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"So we fired her. (Ofcourse, she made rude comments as expected "you foreigners know nothing....you guys come here and dictate what we should do....while all we are trying to do is maintain productivity for the company). Now the one that works, she works 8 hrs with honesty....no need to search for my assistant anymore....she is always at her desk in the lab....and gets things done faster than ever I have seen here."

So, it never occured to you that this lab asst. you fired was just a slacker in general, who happened to smoke?

Puh-leeze. My husband smokes. He gets more done in an average work day than most people get done in a week. I don't smoke, and I'm the same way. We both run our own small businesses. Maybe that "Ownership Society" ethic has something to do with it? Your lab asst. had no personal stake in the success or failure of your lab. Why would she care? A slacker is a slacker, smoker or not.

Why is it lost on you that this battle is for PERSONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS? Why does the government have the right to swoop in, make regulations on how you do business and basically put you OUT of business?

How well would that go over in your lab? Think of something that would cripple your ability to do you job, then imagine the government foisting that upon you and closing your lab.

It's the exact same thing. The smoke Nazis pretend this is all about the health of the workers, but it's not. You're being fooled if you believe that.

The anti-smoker gnatizies have one problem and one prblem only - they are selfish crybabies and expect everything to be done their way and when it doesn't they going crying to mommy, in the form of big brother government, to take care of their demands.

Smoking bans have nothing to do with the health of workers or anyone else and everything to do with small people finding a means of making themselves out to be bigger than they are.

It is selfishness and insecurity, plain and simple.

Think of something that would cripple your ability to do you job, then imagine the government foisting that upon you and closing your lab.

I innovate, there is nothing in this world that can stop me from doing this. BTW, probably you may be using some electronic device in which either my innovation or my solutions were used since 2001 :)

So, I do not care who regulates what. I make my money at the end of the day with my brains. I found America amazing. If you have brains and a solid motivation nothing can stop you.

I have come to this country in June of 2005. It has been around three months. I started my job as a Senior Scientist and now in three months I am the Lead Scientist for a group of 40 bright engineers/scientists(13 Indian, 15 Chinese, 5 Russians, 4 European and 3 American). All the time, products and innovations rapidly change in the industry I work (nanometer VLSI technology aka nanotechnology). But that does not stop us. We learn to transform and re-innovate.

That is how we learn to transform based on the circumstances. If it were not for this, companies like Intel and AMD would have bitten dust by now. Oh, btw, I work in one of these two companies' R&D labs :)

Regarding the smoker I fired, yes she is a big time slacker. I gave her a lot of chances however she failed to innovate. Instead of taking a dozen smoking breaks and then calling in sick because she suffers from smoking related complications, she should have quit smoking and should have contributed better.