Thanks to those folks who gave me feedback on the job decision. I appreciate your thoughts.

I am not going to accept it.

I already had serious doubts about it - the five weeks of training on proprietary technology, our desire consider leaving Colorado in the spring, the stress of a call center job being chained to a desk in a shared cubicle wearing a headset all day. The deal breaker came today when I received my offer letter. "...paperwork, background and drug test needs to be completed as soon as possible.".



Drug test? No one mentioned that before. I am deeply and unalterably opposed to unwarranted workplace drug testing. I view the underlying motivation as too often political, and feel that it represents an effort to impose an oppressive social agenda on citizens who are increasingly willing to surrender their personal integrity and constitutionally and naturally endowed rights in the face of such coercion. I share the philosophy of the American Civil Liberties Union on this subject...

Privacy in America: Workplace Drug Testing

Today, in some industries, taking a drug test is as routine as filling out a job application....despite the fact that random drug testing is unfair, often inaccurate and unproven as a means of stopping drug use.

But because there are few laws protecting our privacy in the workplace, millions of American workers are tested yearly - even though they aren't suspected of drug use.

Employers have the right to expect workers not to be high or drunk on the job. But they shouldn't have the right to require employees to prove their innocence by taking a drug test.

That's not how America should work.

The American Civil Liberties Union opposes indiscriminate urine
testing because the process is both unfair and unnecessary. It is
unfair to force workers who are not even suspected of using drugs,
and whose job performance is satisfactory, to "prove" their innocence
through a degrading and uncertain procedure that violates personal
privacy. Such tests are unnecessary because they cannot detect
impairment and, thus, in no way enhance an employer's ability to
evaluate or predict job performance.

I am going to try painting full time for a few months. If I can complete fifteen or so successful paintings, I can approach a gallery for representation. Pat and I want to explore Silver City, NM as a prospective place to relocate to. We need to make the house sale-ready.

I am willing to tighten my belt to make these things happen.

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