The dilemma of a woman smoker in the workplace

JAKARTA (JP): After a quiet lunch at the office, I retreated to the ladies room and pictured a cigarette. How good it would be to smoke one while sitting on the toilet seat and watching the ash blue smoke being released from my mouth as images play in my mind.

This was the second day since I picked up smoking. Actually, there were smoking rooms available on every floor in my office building, but they were always crowded with men. As I am basically conservative and raised in a culture where it was improper for a woman to smoke, I did not dare smoke in front of those guys who were also my office mates. That was why I chose to just hide in this toilet compartment, lest someone sees me smoking.

Since the toilets did not have ventilators, the cigarette smoke would be trapped in the ladies room. It would take some time before the smell completely dissipates.

I knew this and felt guilty about poisoning people with the nicotine. I also knew that smoking could be very annoying to nonsmokers and that everyone had the right to a clean atmosphere, free of pollutants.

That was why I chose the toilet on the seventh floor of this 12-floor office building. Besides, 95 percent of the staff on this floor is male. So the ladies room was rarely used. Also from a previous inspection, I have learned that one hour after the lunch break, the ladies room was empty -- so I could smoke freely.

But I was not lucky that day. Just as I was taking the second puff, a woman entered and she got into the compartment next to mine. There are only two toilet compartments in this ladies.

I froze and let the cigarette burn away between my fingers. I carefully flicked the ash into the waste basket, avoiding any sounds. I cursed this unknown woman for taking so long.

Then I heard two other women entering the room. They were talking loudly. "Oh, occupied!" one women marked. But suddenly, the woman in the next compartment got out.

"Hey," greeted the others. Apparently, they knew each other as they quickly went into another loud conversation as one of them got into the vacant compartment. The others waited impatiently. "Oh, my God, who's in this compartment?" complained one woman.

I held my breath. "I don't know," answered the other. "But surely she's smoking inside. It's so smelly."

I froze even more. I felt as if they were staring at me. I felt so foolish. I cursed; why did members of the 5 percent population have to burst into this room at this time?

They finally decided they could no longer take the smell and left, cursing the woman in the toilet who was polluting the place and having made them wait.

I got out of the toilet 15 minutes after the last woman left the room. My eyes were still sore. My fault. Upset over the situation, I had stared at the last centimeter of my cigarette, feeling sorry for wasting almost the whole of it and then inhaled it awkwardly. As a result, some smoke got into my eyes.

I walked cautiously out of the toilet, worried that one of the women who came in earlier would catch me -- the culprit who had been polluting their clean toilet.

I finally entered the elevator and stepped onto the 12th floor, my office space, safe and sound. I passed the smoking room near the elevator and greeted the guys smoking there. I wanted to laugh.

What a weird world! While eastern women have become increasingly liberated, there are still women, like me, who are afraid of being caught smoking. But I knew there was a greater force beyond the issue. It was the right of every creature to enjoy a safe and clean world. It was human rights, not a matter of gender. Not only women should feel ashamed of smoking. Men should, too.

Although the amount of carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke is small, the cumulative effect of millions smoking can be alarming. Smoking has been proven to cause lung cancer, heart disease and many other health problems.

Ironically, women who were the involuntary inhalers of secondary smoke and who used to chide men for smoking, have today picked up the habit themselves. This is because the modern era gives women the right to smoke as much as men do.

I know there is no excuse for smoking -- whether one is male or female. Everyone on this planet should stop smoking, stop polluting the air and stop ruining their health.

But as I sat in front of the computer that day, trying to finish my work, I remembered the twirling ash blue smoke and the images that ran through my head. I realized then that I could not stop smoking yet. I just wish I can smoke in front of those guys in the smoking room without feeling awkward and so no longer having to pollute the clean ladies room, before I am strong enough to give up this bad habit.

-- Chadijah Mastura