Fail a drug test and you’re considered guilty until and unless you can prove yourself innocent. How is that not being criminalised?
If you think only the “guilty” have anything to fear, you’ve obviously led a very sheltered life.
I didn’t write that savings accounts with small balances cost banks money. I wrote that such accounts do not make money. Making money is what a bank exists to do. Not breaking even, and certainly not losing it: making it.
I once failed a drug test from drinking too much water before hand. I’ve never done a single drug in my life and I don’t drink or smoke but apparently too much water will cause a test to reflect tampering with the urine and it comes back as an automatic fail. I lost a job over that drug test and they refused to let me test again to prove that it was a false result.
OMG! How much water did you drink?
You’re assuming everybody who professes homelessness is homeless. I think a bit of observation may be able to separate out some of the imposters.
Years ago I went up to Chicago to see the blues district. I parked far enough away that I didn’t want to walk through unknown neighborhoods at night. along the way there was a cute young lady panhandling with a cardboard sign at 3 in the morning. Not only was she well groomed complete with makeup and nails but her attire was right out of a dickens novel complete with fingerless gloves. she was perfectly layered in mismatched clothing designed to make her look like Oliver Twist in a school play.
This is in contrast to the homeless I see sleeping on park benches who look like they’ve been sleeping on park benches. I wouldn’t want to make a living betting on who is really homeless but does appear to be some people out there faking it (IE, making better than poverty wages at it)
When I was a teenager I had to take a drug test that I was not entirely sure I could pass (I would have passed anyway, but I was paranoid. I had taken two or three puffs off of a joint, my first time smoking ever, about 6 weeks before :rolleyes: ). I went to a headshop and picked up one of those “Pass Your Drug Test Kits.”
The stuff consisted of some powder (which probably did nothing at all) and the instructions to drink it with an outrageous quantity of water over a period of a couple hours. I don’t remember exactly how much but it was an uncomfortable amount to drink. If the stuff works at all I think it’s only by diluting your urine so much that the test can’t detect anything. I wonder if now they just assume anybody with diluted urine used one of those kits.
Back when I worked at a clinic that did drug testing (15 years ago, now) yes, that was the assumption. If your pee was too diluted it was assumed you were hiding something.
- Excuse me if I cast doubt on your ability to tell if someone is homeless by the way they dress.
- Likewise, unless you stick around and handle the accounting for one of these panhandlers, your guessing as to their income is also suspect.
I drank 2 20 oz bottles of water in a little more than an hour before the test which didn’t seem extreme to me but apparently it was enough to screw up my test results. The next job that asked me to take a drug test I called the location ahead of time and explained what had happened to me previously and the woman advised not to drink water but instead drink Sprite or juice or something so you aren’t running pure water through your system to prevent it from happening again. Taking her advice I passed the test without a problem.
Yeah, I know they aren’t stamps any more but old habits die hard. As for it not being terribly convenient to resell food purchased with the EBT card, I imagine it would beat the alternative of no drugs/booze for an addict.
What is it with people making assumptions on no information? I said I didn’t see having a drug test as criminalizing anyone, which is far different than failing said test.
Do you also have this sort of reaction to companies that insist on a drug test for their employees, or as a condition of employment?
OK then, if a low balance account isn’t costing them money, why do they not take in as many as they can get, so the total ends up being worthwhile for them?
You haven’t read the whole thread yet, have you? Note the number of posters here who are crawling on me for daring to assume that anyone who stands on the same corner for several years and is always well turned out most likely isn’t homeless.
Then I guess I’d end up criminalized since my pee is always quite diluted except for first thing in the morning!
uh huh.
- you can’t see the irony of making assumptions of someone’s skills to make assumptions.
- with every interaction with another person we gain on an innate skill to make those assumptions based on literally thousands of cues given off. It’s how we’ve survived as a species.
So we should conclude from such logic that everything someone says is true? How much do you think a stock certificate for the Brooklyn bridge is worth on Ebay?
Not seeing what your response has to do with the part of my post that you quoted. You said that I was assuming that everyone who says they are homeless is in fact homeless, and I was pointing out that I tend to do the opposite down here (which you’d see if you’d read the whole thread) - hence the bleeding hearts crawling up my butt. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
No I got that. but the logic that someone begging for money is homeless ignores the idea that people can and do scam the public. People have an innate ability to pick up on subtle cues as to whether someone is being truthful in their actions. My point is that if you ignore this then you must except everything anybody says as true because otherwise you’re making assumptions.
I’ve heard the pretend homeless guy who lives in a nice house/mansion story here in Ireland, in Scotland, and from a friend who was living in NYC at the time. I’ve no doubt there is organised begging going on under false pretences, I’ve seen the shift changes people above mentioned. However, the idea that there’s this one dude dressing up who’s making six figures or whatever and going home to his palatial abode has urban legend written all over it.
There again cites are welcome.
**Magiver **- I’m not sure if you’re suggesting that **Czarcasm **is wrong, or just pointing out the apparent irony in his statement.
Irony aside, I have personally known homeless people who were dressed impeccably. I’ve been to their camp and know they are homeless. I know where they shower, where they get their razors, etc.
I’ve also known people who are not homeless who go out looking disheveled and dirty - for instance, a guy who was painting his house in his old torn t-shirt and has to go down the street for something.
I believe **Czarcasm’s **point isn’t that people don’t have enough sense to tell if someone is homeless by the way they dress. His point is that it isn’t technically possible to tell, because there is not a one to one relationship between how they dress and whether they are homeless.
-D/a
Of course there isn’t a one to one relationship between any single attribute. He was reacting to what I observed which consisted of a number of observations. It is the sum total of everything observed that allows us to make assumptions. Every piece of clothing, how it’s worn, how a person moves, gestures, facial expressions…
As we interact with people we gain experience on how this information is interpreted on a subconscious level. I’m not suggesting anything that isn’t already understood and accepted.
I kind of doubt there is any one pretend homeless person who is making six figures just from begging on a street corner, I think that is just embellishment on the reality. If nothing else, you don’t need to be making six figures to have a nice house, even around here and especially if you bought the house prior to taking up begging for a living. In the newspaper story I read, I believe the wife was working (as a teacher? something like that) and together with what the man was making as a beggar, they were supporting a middle class lifestyle for themselves and at least a couple of kids. And, if I remember correctly, they could have easily paid their bills without him begging, they just didn’t want to give up having disposable income. I’ve read more than one of these sorts of stories, so I can’t remember which details came from where…
As I said cites are welcome.
As I said way up thread, I don’t have one as it was very long ago. Before it became all the rage to do everything possible to look P.C., even in the newspaper.