Thank you for not smoking

I always thought those "Thank you for not smoking" signs in shops, restaurants or whatever were a bit presumptuous: after all, how do the people who put the sign up know that you are not smoking?

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I quit smoking. I always knew that I had it in me to give up the cancer sticks if only I had the right motivation - falling in love with a beautiful woman who was willing to let me insert parts of myself in her but only if I gave up the fags, for example. But the motivation turned out be something altogether different.

During the whole vindictive-psycho-work-colleague saga, one of the things that came to the attention of the senior management was that I was claiming about 45-47 hours a week. Well, yes, my supervisors liked me to be in at 7.30-7.45am so that someone would be in the office when the repair operatives started their day and I would often stay until 5.00pm because we are contractually obliged to the housing association we work for to man the phones until then. I didn't want to work 9 or so hours a day but, as a temp paid by the hour, I wanted to claim all the time I could.

But then the senior managers caught on and told me that I shouldn't be working much more than 37 hours a week. That's fine in theory but it is impossible to cover both the start and end of the working day that my supervisors would like me to if I can only work seven hours a day unless I take a two hour lunch break.

That was not all. Because the senior management wanted to appear to be following procedures to the letter with regard to vindictive-psycho-work-colleague's complaints against me, they decided to make an example of me. In theory, all permanent members of staff are supposed to knock ten minutes off their flexi-time for every cigarette break. This rule is not enforced by any of the managers but the powers that be decided that they would impose this rule on me for the sake of appeasing psycho-colleague. This meant that I would have to deduct half an hour a day. Therefore, in order to get paid for 37 hours a week I would actually have to be at the office for about 40 hours. Even so, this still wouldn't cover the hours a day that my supervisors would like me to be in the office. But the senior managers had spoken.

As I relaxed at my parents' house, not smoking, it occurred to me that if I didn't smoke then I could claim every minute that I spent at work. Effectively, I could work half an hour less a day. Upon my return to work, I took my line manager aside and asked what the absolute maximum number of hours a week I could claim.

"37 hours... no more than 40," he said.

So then I informed him that I would be doing half an hour less a day because I've given up smoking.

"Oh, congratulations," he said.

"But who is going to answer the phones until 5.00 if you go home early?" asked my supervisors when I started packing up at 4.15.

"Well, you have three choices: One, I start early and leave early; two, start later and leave later; three; start when you'd like me to start and finish when you'd like me to finish but that would mean that I'd have done my allotted weekly hours by 10.00 on Friday morning. You decide."

I've always known that I should give up smoking but lacked any real desire to do so. In the end it wasn't the smell or the expense or the myriad hideous health risks that motivated me to quit, it was sheer bloody spite for my employers. Isn't it sad that the thought of one day puking up a tar-ridden lung wasn't enough to convince me to pack in smoking but the desire to piss off my bosses was?

Rest assured that the hunt for gainful employment has resumed with great vigour.