Brills to the Gills @dietmountandrew - Tumblr Blog

A true story from 1928 with a few artistic embellishments.

(And starring my disaster boys Jack and Al, of course)

TIL that because of a mistranslation Jimmy Carter told the Polish people in 1977 that he desired them carnally and that he had left the United States to never return.

via reddit.com

postmarxed-deactivated20190429

Imagine being a Polish citizen and you hear the American president say he’s here to fuck and he’s not leaving

shroobles-deactivated20251116

“You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” - John Ehrlichman, (Richard Nixon domestic policy chief, 1968)

it wasn't about drugs.

seofford

adding that it's also a way to deny financial aid for college. One misdemeanor is enough to cut college FAFSA/scholarships/grants funding in many places. In addition to everything else.

dietmountandrew

This is a long story, and so fucking tangential, but I haven't really gotten to talk to anyone about this since it happened. A few months ago, I was applying for a FULLY REMOTE job, for a company headquartered in Indiana.

The company sent me an offer letter and (after a few months of being unemployed) I was stoked, and ready to accept pretty much anything they threw my way.

UNTIL I got to the part of the offer that said my employment was conditional, pending the results of a background check and drug test.

Background check is fine and semi-normal...but I haven't been drug tested for a job since I was a cashier at Walmart for a summer in college. I am a project manager, mainly for web dev projects. I'm not a forklift operator, or a heart surgeon. I am also fully remote. No one is gonna bump into me doing a line of coke in the bathroom, unless they are also guilty of home invasion. So I was real confused by this company that really needed to know if I was on drugs.

Marijuana is illegal in Indiana, but not in Illinois (where I currently live). So I reached out to my HR contact at this company with a list of questions about the offer, and I included that fact among them. I didn't admit to smoking, I just said that I was surprised by the drug test, and that I live in a state where recreational marijuana is legal.

I got an email response to all of my questions, except for that one. The response to that question came via a separate phone call a few minutes later. The HR person was clearly flustered, and asked me "how often" I use THC, and if I was "on any other drugs" that would show up in a drug test. I answered mostly truthfully, but I was really bothered by how invasive both of those questions were.

He was, I guess...satisfied with my answers? and he told me to just go ahead and do the drug test, and they'd discuss it internally. But went to great pains to avoid saying it would be fine. And I don't know why (desperation and poverty, that's why), but I did it. I went and got drug tested for this job, with no actual assurance that a positive result wouldn't hurt me. And the company was dead silent to me while they waited for those results to come in. I was fucking terrified the whole time that either a) they would rescind the offer when I tested positive OR b) that they would just keep it on file and use it as grounds for termination down the line.

And that is SO FUCKING STUPID! Why would that be a condition of employment, except to weed out recreational drug users? If I showed up stoned to work, these fucking hicks wouldn't know it. If anything, I'd probably be more tolerable to work with! They should be THANKING ME for being high sometimes. I'm doing them a service, and they're too ignorant to realize.

To so many people, especially in conservative areas, the idea of a "pothead" is this burnout caricature in a hemp poncho and a garden-level apartment. Employers find that undesirable, so they filter it out.

#Luckily #I got another (slightly better) job offer #and accepted it (about one hour) before the test results came in.#And I had a hilarious time with the woman who collected the sample. I told her I was going to intentionally fail #and she was trying to HELP ME TO CHEAT on the test (an ally). She was like “when was the last time you did it? It'll pass through your syst #I smoked last night. this shit is STRESSFUL" and we both laughed hysterically for the rest of our time together. I left the exam room cryin #and confused the hell out of a waiting room full of anxious people.

yeahiwasintheshit

andalusiapunk

so my brother was telling me about this human resources certification he attended a while ago. in a panel, the panelist asked a bunch of people in attendance, “who here knows if an applicant for a job is right for it in under 60 seconds?”

hands shot up around the room, people smug about their ability to “weed out the riff-raff” when it came to hiring for their fortune 500.

“you should all be fired and probably in jail,” they said, waiting for the whole room to get uncomfortable, then continued, “because the only things you can really learn about a human being in under 60 seconds are all things that are fueled by prejudices and biases covered by american law. so now, i will teach you how to stop being racist, sexist, judgmental assholes and hire people that will better your company of employ.”

sourcedumal

I need this to be force taught at all companies

citizen-zero

WIBTA for taking advantage of my boss’ possible manic episode?

I know this already sounds bad but hear me out.

So I (30M) am the sole employee of this guy (62M) who’s honestly just a miserable boss and an even more miserable person. It sucks so bad working for him—the pay is horrendous, he’s verbally abusive, and the working conditions are awful (in the winter I literally have to stay bundled up the whole work day because he refuses to put the heat on in the office). He wouldn’t even give me holidays off if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s basically nothing to do those days because everywhere else is closed. I’m almost positive he unironically thinks poor people should die if they can’t work. His nephew (aka his only living relative and just the nicest guy) came by yesterday to invite him to Christmas dinner and he told him he’d see him in hell.

I cannot stress this enough—it’s BAD. I’d quit, but it’s been hard finding a better job and I’ve got four kids at home, including one with special needs.

Anyway, so here’s where I’m wondering if I’d be the asshole. Today was Christmas Day and he showed up at my house out of nowhere (huge red flag, I know). At first I thought he’d forgotten I had the day off and he was here to chew me out, which was worrying enough, but then his whole demeanor changed and he was super happy and excited and talking about how he was going to raise my salary. He even mentioned possibly making me a partner in the firm.

Now if that was it, I’d feel a little weird about the suddenness of it but it’d be fine. I’m not going to complain about having more money to feed my family. But then he started talking about how he wanted to pay our mortgage off. He talked about wanting to pay for our son to get the very expensive medical care that’s probably going to save his life. He mentioned at one point that he was going to be donating a huge amount of money to charity too—I knew he was rich but it staggered me. All this from a guy who doesn’t (didn’t?) even want to turn on the heat or the lights because it costs too much money.

It was such a sudden and drastic change that happened very literally overnight and now I’m kind of concerned he’s having a manic episode or something. I really, really want to accept his sudden generosity (I probably will; my wife is all for it and thinks he owes it to us), and I would love to believe that he’s truly had a sudden change of heart (an actual Christmas miracle lol) but I’m just worried about the possible consequences of accepting huge financial gifts like this from someone who I believe might be experiencing some kind of break from reality. Even if there’s nothing legally wrong with it, I’m worried about the ethics of it.

TLDR, my asshole boss might be in the middle of a mental breakdown. WIBTA if I accepted his offer to pay off my mortgage and my son’s medical expenses?

dietmountandrew

I was so invested in this. I was IN IT.

And then like a bullet to the brain "oh wow you know whats funny? this sounds a lot like...Fuck. Right. Okay."