There’s a strange story going around that in northern Germany the boss of a computer company fired employees who had requested a non-smoking workspace. To avoid such complaints in future, he has vowed only to hire smoking employees. Other sources say the three employees were fired for other reasons. And then there’s a commenter for the story who says he made it all up. Wherever the truth might lie, the story’s resonance (evidenced by the accompanying comments as well as those on another site that picked it up) points to an interesting circumstance: non-smokers in Germany are increasingly willing to stand up for their right to clean air, and smokers have to defend their supposed right to smoke. This situation is the opposite of what I experienced in the previous two decades. The balance is tipping.