We all have our vices, I suppose. It’s just that some people take them to work.

I think I’ve mentioned in the past how much I loved being the only non-smoker on a sales floor. I used to work with a half-dozen other sales people, all of who had a serious nicotine problem.

In addition to the employer-mandated half-hour lunch and two fifteen minute breaks each of my co-workers would nip out the side door for between three and six cigarettes a shift.

A cigarette may only take five minutes or less to smoke, but there was always an additional ten or more minutes of fraternizing with fellow smokers that went along with it.

Which is fine, because that took each of my 100% commission rivals out of action for between forty five to ninety minutes a day, leaving more paying customers for me!

At that same job, one of the other salesmen, an older fellow who was nearing retirement would frequently take extended lunch breaks at the pub down at the other end of the mall.

His particular vice wasn’t that he was having a few drinks at lunch (he was), it was that he was playing the video lottery terminals at the bar.

I was never sure if he was making money at VLTs to subsidize his time off the floor, or earning commissions at work to pay for playing VLTs all afternoon. Six of one/half a dozen of the other, I suppose.