Tobacco Industry Workers, Do You Smoke?

creditors who work for tobacco cigarette companies what is the workplace culture around smoking like does management smoke is smoking among employees encouraged is discussion of smoking's health effects taboo i was a consultant for a project at a cigarette and tobacco manufacturer around 2012 so my information is limited to my experience as an outside contractor but i spent about nine months on site at various locations i believe i was told by one staff member that employees had the option to accept free product each month i cannot remember the amount something like a couple of cartons from my limited exposure on the project i would estimate that about half and perhaps up to two stroke three of the employees i worked with smoked or used snuff use of tobacco products was permitted in office areas and conference rooms and although not explicitly stated it was assumed that negativity towards tobacco use was frowned upon in my first conference an older gentleman slowly took out a cigarette lit it and began smoking while i was presenting it seemed to me he was watching my face for a reaction i was surprised since my entire professional life i have never worked in a building that permitted smoking and i was not expecting anyone to begin smoking during the meeting luckily i am accustomed to maintaining a certain demeanor and flow while presenting so i moved forward with no reaction i remember feeling it was strange to walk through a cubicle area and see little smoke tendrils trailing up from desks it felt a little like going back in time there were plenty of non-tobacco users like me around as well but no one complained or even commented on the smoking when you are working for a tobacco company what else can one expect i would hate to do it work for a company like that i've seen a smoker's house after they smoked in the same room for 15 plus years disgusting is smoking encouraged this was in the 80s and so it may be different now i had a friend who worked his way through college by working a blue collar job at the philip morris plant in richmond va he told me that at the end of every shift the workers could pick up a free cartoon of cigarettes on the way out the door but cutting a day is way more than one person could smoke so they definitely expected that some packs would be given away to family and friends ro these days a carton goes for dollar sign 110 where i live if they were still doing that it would be a pretty valuable fringe benefit i work at a big tobacco company not an executive but adjacent to the top execs none of them smoke most of management does not smoke but if you do a couple dip smoking is permitted in the cafeteria and a few select conference rooms and forbidden elsewhere but yes it's acknowledged that smoking causes cancer it was the first thing mentioned in my orientation if you do smoke you are allowed to scan your badge at the machine and receive one pack of cigarettes or one can of dip moist smokeless tobacco per day smokers are called adult tobacco consumers and there is never ever any talk of getting kids or teens hooked no employee is ever encouraged to smoke there are resources on the website for smoking cessation and the folks who deal with customers are expected to share these when appropriate it's actually quite a fantastic place to work if you don't mind that your company produces cigarettes eta just read all the replies and it's all i drove past a cigarette factory in 1986 so i figure i was at work 4 hours ago if you have more questions as a non-smoker i would 100 scan my pass every day to get the free cigarettes or dip but i don't know why but i am completely certain that i would my aunt used to work recruited in college recently retired for a big tobacco company as a chemist dealing with customer complaints no one in her department smoked no one my uncle did biochemistry research for a tobacco company way back in the day he said no one in his area would touch a cigarette with a 10-foot pole smoking isn't encouraged here but it's a privilege you can enjoy meeting rooms usually have ash trays and almost every room has a vacuum ventilation system that pulls air out in the past couple years it's been pretty interesting watching all the employees pick up vaping then subsequently drop vaping to quitting for the most part i would say maybe five percent of our company is routine smokers another five percent are social or occasional smokers five percent are meetings only smokers and the rest don't smoke management smokes the most out of all of the groups though and on the health effects not really you know what you are getting into and it's all laid out for you when you apply for the job meetings only smokers my gf's mom works in the office side of a smaller manufacturing facility the offices do have a smoking area but you are not allowed to smoke wherever she does get a free carton or two here and there my uncle who has been working for a much larger company and the corporate side has told me in the hq offices there are ash trays on every desk and smoking there is just like in the 60s it's not necessarily encouraged but it is just the culture i worked a few summer jobs in a cigarette factory honestly there were only a handful of people there that smoked and they weren't allowed to do so inside the factory a rule that makes perfect sense when in the context of the factory being in a desert and all the tobacco we worked with being insanely dry good way to start a fire that as for the health effects yeah we were sort of discouraged from discussing that topic some of the management staff would get outright angry over health concerns which i can understand i suppose after all it's the livelihood for them just one of the reasons i chose not to return for another summer i suppose sort of like the [ __ ] management for coal mines i cover the cigar industry through media and i was previously the general manager for a tobacconist chain as far as the industry goes i think it's assumed that most people in the industry smoke cigars anyone who is a dual use person who smokes cigars and cigarettes tends to get a lot of flack about cigarette smoking that said for those who don't smoke cigars and are in the industry i don't think anyone pressures them or gives them a hard time discussions of health topics come up fairly regularly careful attention is paid to