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----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe C" <polarbea@sa*.ne*> To: "Scott" <scottk@hc*.co*> Cc: <klind@al*.ne*>; "Tech list" <techdiver@aquanaut.com>; <trey@ne*.co*> Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 12:42 PM Subject: Re: Dive Master's Wanted > Economics 101 at work. The testing is cheaper than the high insurance > premium. While I empathize, you have a CHOICE. Your employer has a > CHOICE. You can seek other employment and he can refuse the contract > and or insurance. But neither of you do because you like/need the > income. There are trade offs in life and this is one of them. Basically, what we are left with is threat, duress and coersion. Unless I agree to let you and people like you stomp on my 4th Ammendment rights, and subject me to worthless, humiliating and degrading, useless testing, I have to watch my children starve, or become a criminal. *Just* what the founding fathers had in mind. > Cheaper than paying the high premium or losing the contract. Ok, what other rights abuses and human indignities are you willing to advocate in the name of expediency and economy, or for insurance companies profits? > Not true. You don't need a reason to fire a drunk. You can evaluate > his job performance an let him go on performance issues or lack of > same. He's stoned, not drunk. Ever been to court for firing a loser who is related to lawyer? My boss had, and it cost him 35 thousand dollars by the time it was all over with. > Not familiar with a law that REQUIRES you offer drug treatment. Hell, > employers don't even have to provide health insurance. Missunderstanding, based on poorly chosen words on my part. Its not required, but advised by our attorney. Most real addicts will refuse and deny anyway, and the offer looks good in court. > Its not ok. It damn sure is OK, legally! Morally, no. And dont get me wrong, I dont think its OK either, what I am saying is that there are no legal ramifications, and I am not in danger of losing my income for drinking, and then giving a hot UA. Why the hysteria over marijuana and not alcohol? Because of money and lots of it. >You, just like Al, beat the system. But one day it will > bite you. If you were a GOOD employee in my operation I'd warn you once > maybe for showing hung over and send you home. Second time you'd be > gone. Even if you were my BEST employee. Otherwise, when you leave the > chuck key in the lathe and it flies off and kills the guy 5 ft. away, > I'm NEGLIGENT because I knew it but ignored it because I was was worried > about my pocket. I dont know what planet you live on, Joe, but your obviously not in the machine shop business, because you wouldnt have anyone working for you. Here is a real life one for you. My uncle and I go out and party on his birthday, taking a cab, because we knew we were getting wasted. My boss calls me at 04:00 Saturday morning, because one of the offshore platforms had a turbine shit the bed. I said "Rick, I am still drunk, me and my uncle just got in." "I need you man, can you work?" I went to work, and I did my job with one eye closed so I could see. Now, back to economics 101. Your version is that I can simply say no. My version is, I am the one in the building that can do the job, my boss, my company, my kids and myself need that shop to be there, and busy. I tell the oil company to fuck off, I am drunk, or do me and my boss roll the dice, and I come do the job? I have broken no law, I have not come to work drunk because I am a cronic drunk, I came because my boss asked me and knew he could trust me. We did the job, and because I went to work drunk, and worked drunk, we got business that we wouldnt have normally had. It fed me and my kids all winter. Who is the criminal here, Joe? Me? My boss? Or a greedy corporation that would put so much economic pressure on people who do their work that such an act would ever have to take place? Do you think an oil company gives two shits about my health or safety, or the health or safety of anyone around me, when they have a $100,000 an hour pump down? Do you really think he would have cared if I had been stoned to the bone? BTW, the oil company rep was standing right behind me while I worked, and he knew I was drunk, and he didnt care. All he cared about was getting that pump back on line. After the job was done, he shook my hand, thanked me for coming in drunk, and offered to buy me a drink next time he was in. That pretty much tells me its OK. > Depends on what you are making. If it were motor mounts for aircraft it > would be. I have made lots of aircraft parts. Even made some parts that went on the space shuttle. I wasnt stoned at work (cant do this kind of work loaded or hungover, and not because you threaten to fire me, its called integrity) and I wasnt piss tested. When they first implemented the urine testing BS (back in 84 or 85 I think) the only person who had anything to worry about was the owner, and he didnt make anything but marks on paper. Most of us doing critical work *cant* be impaired, and we dont need anyone looking over our shoulders to make sure. > You still have a choice. You can leave. But, obviously the tradeoff is > worth it to you or you would have left. If enough people felt that way > the policy would be impossible to implement. Obviously not enough > people agree with you. No, a lot of people agree with me, especially the ones who have done no wrong, dont use, and are forced to accept this bullshit. Obviously the unions for teachers, medical