{"id":9832,"date":"2006-10-25T18:22:35","date_gmt":"2006-10-26T01:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/10\/25\/making-the-world-safer-one-disgruntled-volunteer-at-a-time.html"},"modified":"2013-06-05T10:36:03","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T16:36:03","slug":"making_the_world_safer_on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/25\/making_the_world_safer_on.html","title":{"rendered":"Making the world safer, one disgruntled volunteer at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine that — gratuitously treat people as as-yet-uncaught criminals<\/a>, and they get all huffy and stomp off.<\/p>\n

Levy County’s public libraries are struggling to get books checked out or reshelved because retirees who usually handle many of those chores have balked at a requirement that they “pee in a cup” as part of a mandatory drug test for all county volunteers.<\/p>\n

“It’s not like we are a high-risk group for coming in drunk or high or stoned or whatever,” said one volunteer. “This is just a common-sense issue – why are we spending tax money to test 75-year-old grandmothers for marijuana? We should be using that money to buy more books and computers.”<\/p>\n

The situation has gotten to the point where the pool of 55 volunteers has dwindled to two and the number of hours worked by volunteers in the county’s five libraries plunged from 330 in September 2005 to 11 this September, according to county library records. None of the former volunteers contacted by The Sun wanted to be publicly identified in a story about drug-testing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why, the nerve! They should be bloody grateful to be volunteers, especially when they can be certain none of their other volunteers are reefer addicts! And just because they’re being told to drive to another town and pee in a cup within hearing distance of a tester (to make sure they aren’t smuggling in “clean” urine in their attempts to volunteer for library work) doesn’t mean their dignity is affronted. It just means they’re not trusted until proven “clean.”<\/p>\n

County officials said they realize that some people may find the test intrusive. “But our public risk management insurance says we should treat volunteers no differently that any other employees,” said Levy County Coordinator Fred Moody. “This is just the days that we are in and we know that there are some people who aren’t happy about this, but it is something we are requiring if anyone wants to volunteer.”<\/p>\n

Moody said the drug-testing as well as background checks required for library volunteers are identical to what is required of all county employees and volunteers, including dozens of unpaid firefighters and hundreds of Community Emergency Response Team members from among the 36,000 county residents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right! And if they don’t like it, well, they can just darned-well … leave …<\/p>\n

(via J-Walk<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine that — gratuitously treat people as as-yet-uncaught criminals, and they get all huffy and stomp off. Levy County’s public libraries are struggling to get books checked out or reshelved…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[132,371,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-privacy","category-war-on-drugs","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6971,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/22\/not_so_super_ma.html","url_meta":{"origin":9832,"position":0},"title":"Not-so-super, man","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Nov-04 8:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"A new study indicates that folks who are thinking about Superman are actually less likely to volunteer to help others. Folks were cued up with images of the Man of...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129487,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/14\/stereotypes-hurt-the-majority-too.html","url_meta":{"origin":9832,"position":1},"title":"Stereotypes hurt the majority, too","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Jan-16 3:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There's been a lot of interesting research published lately about \"stereotype threat\": the idea that people who are aware of being stereotyped in a certain negative way tend to perform worse in accordance with the stereotype. One noteworthy example is the stereotype that women are no good at math. 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