actual cigar-focused studies there's only been a handful of cigar specific health studies in the past decade as per above it's generally understood that the health risks of cigars are much less than that of cigarette smoking part of that has to do with cigarettes being inhaled in the lungs as well as cigars being tobacco and water only versus cigarettes that have many chemical additives i did a sales presentation once at a tobacco company sometime in late 90s early 2000s it was at like 9am and we were somewhere in virginia i remember noticing when i got to the conference room there were little ashtrays set out in front of every seat at the table when i started presenting sure enough multiple people lit up cigarettes or small cigars i remember seeing the curls of smoke shadowed on screen as it drifted in front of the projector and that my eyes were stinging that was a unique career moment i never worked there myself although this was a customer of ours and i never worked at another place in the us where smoking was allowed i was a technical expert on a team going to pitch to a tobacco company lead salesperson asked if any one of us smoked i mentioned that i casually smoked i.e when i have a drink she asked if i would mind partaking with the clients it will look good on us i smoked while i presented a data analysis honest experience bci associates smoking with getting trashed we got the sale i would say it was encouraged i worked for a major tobacco company for five years back in the 90s while you were in the office's break rooms you could smoke all you wanted with free packs of cigarettes ready at hand all of the interior spaces had really strong ventilation systems that would completely change out the air in an office every three minutes i think that was an osha requirement when you left for the day there were racks of tax stamped packs of cigarettes and you were entitled to take a pack every night as my company also produced chewing tobacco snuff and pipe tobacco that was freely used as well the job paid well and because the industry had a hard time attracting talent the benefits were excellent interesting note if any of our suppliers banned smoking in their facilities we dropped them that was actually part of our supplier screening process since a lot of them would grow millions a month from us we would use four hundred thousand pounds of adhesive a week at one dollar and seventeen cents lb for example that was a substantial threat i had joined that company prior to the anti-tobacco effort and had many interesting discussions when that spooled up had one on an airplane where the other person who worked for intel asked me how i felt working for a company that made products that killed people i asked her how she felt working for a company that made guidance chips for nuclear missile warheads we didn't talk much after that cigarettes no cigars yes but cigars are viewed differently than cigarettes cigars are a social thing cigars have a community and culture around them i don't smoke anything but i feel like cigars for most people will fall under that everything in moderation racket more than cigarettes would i worked briefly at the corporate headquarters of a major tobacco company in the 90s i was a smoker at the time quit in 2010 thankfully and we were allowed to smoke at our desks most of my neighbors were non-smokers so i usually refrained until break time ultimately a manager noticed me smoking in the lobby and i got a mild scalding for letting people discourage me from smoking after that i would have won at my desk occasionally for appearances or when i was stressed we got a free carton of smokes each payday twice per month my preferred brand happened to be a competitor's product so i gave them to a friend i had to be careful not to let anyone see i was supporting the competition an acquaintance of mine was hired on around the same time and she worked in a secret department in a secret unmarked room she could never tell me what went on in there other than she handled a lot of documents creepy i only lasted six months partially because my conscience was eating at me and also because they forced the entire staff to get on buses and go to a nearby city to protest an appearance by them presidents clinton as a staunch democrat i was appalled as an american i was offended that i was being coerced into political activity by my employer and as a gay man i was sickened by the hideous yellow polyester t-shirts we were forced to wear lol your last sentence it's probably like those people that work a fast food joint that refused to eat there because they've seen how the sausage is made a friend who works at a conference center once hosted philip morris execs and told me they had to install all kinds of hvac equipment and extractors into their building because all of them insisted on being able to smoke indoors i was a waiter at a philip morris recruitment event at a restaurant in bloomington indiana they were looking to hire mbas from iu each place setting had a pack of marlboro red scented on the plate and much of the night was people dismissing the research on smoking as lies twelve years ago i had to work with rj reynolds tobacco they smoked in the hq bootling from the cafeteria to the bathroom but you think having to smell a stinky poop is bad try mixing it with cigarette smoke i work with someone who was upper management at a tobacco company he smoked regularly like it was part of his occupation he works for a different industry now and he is going through the quitting process the patch and all the weird thing is how nonchalant he is about it smoking and or quitting is just part of his career path like getting new clothes or a new computer corporate america is weird not in the tobacco industry myself but my dad has worked for marlborough since the late 80s he's often asked if he smokes and he always responds of course not that stuff will kill you says it right on the box he used to smoke cigarettes quit when my oldest brother was born and quit cigars later on the story is he went out to smoke a cigar at a wedding and missed my first potential daddy daughter dance and decided he was done i know a decent amount of his co-workers and they definitely don't sound or smell like they smoke i think because they know just how dangerous it is they tend to avoid it except for on occasion we actually talk about the