professionals, lawyers all think that urine testing is degrading and wrong, as they dont have to pee in a jar to keep their jobs. Or are these professions particularly immune to drug use? Why do I? Because my wallet isnt big enough... > Sure they beat the tests. Thats why they are in prison. Because they > have the system all figured out. Thats so lame as to just blow my mind. Your head is really in the sand here, Joe. Ask any cop, or anyone that works in the prison system, or any ex-con or parolee, and see how effective they think drug testing is. I guarantee you they will laugh. > When you can be arbitrarily stopped on the street and be drug tested I > will object. You can't be so it's not an issue. When you accept > employment, you sell a comodity, which in your case is your services or > expertise and the purchaser, your employer or ultimately his customer > has a RIGHT to buy what he wants. If that happens to be a drug free > work force it is his privelege. That is *exactly* the big ripoff. Urine testing *doesnt* assure a drug free workforce, and if you think it does, you are living in a cave, or not a part of the work force. All a clean urine test tells you is that there are little or no metabolites in the sample. That result can be arrived at because of no drug use, or because the donor did a little research on the internet. > You are SUBMITTING to the test. You can quit. Do you know how that feels, Joe? To be innocent of any wrong doing, and be *made*, through economic terrorism, to submit to a humiliating procedure of limited value? Do you then know how it feels to be *made* to basically strip, and then urinate with a strange woman listening to you? And do you then know how it feels to walk back into your job, past the guy who is standing there with veins hangin out of his eyes, because he is so stoned, but knows how to beat the test? I didnt submit to anything, my choices were work or watch my kids starve. Hell of a choice. Is that how it works in your world, Joe? Do and act as I say, even though you have done no wrong, or you and your family starve? Better hope you never come into my world with that attitude. You will do a hell of a lot worse in my world, than I will in yours. > > Its really a simple issue. People are going to get high. They always have, > > they always will. You cannot legislate morals or responsibility. What you > Fine. I just want no part or interaction with it. But what you *do* want is to subject me and millions of others to humiliation, and violations of our dignity, so that you can wear the thin blanket of peace of mind (a really thin blanket!), because you believe that urine testing makes our sky's safer, or your work force "drug free". I have a news flash for you, Joe. Urine testing guarantees none of these things. > He can, so long as it is not applied in a discriminating or selective > manner. Define those two terms. I bet your definition is wayyyy different than mine. So, who's to decide? You or me? I have used drugs, you have not. I know what I am talking about, you dont. > > And Joe, idiots manufacture themselves. No one made me or allowed me to do > > the drugs I did. It was a choice I made. And it was my choice when I quit. > > No one made me quit. > > > So then your boys will have to learn the hard way as did you? Thats right, Joe. If they make that choice. Hopefully, I have given them enough honest and realistic information that they will chose to stay away from dope. If they chose to do drugs, then they will pay that bill when they get it. Its not up to you or me to make that decision for anyone. Our role is to educate kids, and to show them the truth in the light of day. Most people, intelligently and honestly shown the light about drugs and abuse chose to avoid it. It also helps a lot if the kid has some future to look forward to, something to reach and hope for. I think you will find a *lot* of kids in this nice, tight, little country of ours are completely lost, they have no direction, no future, no hope. They chose drugs, and why not? What alternative do we offer them? "Lets see, I can either do dope, sell to my freinds, and spend my life in and out of jail and the emergency room, or I can go to Princeton." If this was ever the options, I think I know which most would chose. > I think/hope not. The example you set and the example around them is what > will guide them. If they see you can't function in a world that won't > tolerate drugs, they will be less inclined to do so. Where is this world that wont tolerate drugs? Which drugs wont it tolerate? Alcohol? Tobacco? Heroin? Speed? Marijuana? If you mean this world, you are wrong. This world is all about drugs. That's why people of limited knowledge see urine testing as a safety blanket. I think the point I am trying to make that you are missing is this: Urine testing is a rip off. It provides no real benefit, and if you think it does, all I can do is tell you you're wrong. I *am* the work force, and I am telling you urine tests don't keep your work force drug free! I agree there is a problem, and a damn big one. Urine testing amount's to a Band-Aid on a bullethole in your forehead. Being a working stiff, I don't see the benefit of urine testing as being worth the cost not only in money, but in dignity. If you really want to get a handle on a drug free workplace, you have to start in kindergarten, and you have to allow people hope. Anything else is a hose job. Scott -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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