply, the lady informed me that the shop had no problem with it… and I chose to take my (small, but still…) business elsewhere. I was merely getting informed, funny how that equals “trying to start a fuss” in her mind…
So many people act this way, though. It’s like we can’t be honest, you’re more likely a psycho who has an evil agenda…
At least I feel good to be different! Ah, and I think this was my first pit post.
I don’t smoke myself and I sympathise if the smoke bothers you.
However your chosen question was a real challenge, implying that the smoker is not only smoking but is an idiot who doesn’t know where or when to smoke.
Obviously he does think it’s OK, and the store both sells tobacco and has an ashtray for the convenience of smokers. (Iassume Portugal has not passed a smoking ban.)
I’m afraid that was not the politest way to start the conversation.
Sure I know he was OK with it. I wanted him to know I wasn’t, and I wanted to see his reaction. I don’t think he’s an idiot.
It was the most polite way I could think of to start a conversation with someone who does something I don’t agree with it.
I thought you were merely getting informed. Now you say, in essence, that you were provoking a reaction. Sounds like the shopkeeper was on the mark in her assessment.
I’d be perfectly happy to see smoking banned everywhere. However, that said, if smoking is allowed in a location that you happen to be in then you just have to live with it. I don’t think there is ANY way to suggest to someone you don’t know that they shouldn’t smoke in a location where it is allowed, and it sounds like, encouraged (given the ashtray). I’m surprised you didn’t get a much stronger reaction.
People replying to a question is reacting, is it not? I sure as hell didn’t want him or any one else I ask a question to to just gaze at me like a deer in headlights, that’s not much of a reaction. The shopkeeper was wrong.
If the shop was okay with it, then you really had no leg to stand on. If I were smoking in an area where smoking is permitted, and some random person asked me if I thought it was okay to be smoking there, I’d probably just say, “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”
It’s weird that they allow people to smoke in shops, but that doesn’t seem to be the focus of your Pitting.
If the shop keep was okay with him smoking then thats the breaks . If he shouldn’t have been smoking and the shop keep was being bitchy (at you)
still not a lot you can do. But, taking your business elsewhere , well that
is always an excellent way to extract your due. A newspaper doesn’t cost
a lot of money but 365 of them do. Alot of people think that kind of attitude
is bullshit but you can’t put a roof over your head with principles.
Putting it in the form of a question was passive aggressive; an attempt to avod responsibility for your own feelings and putting him the defensive. Asking for trouble.
That’s weird. Never seen anyone smoke in a store before. And on the 2 occasions someone smoked in the pizza joint I worked at when I was present (carry out and delivery only - though some people eat at the 2 small tables up front that are meant for waiting, which annoyed the shit out of us because they always made a huge mess) I was annoyed. And I’m a smoker! One instance, the guy walked in with his lit cigarette, the other guy just lit up sitting at the table. There are no ashtrays. The food is all in the same room open to your smoke. I think he ashed on the floor. Dick. I don’t know why one would assume smoking is okay in a place like that - it’s a restaurant but not one you eat in. You pick it up and leave. I guess people think just because there isn’t a huge NO SMOKING sign present that it’s okay to light up anywhere. I would never go to the mall and light a Camel in the Gap. Or smoke at the Phillips station, or Target or anywhere else. But I have seen a couple convenience stores/gas stations in my life where the clerks smoked right there at the counter. I guess the clientele didn’t care.
To be clearer, I agree with you 100%, joazito: he shouldn’t have been smoking in a small store. However, your question was dishonest: of *course * he thinks it’s OK; he’s smoking, ain’t he? A more straightforward approach might have made him feel less defensive.
Why not? It’s clearly accepted there (the shopowner had an ashtray) and it sells tobacco. You can certainly ask that the person stop smoking while you are there, but you shouldn’t count on them agreeing with your request.
The way the question was phrased “Excuse me, do you think it’s ok to be smoking here?” was rude and aggressive, IMO. I’m certainly not surprised with the reaction.
For the record, I don’t smoke, never have, can’t stand the smell, will often leave places where the smell of smoke is strong. But I don’t assume it’s my choice whether people smoke somewhere. It’s my choice whether I stay.