tobacco industry a lot and since they bought one stroke three of jewel e-cigarettes are pretty common dinner conversation i'm proud to say i know more about tobacco than most 15 girls that have never smoked but all in all my parents have always strongly discouraged smoking and vaping and neither of them do it either my dad will give his coupons and stuff to our old relatives that have no intentions of ever quitting to at least help them keep the cost lower i should also clarify that my dad works in upper middle management and works from home so it's not like he has to deal with peer pressure four years had one of the big tobacco players most management smoked maybe half the staff smoked interestingly enough they did not smoke one of the brands we produced i can get smoking a different brand everybody made that choice long before getting a job working for a tobacco company everybody has their brand blend smokers all know how that goes a friend works for a very popular vape company he said that during the interview process the people interviewing him were constantly blowing clouds eventually got hired now turned vape guy himself and at the conferences and meetings everyone constantly is vaping hey at least halloween is easy for them they've already got the spooky fog i worked at a private event space that allowed smoking and i live in an area especially good for growing tobacco this was about seven years ago so their policies may have changed there is a fairly large tobacco company located here that company loved our space because they all smoked constantly they could eat and smoke and drink and smoke cigarettes cigars whatever that's it that's all the info i got used to have meetings at altria's offices in washington dc all the time on the boardroom table were just huge centerpieces of cigs and dip everybody always lit up i don't care if you never smoked when you went there you had a cigarette during the meeting it was one of the last indoor places i know of you could smoke in dc but smoking is bad for you and you should totally never do it okay good in the early 2000s a company i worked at subcontracted with a big tobacco company one criteria in the contract was that we had to have an indoor smoking lounge so we installed an air purifier in one of the training rooms and converted it to a lounge to get the contract even with an air purifier i bet that crap still reeks i live in tobaccoville nc where rjr tobacco company is located in our tiny bot town tobacco is king your grandpa worked for him your uncle did your cousins your mom and eventually you worked there as well i remember when they first outlawed smoking in restaurants i was in high school working at a little country bbq house that was a favor of the locals when rj led out for lunch most employees flocked to our restaurant daily and would eat together and smoke at the table tobacco is a way of life for these people i mean it fed them as kids and is now feeding their kids the restaurant ended up getting a lot of flack bc we followed the law and stopped allowing smoking inside that year was the worst for that restaurant we lost so many customers bc they truly thought they could protest a law and we would oblige my grandmother worked there and never smoked a day in her life but she always got the free cartons of six to give to her sons right after college i temped for a few months in the lab of a company that made all of the rolling paper for philip morris for obvious reasons one of the most basic tenets of laboratory safety is no smoking eating or drinking not there this was over 15 years ago but we regularly lit up in the laboratory alongside the machines we were using to simulate human smokers and the instruments we used to analyze the filters from those smoking machines there's no telling what kind of inaccuracies this introduced into the data bonus interesting tidbit we had a bottle of pure nicotine that was used to create standards when analyzing tobacco or tar samples it was kept in a fridge inside a lock box that required two separate keys for opening and each key was held by a different staff member why the security because one drop of pure nicotine on your bare skin will kill you faster than you can dial 9 1 1 that crap scared the heck out of me i refuse to handle the stuff even with gloves safety glasses etc how can i kill you that fast worked at british american tobacco for two years and i'd say the distribution of smokers and non-smokers was fairly similar to the rest of the world vaping was more common though i work at philip morris smoking isn't encouraged and isn't frowned upon you're free to do as you wish and yes management smokes no one talks about health effects since we're all aware it's bad for us almost everyone here smokes you can smoke as much as you want but you can't take anything home security is really rigorous and if you're caught with a single cigarette that you didn't report on your way and you're gonna get fired instantly on the spot you're also sued for stealing and some other things so tl doctor no one cares i used to know someone who worked at philip morris nyc this was years ago two things i remember her mentioning one a free cart in the week two if you smoked a non philip morris brand and you left the pack laying on your desk you would be quietly asked to put it away my dad sold the machines that put the tax stamps on cigarettes in the late 60s and 70s my mom smoked but he never did their parties definitely included many trays of free smokes the good times were when they went to the conventions where they had cigarettes and tobacco products along with candy so he went home with loads of everything he retired as a lobbyist for the tobacco industry never having smoked one cigarette probably way too late but years ago worked as a security guard for camel cigarettes models from 2016 to 2018. did they encourage smoking no but the general environment did usually escorted ladies from club to club where they would scan your id and print out coupons on little printers they carried with them it was a good gig good people and fun environment for someone just out of the military if you're reading this jess you're still the best in the west stay sexy and i miss working with everyone not an employee of a tobacco company but both sides of my family were tobacco farmers until probably 10 or so years ago and one of my grandfathers