Congratulations Wolf.:celebrat:



On an unrelated note, although I love tea I have never been to a tea house. This has a lot to do with the fact that many of them have very limited hours of operation.

:rant:

BTW, I do think drug testing has gotten out of hand. The original excuse was to test for impairment, especially during to the operation of heavy machinery or vehicles. It has since devolved into a weird public-private partnership to invade privacy and check for even trace amounts of illegal drugs.

Let's say you get to choose your bus driver. It's Monday and:

1) Bus driver A has not had alcohol or drugs recently. He did, however, stay up the night with a crying baby so his wife could sleep. He's had about 3 hours sleep, on and off.

2) Bus driver B went on a drinking binge on Saturday and spent Sunday drying out.

3) Bus driver C smoked 1 marijuana cigarette on Friday night.

Because marijuana is illegal, even a trace amount will get driver C reprimanded or fired even though he is probably the least impaired of the group.

I don't drink or use drugs, but part of the lessons I learned from history is that the most progress is made when people care about issues outside of their narrow self interest.

I really wish I could start a company and announce with a big banner "We don't f***king care about your drug use, just show up ready to work". I could then get all of the best and brightest who would normally be worried about random testing.

I we applied strict random testing rules to 'ALL' employees, how many CEO's would have gotten the axe? How many U.S. presidents?

That's great news, wolf...Congratulations.

My daughter is Trauma Mgr, ER Nurse, and Continuing Ed Instructor for Central Oregon.
She was asked to substitute on a 1-day, 2-hr trauma class at our local PDX Community College.
Since it had been more than a year from her last teaching session there,
they said she had to re-qualify her credentials.

It was like getting a Driver's License, Passport, Nurse Certification, and dog license all over again.
She had 13 pages of forms, much of which was repetitious Name, Address, SS, ....

But she also had to document continuity of education since high school,
and continuity of employment since Nursing School,
and continuity of certification in teaching nursing trauma,
plus drug testing and a back-ground check.

It was double-whammy, because it was she who had trained the instructor in that same 3-credit course.

My God, Homeland Security has spread like oil on water.
No wonder medical costs are out-of-hand.

P.S. She did refuse to leave her daughter as collateral.

I am sufficiently desperate for work that I took the test without complaint. tester won't take them on principle, and has been refused several positions because of that. I'm not as hard line.

The facility in question is a drug and alcohol rehab. I understand why they would want to test their people, especially since in that industry it's very common to have "alumni" work for you after a sufficiently long period of sobriety.

In the department in which I will work, I will deal with a lot of incoming patients and property. Now, I've spent a lot of years identifying and inventorying oxycontin, ms-contin, House's Little Helpers, various types of speed, weed, crack, heroin, powder cocaine, booze of all varieties (the Randall Cunningham collectible wine was unique, though ... we gave that back to the patient on discharge because of it's collector value (the bottle was signed) and because we knew he didn't drink), but places do have stuff "disappear" that was supposed to be wasted. I went through a period where they were trying to catch someone doing it.

Hell, there's a hospital locally that announces on the job website that they now have a policy not to hire anyone who uses nicotine, and they test for it. Welcome to the brave new world.

If you should happen to have a weekday off, it might be nice to take the mrs. to tea. It's mostly the domain of the ladies, though. I can't remember ever seeing a dude in a teahouse, but I suppose it does happen. It's fun and it's relaxing.

congrats wolf!! that's awesome!

Afternoon tea, now that I get.
This is the Country House hotel I used to work in. Mum's been to tea with her ladies more than once.

(I never knew it to be served outside though. In front of a blazing fire is more likely)

Well, I must have peed properly.

I just finished completing the mass of pre-hire paperwork! There was a darn lot of it.

That tea looks lovely, It is more expensive that here, though. A full tea (with both soup and savory) usually runs around $25, which at today's rate is around 16 pounds. We also tend to go through lots of tea. I had two pots, for example, which helped me to "study" for the drug test.

This is the place I went to most recently: http://www.tillymints.com/

Looks like we get more variety of tea, too, mostly of flavored teas and tissanes.

That's like bragging about a pub that has more flavors of milk.....

Way to go, Wolf. :thumb:

Brawndo has metabolites!

It's really more like bragging about a pub that has more brands and varieties of beer.

Congrats on returning to the workforce, Wolf!

And now the next challenge. I need Tim Gunn to come to the house, and provide me guidance (I have his book here somewhere, I have to find it. I'm sure my questions are answered in there).

For more than the last 19 years, I have worked in an environment where I wore jeans and sneakers and tee shirts (often decorated tee shirts) every single day. Sometimes I would wear a polo shirt instead of a teeshirt, especially ones with the facility logo embroidered on them.

Well, guess what I can't wear at the new place? It's actually in the employee handbook they made me read. Jeans. Sneakers. Tee-Shirts.

Dress code is "business casual," which I know has a lot of leeway.

But I need help. Is there a fashion maven out there who can save me from myself?

Did you mean to say "guess what I can't wear...?"

The big question is, do you want to go more towards androgynous, or more towards feminine business casual? Because I'm pretty sure you could get away with polo shirts and slacks in most places, if that's what you want to keep wearing. Otherwise, my mom is a recovering anti-fashion maven, and she said she found this site really helpful.

You are completely right. I'll fix it.