I hate smoking with a passion, and will avoid it (sometimes to what others my percieve as silly extremes), but if a specific place allows smoking, such as a bar, or business, you either avoid that place, or don’t fuss. I teach dance classes, and one of my venues was a nightclub (for about three years), I loved dancing, and teaching dancing, more than I hated the smoke. To make it tolerable, I stayed mostly in the DJ stand or on the dance floor (this particular nightclub had an excellent “smoke-eater” type system installed about the dance floor area).
Huh? I’m not sure what your comment was directed at the smoker for not wanting to get into it (not sure how that’s dishonest), or nonsmokers who have to be silent when they’re being smoked out. And you’re not really different. I don’t know about where you’re from, but in the US IIRC the percentage of smokers is about 12-25% (IIRC 25% for Alaskans and Texans, though personally I think it’s more like 40% for Texans from what I saw!).
This really shouldn’t have made a difference as far as the smoker’s (non-)reaction.
A polite response would have been “I’m sorry, does the smoke bother you? I’ll put out the cigarette.”
According to a lot of smokers, a simple request or an indication that the smoke is bothersome is enough to get them to extinguish a cigarette. The fact that such approaches are often disdained (or that the person who is bothered is, unlike joazito, unwilling to risk any sort of confrontation) is why society as a whole needs to get involved.
My advice to joazito is to join with others who want to protect their health by outlawing smoking in enclosed public places, and in the meantime make your feelings known to shopkeepers.
You said that you were merely getting informed. You admit that you knew the answer to the question before you asked it, so that claim is bullshit. You were not merely getting informed. You were telling him what you thought. *You *were informing him, as **lissener **noted, in a passive aggressive manner. The shopkeeper was right. You were trying to start a fuss.
I don’t like it when people smoke around me, but I don’t try to tell people how to run their business. If you don’t like something, grab some courage and say so, or just keep quiet, but don’t beat around the bush.
Sounds like you were the asshole. You walked into a shop that I highly suspect you haven’t been to before (or at least very infrequently, on account of not knowing about patrons being allowed to smoke) and bitched at someone who was probably a regular customer (judging by the store clerk’s comments to him). I’d be pretty pissed if you went into my store and told my customers not to do something that I allowed them to do.
I’m a pretty militant non-smoker, which in the U.S. I have the luxury to be. You can’t smoke in my home, in my workplace, or in most of the stores where I shop, and I’m happy that’s the rule.
But I also don’t enter into unpleasant conversations with strangers. Has I been asked the same or similar question (“Do you think it’s okay to be eating here?” when I’m obviously eating, or “Do you think it’s okay to be talking here?” when I’m obviously talking), I would probably have responded the same way – with silence and a look intended to convey the question “And just who the hell are you?” My feeling is, I don’t know you, I don’t owe you an explanation for my behavior, and I’m not interested in striking up a conversation with a person who, not knowing me from Adam or Eve, still feels comfortable implicitly chastizing me.
The shopkeeper sets the rules for the shop. If it’s okay with him/her, then it’s okay. It is not your responsibility, nor is it even polite, to attempt to impose your preferences on your fellow customers simply because they are your preferences.
I don’t like smoking either. Had I been in the same situation, I too would have laid down the paper and left the store, perhaps subtly waving my hand in front of my nose as I went to convey to the shopkeeper why he or she was losing my business. But under no circumstances would I have confronted another customer, because doing so is rude.
Why? The guy was a smoker not a mindreader. He wasn’t asked to extinguish his cigarette, he was asked if he was allowed to smoke (while smoking and standing next to an ashtray :rolleyes: ).
The fact is joazito was buying a paper. Picking up a paper and plunking change on the counter takes seconds - maybe a full minute. Even the most smoke sensitive person in the world isn’t going to pass out and die from that little bit of exposure. He *was *trying to create a fuss. When it didn’t go over in the store, he came here to make the fuss because of the great anti-smoking sentiment on this board. And, I’m happy to see that the Teeming Millions aren’t buying into it either.
(FWIW, even in the way way back of the 1980s when you could smoke just about anywhere - I never did smoke in a store. Too paranoid of bumping into someone or something with the lit cig. Nope, nothing really to do with the topic - just thought I’d share :))