worked at rjr no one in my family smokes i remember one grandfather chewing tobacco when i was really little but he quit by the time i was eight tobacco was a totally normal thing to be around when i was a kid though i fondly remember the smell of tobacco drying in the tobacco barn my parents both had good memories of priming tobacco as kids teens though they freely acknowledge the work is very hard hot and dirty my dad remembers going with his father to the tobacco auction where tobacco companies were great and by your family's tobacco he said a lot of the farmers would bring their whole family's dress up in their sunder best growing up around tobacco but not necessarily smoking has given me complicated feelings about it frick tobacco companies and smoking is terrible for you but tobacco was a livelihood for men i recently quit smoking but when i still smoked i got to visit a philip morris factory and it was really interesting to see how they make them we had to put our phones and own cigarettes into a locker before we entered but before and after the tour we got to go into a smoke room where they had all their types of cigarettes laid out for you to smoke we just took a few drags of each type of cigarette like it was a bee at tasting one of the employees even came out with this crazy japanese triple mint and tar cigarette it was a great day i am a manager at one of the big companies not in the us though ama i guess five years ago smoking rate was about the same as in the general population maybe slightly more casual smokers you were working with cigarettes after all since companies are launching reduced risk products now literally no one smokes anymore everyone has switched to different alternatives mostly heated tobacco most offices do not even have a designated smoking place now times have changed can confirm some other comments though free packs cartons for employees used to be common as it is extremely cheap to produce most of what you pay are taxes i work for one of the big tobacco companies some people i work with use tobacco products some don't my direct supervisor isn't a tobacco consumer it's certainly not encouraged but it isn't forbidden and nobody really bats an eye at it it's not taboo to discuss health effects amongst peers in fact it's commonplace we aren't stupid and part of our job is exploring alternatives to smoking but we never make health claims to customers or consumers because well we aren't stupid i recently had an interview with a cigar company in accounting they literally smoke in the office because they don't have to follow state law since they produce it in the 1970s and 80s some law firms kept cartons of cigarettes in their office supplies closest alongside the stenopods pens etc i worked at the american tobacco company in the yearly 90s 93 stroke 94 or something processing surveys and mail and stuff i was a temp everyone smoked like a chimney there i don't think anyone encouraged us to do so but we definitely smoked lot of old folks smoking multiple packs a day weirdly enough i can't recall if we smoked inside or had to step outside the pull-down garage doors it was a long time ago during a not very functional time in my life i don't directly work for a tobacco company however we do sell tobacco products where i work all tobacco products are in plain wrap packaging due to strict legislation we are not allowed to recommend certain brands or products to customers either this also means that smoking among employees is not encouraged however the matter of whether you do or don't smoke isn't discussed either if you do you do if you don't you don't discussion of health effects isn't necessarily taboo either however people get offended easily and it's not an easy subject to bring up and talk about unless the person brings it up themselves early 90s was doing carpet in some office building in north carolina safety culture was ramping up with the big contractors it was the time of safety glasses and boots becoming required safety guy posted 8.5 by 11 inches signs he printed on his office printer no smoking 20 minutes later some suit was walking around tearing them down crumpling them up and dropping them straight on the floor it was a new philip morris office and dude's aides were handing out packs of smokes your choice i worked for one for about a year 2006-2007 when i was there smoking was allowed anywhere except on the plant floor i would say about three stroke four of the employees did not smoke we could get one carton free with every paycheck not myself but a friend work in honor of the big tobacco company back office they say there is a room dedicated to tobacco tasting and sampling but as not only marketing people but everyone is allowed in it is more as a staff benefit to smoke any flavor you desire at work i think there isn't any restriction on the type and brand according to my friend i remember visiting the philip morris plant in richmond as a vendor i don't know why i didn't think of it before but i thought it was really weird seeing ashtrays at everyone's desk as well as in the conference rooms everyone there smoked one guy talked about how great of a company it was because they care about the health of its employees while walking past the gym very odd almost everyone using an icos and for smoking regular cigarettes exists only few special places on factory half of them on the street not really what you were asking sorry but i always think about how my grandma used to work in a hospital bringing around a little car to the patients the cart had candy bottled water magazines and cigarettes a different world man it was a different world if you are new to the channel you can subscribe i publish new videos every day until then check another video [Music] bye for now

Channel: Updoot Everything

Views: 15,419

Rating: 4.9340658 out of 5

Keywords: tobacco industry, tobacco industry documentary, tobacco industry whistleblower, consumers, #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, r/, \r, r\, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny reddit stories, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, people of reddit, sub, reddit cringe, memes, toadfilms, updoot everything, updoot reddit, story, stories, rslash, comedy, fresh, reddit stories 2021

Id: s_Nj1v0KHu4

Length: 26min 42sec (1602 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 07 2021