Clipper Comparisons for non-geeks

[Timothy C. May]

Tim Werner writes:

> The scary thing has been our general erosion of a right to privacy from
> private enterprise.  For instance, most big companies now routinely make
> urinating in a jar a requirement for employment.  It's much easier for a
> private entity to get away with something like that than for the government.

Some misplacing of blame here.

Don't forget that it is the "War on Drugs," the requirements for
getting govenment contracts ("a drug-free workplace"), and even the
civil liability laws (where a corporation gets sued into the ground if
drugs are involved...), etc., that are causing the current hysteria.

I know a lot of heads of companies (sometimes I think I'm the only
person who worked in Technology Development at Intel in the 1970s who
didn't end up the President of a company!) and their attitude on drug
use is that they don't want to be bothered with what their employees
(or themselves :-}) do on their own time!

But their lawyers tell them the government, the "Drug Czar," and the
legal system are making it necessary to implement a "drug and smoking
and abusive-language free environment."

Corporations left to themselves have little interest in testing for
previous drug use....obvious inebriation is another matter. (Being
drunk on the job is a firable offense at most companies...but I can
recall more than one departmental lunch" at Intel where too much wine
and beer was consumed and we returned to work mostly drunk, with our
department head standing at the door, passing out dimes for the coffee
machine and shaking his head in amusement.)

Corporations exist to make money, for the most part. A few are run for
ideological reasons, which may involve attempts to snoop or to
regulate the off-hours behavior of employees. The response of those
concerned should be to _leave_. A fair response.

What's so bad about government-corporate ties is that the same crummy
policy is then enforced everywhere, and there's no "leaving."

--Tim May


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