OT, Another WTF Moment

[Higgs Boson]

On F

riday, August 2, 2013 9:02:21 PM UTC-7, Wes Groleau wrote:

albeit legal drug. Besides I'm very allergic to the smoke as are many emp loyees of my

th in the non-smokers' rights movement -- must be at least 2 decades ago. What we had to go through, between the all-powerful tobacco lobby and the f reaking politicians who were too scared or too venal to vote in the public interest!!!

. don't realize what it was like back then -- threats, insults, sometimes p hysical violence.

lers who are suffering like hell from smoke drifting into their space from another unit or from a balcony. The smokers are indignant that they can't do what they like in their own space. The victims -- perhaps with a medica l condition that could be life-threatening if they inhale smoke -- are equa lly indignant that they have to live with windows closed in all weather, ca n't go out on their porches/balconies, and even so, smoke finds its way in to their space.

people stuck in an unbearable situation in older housing.

****Where is "here"? Which state or locality?

Different states approached this problem with varying ardor.

For a while, restaurants tried "smoking sections", but very few spent the m oney to provide separate ventilation. Mostly it was a band-aid that did ab solutely nothing to keep smoke away from non-smokers' the smoke didn't know it was not supposed to attack them.

Your "freedom of choice" argument that owner of restaurant can do whatever he/she wants is a fallacious one. Restaurants serve a public good. They a re regulated as to the food they serve, as to toilet facilities, as to fire alarms/exits even as to parking in some localities.

There have been many tragic cases of people burned to death because of inad equate or inoperative fire systems OR EVEN LOCKED EXITS!

Same with bad food served to YOU and YOUR family, who got sick and maybe di ed.

It took DECADES to overcome the enormous amounts of money poured into this situation by the tobacco lobby. *You should educate yourself on how viciou s and dishonest was the propaganda they put out*. And how openly they paid off national and local legi$lator$ to fight non-smokers' rights movements.

Please rethink your inaccurate comparison to restaurant access with hospita l access. (You do, in fact, have the right to refuse to enter a hospital -

- if you are conscious and weird enough to want to make that choice.)

But if you cannot enter a restaurant without suffering from tobacco smoke, where is your choice?

HB

[...]

[Stormin Mormon]

I'd guess that much of what they'd ask, you planned to get a new one already, and it's all good.

. Christ>

[Stormin Mormon]

The gov't stole about 20 gallons of gasoline from me, over the years. I put back a $20 bill in the 1980s. Back then, it would buy 25 gallons of gasoline. Now it will buy 5 gallons. Someone stole those 20 gallons from me, and that was the good stuff before they started with this ethanol diluant.

. Christ>

[Robert Green]

You would have made more than a passable reporter, asking nagging questions like that!

Maybe it was a box kite? Maybe she was a former discus thrower who "spun up" the box to "escape" velocity? Maybe NBC reporters had previously strapped a rocket motor to the box? The possibilities are endless.

That's it. The winds were in her favor. For some odd reason I am reminded of Nixon's secretary Rose Mary Woods showing press photographers how she could have "accidentally" erased critical footage from the Nixon Tapes by stretching her arms and legs out to a near impossible "split" and trying to convince people she held them that way for 18 minutes. Gotta admire her loyalty even if her veracity was questionable.

And the cow jumped over the moon . . . (-:

[Vic Smith]

Most the time that's true, but not always. I used to chat with a girl at my first IT job. She was an accountant. Then I noticed she was missing. Asked a senior manager I was friendly with where she went. He hesitated, but he trusted me. Told me she had embezzled $30k. Lot of money then. 1980. Also said to keep it to myself, which I have until now. Said they didn't recover the money, and didn't prosecute her either. Bad for company image. So ole Joe loses his job and retirement for stealing a couple pounds of copper, and maybe gets a misdemeanor theft conviction so he can't contest anything. I don't recall if he got charged though. This gal walks away with $30k. But hey, nobody ever said life is "fair."

[willshak]

And the dog ate the tapes.

[willshak]

Embezzlers rarely get prosecuted, unless the amount is outrageous and cannot be kept secret by their employers.

[Robert Green]

I *knew* we would get a confession out of you eventually. (-:

Signed, Inspector Javert

But seriously. When certain Federal agencies (which PRISM requires me not to mention) instituted polygraphs for new hires, they scrupulously eliminated anyone who admitted to trying *any* kind of illegal drug or who had admitted to stealing anything from the workplace. When the recruit pool dwindled down to far too few candidates to choose from, they then instituted a policy of evaluating the nature of the trangressions.

I think the questions are now phrased "did you ever take anything worth more than $20 from an employer?" and whether illicit drug use occurred within the last 3 years. That should give you some idea of the prevalance of employee theft.

Speaking of polygraphs, there's a huge debate occurring at sensitive agencies asking how Snowden clearly slipped through the vetting process with a major loose screw going undetected. I believe, like GZ, Snowden was a washout, only he washed out of Special Forces. Rejection has driven more than a few people right off rails.

People steal more today because they feel more entitled for a number of reasons. The changing dynamic from "employer for life" to "contract employer" had had an effect. When a company reneges on its committments to employees, theft skyrockets because it becomes morally justified by employees. "The company screwed me so I will screw them."

[Wes Groleau]

It is very easy to choose another restaurant. There were a lot of them that didn't get my business because of their poor choices regarding smoking. And I could choose to visit _none_ of them without endangering my health in the least.

It is considerably more difficult to refuse medical treatment if one needs it.

The inaccuracy is in pretending the two choices are equal.

If they had chosen to ban smoking in health care facilities instead of restaurants, I doubt any hospitals would have chosen to shut down and put ___ people out of work.

If they had chosen to ban smoking instead of mandating expensive remodeling, there would also have been less adverse effect on our economy. But I still would have opposed it.

You were correct about the poorly designed smoking sections. A non-smoking section is stupid when one has to walk through the smoking section to get to it. I never went to such a place the second time. Sometimes I told them why. Sometimes I didn't.

Someone said the law was to protect the health of the wait staff. Nonsense. The law said nothing about withholding service from the smokers in the special room.

Do you think I should lobby to forbid grocery stores from having the aisles of detergents than bun my nostrils when I get near them?

How about the lack of a law banning perfume from department stores? Is that unjust to my friend who has to stay out to avoid a medical emergency?

By the way, both of our hospitals decided to ban smoking without government interference. The one nearest me even claims to not allow tobacco products of any sort anywhere on their property. But they don't make any effort to enforce it outside the building and away from the entrance. (We actually have five hospitals, but only two companies run them.)

[Wes Groleau]

I didn't wonder what was in it. It's trajectory (and her size) made it highly unlikely it had much weight.

Because it was too big to take through the exit turnstile.

[Wes Groleau]

True. However, the only things worth stealing in our plant were electronics (other than personal things people may have brought in).

She might have been stealing a router, though in the 1980s, not very many would do that.

I was _never_ questioned, though I went past the same camera and through the same turnstile every day. I was always carrying a briefcase into which I could have fit--just barely--one of the Sun workstations that were stacked up higher than my head in an unlocked room ten feet from the door.

[The Daring Dufas]

It must have been one of those old inflatable Sun Workstations, they were pretty slick but didn't work all that well. I suppose inflatable computers were ahead of their time back then. ^_^

TDD

[DerbyDad03]

You snipped out the comment that I was responding to, which was the suggestion that the box might have been folded up.

It's somewhat a matter of semantics. In terms of responding to the comment that the box was folded up (which is what I was doing) "wondering what was in it" and "I'm thinking, "If there were anything of any size in that box. she couldn't have thrown it like that, and if it were of any value, it isn't after falling ten feet onto the parking lot" are pretty much the same thing.

The point being, if the box had been folded up when she tossed it over the fence, you probably wouldn't have thought about the size and value of the contents. That's all I was trying to say.

Remember, I was responding to the comment that the box might have been folded up. Granted, even a folded up box might be too big to fit through the turnstile, but based on the fact that you were musing about the contents, we can be pretty sure that It wasn't folded up.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I never had to work in a place with a turnstile. Would not do it now.

[Wes Groleau]

OK, I never actually tried to fit one in my briefcase, so I could be wrong. But it would have been close.

[Ashton Crusher]

What do you have against planning ahead??

[Ashton Crusher]

People have always stolen if they thought they could get away with it. A friend of my Dad's ran a stable, not exactly a big dollar operation. He had a couple employees. He rigged the phones so he could eavesdrop on the employees and found them bragging about how they stole money from the place when he wasn't around. Then they'd wonder why he fired them. Another friend of Dad's died and the guys wife had to go to work in a restaurant to keep some money coming in. She regularly stole lots of money straight from the cash register. Another friend of his was President of one of those Animal Fraternal Organizations and that guy and another guy did the bartending at the "club" and they would pocket hundreds of dollars at the end of each evening. My Dad would never steal a dime.

When I cooked chicken for the Cornell we found one of the area supervisors was sending the regular managers home and closing up their stores for the night and in the process he'd throw out a few hundred dollars worth of receipts and pocket the money. He got fired. That was one of those things where I thought it was so stupid to lose a good job like that for a few hundred extra dollars a month.

I'd admit to stealing office supplies and a few nuts and bolts (but I also donated many many unpaid hours) as well as paid for awards and cakes and stuff for my people that the company would not pay for. Even so, it still makes me feel a little bad for taking anything...

[The Daring Dufas]

**********Clip Codswallop**********

I've told the guys working for me that if they needed something, just ask. I need to keep up with supplies and if someone walks off with a whole box it can cause a problem. If they need an item that cost's a lot of money, I let them pay for it over time. I drilled into them that missing supplies caused job delays and more money than some screws, nuts and bolts are worth. So just ask. ^_^

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

The workstation I'm using now is a dumpster rescue. Nothing wrong with it, a new company moved in and was tossing all the old stuff. I have a lot of Dell systems we are using here at the office that are trash pile rescues including the wireless N router. We do the same with phone equipment. We've rescued and resold a lot of it. ^_^

TDD

[Stormin Mormon]

I'm guessing that more than a lot of things go in the dumpster, still usable. A friend of mine visits the recycling center on a regular basis, and it's amazing the things he brings home from there.

Does your wireless N router have a swastika or big lips? Which? Enquiring minds want to know!

. Christ>