Night Shift #6

Stephen King
Literary Fiction
Pages 181-206

Many people start smoking at a young age and can never quit no matter how hard they try. They start to develop the mind set that they need a cigarette to function and complete their daily routine. Well the the short story called Quitters Inc. has a strategy to no only guarantee you stop smoking, but improves your life satisfaction greatly. Dick Morrison has been a smoker since he was 18 and has tried numerous times, but he could never stop. One night on his way to a business meeting in Florida he runs into a old friend. Jimmy McCann use to be a smoker like him, but he quite by using a special company's help and now he is a manager of his company and is physically in the best shape of his life. Dick gets the companies card and heads over to their facility the next month. They make him sign a couple papers and then he is introduced to his new doctor Victor. Victor says the process is simple once you leave this building you can't smoke unless you won't your wife to electrocuted a little. He leaves the session and immediately lights a smoke. The next day he gets a call to come down to the office and his wife is there and they have here in the room with the electric floor. He begs them not to do anything, and they don't this is his first time being caught and they say he will only get a warning. Victor explains you get ten strikes, they include your wife being electrocuted, your children being electrocuted, then it changes to beatings, then the 9th one is they take your wifes finger, and the tenth results in your death. After that Dick refuses to have a cigarette no matter how much he is tempted. He makes it without one for a year and he is in great shape and has even been given in a promotion for his increased work activity. He has one last meeting with Victor and Victor tells him he has passed and that they will no longer be checking up on him REGULARLY.

I really love this chapter and it gets me thinking. If this were a true policy would people, who were smoking really be able to stop just with their will power? I think this should be a real company and I believe that its unconventional methods would really work.