Yesterday at the BBQ I walked into a conversation and the guys were talking about drug testing. I’d say 99% of the guys in my Lodge work in the Trades. Apparently trade workers are enamored with the issue about taking a urine test for illegal substances like marijuana etc. because if they’re tested positive they could be pulled from the job site. Organized sports more or less has been doing something like this for years. Even US President Ronald Regan signed an order or something to this affect about drug screening in the workplace. From my reading a urine sample isn’t as efficient as a hair sample. A hair sample can detect drugs in the system in most cases up to 90 days. But what our Lodge is talking about is on the job site random pee testing where they work. For a hair sample, some would think “Well I’ll just shave my head,” but screeners can use any type of body hair. But there are a lot of chemicals that can be added to include false positives. Pee testing isn’t very efficient as it usually only goes back as far as about 48 hours in the system. The thing is employers are not chemists and neither am I. What I think employers need if they are into this sort of thins is a hand held office scanner of some kind that can detect drugs in the system in the last 90 days right on site. Personally I like the idea of companies having the right to test for drug use on employees. Having a sample taken to a laboratory can be time consuming. Especially when there are perhaps thousands of samples at the lab and the lab has only a limited amount of time and staff to process these samples. If our company did random drug test sampling the office would be cleared out within a week. There’s so much drug use going on in the office I work out of it’s amazing because most of the people I work with are in their 20’s-30’s. Random testing would certainly screen out the recreational drug users and cut down on the crime rate as well. A hair sample should be tested every 90 days. It should be part of an overall company review. If the sample comes back negative they your good to go. The implications of random drug testing are huge but would require a lot of political will to have employment drug implemented. However with these days (at least here in Alberta) what with the anti smoking loby group coming in to play here random drug testing in the workplace isn't that far fetched and those that I've been talking to say it's just a matter of maybe 3-5 years away. The self employed of course would have different guidelines same with the military. About the only place drugs could be used freely would be in prison. I can just picture Captain Kirk on the Bridge of the Enterprise moments before entering the Romulan neutral zone: In comes Dr. McCoy: “Sorry Jim your going to have to relinquish your command. Your hair sample has come back positive. Take over Mr. Spock your clean.”

I might have less then $10 bucks to work with this week until Friday but I’m going to get myself a 6/49 ticket today for Wednesday’s draw. There were 2 winners on Saturdays draw each winning $2,157,283.00. 3 winners took home $102,727.70 for 2nd place 5 + the Bonus number. For 3rd place 159 winners took home $7,601.10 159. That’s having 5 numbers correct.

Tonight of course I go in on the job. I hope there is no fall out for me swapping a computer monitor Friday night. I failed to plug the monitor back into the case so whoever is on that system this morning might have a few problems. I just hope I wont be called into the office. Also, tonight I hope I just get the train read a bit, get my lottery ticket at the pharmacy. Go in business as usual get a dialer and maybe Rob might say he put the request for my vacation pay release in for Friday, without any snags. I’m just waiting for this incompetent excuse for a payroll department we have to send me back an email saying “There’s no vacation pay for another overpayment.” If they do that to me again, I’ll go to AES and payroll can deal with them. Then if all works out fine and well, then I’ll come home to watch Monday night Raw.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim