The Workplace: Physical Activity = No , Deadly Addiction = Sure!

A few months ago, someone brought a hacky sack into work. Whenever we'd have a few free minutes here and there, Work Dave, Stevie 3-Times, myself and others would kick it around a little.

Our bosses have always been pretty cool about letting us take breaks to relax and have some fun, most likely because we are in a "creative" profession. And in order to remain creative, open-minded, free-thinking employees, we need a little play time. (I read a really good article about this topic once, but I can't find it. Bummer.)

Eventually we all got pretty good and began playing at the end of the work day. Come 5:00 pm, the table in the middle of the department was pushed to the side and hacky sackage commenced.



After a while, that progressed into playing at the end of our lunch break to burn off some calories and get the juices flowing.

But recently the hammer has come down.

Because the economy is sucking balls, the station is experiencing a hiring freeze. No new employees until there's more money. The only department that is currently completely full is ours. So all eyes are on us. Spiteful, hater eyes.

We had a department meeting on Monday and basic theme was, "Work more. The GM said that we've looked like we're having too much fun and haven't been busy enough lately. Be more professional."

So that kinda sucks, but it's understandable. It's a business, after all.

However, Stevie 3-Times helped me come to a realization yesterday. Being that several of our co-workers in the department are regular smokers, he said, "We'll just go out there with them and play during their smoke break."

Granted, he was kidding, but it made me think. How is it that four or five 10-minute breaks every day (on the clock) to feed an unhealthy addiction is permissible, but a few minutes of physical activity that also increases your hand-eye coordination and sparks your synapses is a no-no?

You would think that, as a big, faceless corporation that cares only about the bottom line and output, it would be preferable (read: profitable) to have healthy, energetic employees over hacking, stinky, addicted ones.



And, speaking more generally, who in their right mind smokes in this day and age? I mean, I'll rip one or two on an occassional boozy weekend. But to still be a regular smoker in the year 2008, you must either be really ballsy, really apathetic or just plain ignorant. Or perhaps a delicious combination of the three.

Dear smoker: You smell bad. Your breath smells worse. You're extremely selfish to make others dwell in your shit cloud. And, most importantly, don't you realize that people look down on you!? People literally think less of you because you're a smoker. Don't kid yourself, buddy, that's a fact. It's not '78 anymore, Steve McQueen.

But let me get off my high horse.



So I guess I'll just have to accept the current state of affairs. No hacky sack, but smoking's OK. Gay, but whatever. I blame the economy.

I guess one could point out that I'm writing this entire rant at work and give me a good, solid, "STFU." But why would you wanna do that?