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Old Smoke in the Workplace

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Old Smoke in the Workplace
By: Jennefer Paddock
BUS 309: Professor Handel Smith
February 26, 2012

Old Smoke in the Workplace “Old Smoke” is a case where there is a file room, where Alice and Frank smoke, that smells of cigarette smoke. In this case, Charles Renford, office supervisor for Redwood Associates, assigned a task to one of his employees, Darlene Lambert, to help him with a report that was due right away. When the office supervisor asked his employee to go into the file room to start assembling the data needed for the report, Darlene refused the task claiming that the file room smelled like smoke and it was too bad for her to be in there. Darlene has worked in the file room before, and she has never went to her supervisor and complained about the smoke smell. This case shows that Alice and Frank are considerate as they were always considerate of Darlene, as well as nonsmokers, by opening the windows to air the room out ahead of time if they knew that Darlene was going to be working in there. Companies have implemented a non-smoking policy in places of employment, and according to this case smokers have rights, and the office supervisor reminds Darlene that their state law does not ban smoking in the workplace. Due to Darlene not going into the filing room, the office supervisor is concerned with the report that is currently due. With this case, Charles Renford could have handled the situation better than what he did, and Charles Renford should implement a policy on smoking. This case may or may not change if what Darlene is complaining about is Alice’s perfume or Frank’s body odor. In addition, a company banning smoking in their car on company property may or may not be fair and reasonable.
Explain how you would handle this situation if you were Charles Renford. To start of with, currently most, or all, companies have implemented a smoking policy

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