you ask about drugs and insurance; my advice is to quit

April 4, 2006 9:31 AM

I didn't want to derail this AskMe with this, so I clipped what I wrote there about drug testing and am posting it here. [more inside]
posted by phearlez to MetaFilter-Related at 9:31 AM (43 comments total)

That said, you don't mention anything about being clean for X days or how long you can stall the test, which leads me to think you're a [semi]regular partaker. I'd suggest to you that if you are concerned enough about your life and future to get insurance you should consider cutting back or quitting.

It's unfair that the cirrhosis peddlers get to advertise on TV and a weed is demonized, but that's the way it is. A cook friend of mine lost a shot at a very well-paying job because it was located at the airport and all employees there are drug screened. He didn't love the whacky tobaccy so much that he would have picked it over a better paying job, but you can't always stall someone for a month when a chance shows up. Until this idiotic War On Some Drugs That Lack Lobbyists is killed these kinds of problems are going to crop up.

You can choose to stand on principle and not do anything that requires drug testing, but as you're seeing here that can sometimes be difficult and not always clear when those issues will crop up. My cook buddy found out about this stumble right away but some states may not require pre-disclosure of a test requirement. If he'd quit his current job and showed up to work on the first day to find this requirement it would have been a disaster.
posted by phearlez at 9:31 AM on April 4, 2006

Not exactly MetaFilter-related
posted by rxrfrx at 9:33 AM on April 4, 2006

Say wha.
posted by billysumday at 9:37 AM on April 4, 2006

You've got to be kidding me.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:40 AM on April 4, 2006

Well, matt hasn't added a category for "ask me overflow babble" but that's a common thing to end up here. Seems like a tossup between etiquette and mefi related to me, if jess/matt disagree I don't mind it being reassigned.
posted by phearlez at 9:42 AM on April 4, 2006

phearlez, the function of MeTa is not to provide a thin—in this case I'm thinking of onion skins—layer of seperation between AskMe and your opinionating. If it's an AskMe comment that you don't think you should post, you almost surely should not post it to the gray.
posted by cortex at 9:43 AM on April 4, 2006

That is to say, your desire to keep AskMe green is commendable, but there's nothing in the relocated post that makes any damned sense in MeTa—you simply posted a highly-opinionated AskMe answer here.

The other two examples you cite are of responses to perceived bad behavior in AskMe. Whatever merit they may or may not have does not reflect on what you've done here.
posted by cortex at 9:46 AM on April 4, 2006

flagged as: noise, derail, breaking the guidelines, and other.
I would have also flagged it as smaller than a breadbox, but that option wasn't available.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:49 AM on April 4, 2006

Flagged as "one toke over the line."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:52 AM on April 4, 2006

Holy hell, where's the flag for "then just flag it and shut up?" I am boggled that people would be so offended by what they perceive as a misguided/unnecessary/misplaced post and yet feel like it makes perfect sense to respond to it.

Don't worry, Internet Justice League - even if this isn't deleted, someone will be along soon to complain about dios and then whine about newsfilter and it'll push this horrid and offensive abortion down the list.
posted by phearlez at 10:00 AM on April 4, 2006

Fight the Man, phearlez, I amright behind you. Just maybe, like, do it in a way that doesn't make us look lik eclued out dweebs?

To the front!
posted by Meatbomb at 10:00 AM on April 4, 2006

so... someone gonna make a MetaTalk comment about this thread?
posted by lyam at 10:05 AM on April 4, 2006

His email's in his profile.
posted by MarkAnd at 10:07 AM on April 4, 2006

[This is weird.]

Why not do a google search for blog entries about marijuana and post comments to each one? What I mean to say that if it's tangential enough to merit some odd meta-cross-post, then it's tangential enough to let. it. go.
posted by deadfather at 10:07 AM on April 4, 2006

Well, as to flagging it and moving on, while there isn't any reason why MeTa should be used to post AskMe overflow opinion, the point of the grey is, in fact, to discuss poor uses of the site (among other things.) It's perfectly acceptable to suggest that you were misguided in posting this thread. Which you were. Although it was a nice sentiment. Which it was.
posted by OmieWise at 10:08 AM on April 4, 2006

Don't defend yourself in a MeTa thread! The condemnations and supporting opinions come in waves, but defending oneself cuts the latter short.

Secret MeFi User Guide, Chapter 4, Part 3, § 3.2.9(a).
posted by Firas at 10:10 AM on April 4, 2006

Matt needs to fix up the blockquote CSS to look way prettier. Less margins please!
posted by Firas at 10:11 AM on April 4, 2006

There's a place for things like this.
posted by boo_radley at 10:20 AM on April 4, 2006

I think we need to admit that folks just aren't smart enough.

I mean sure, there are only three sections here, and they each have very narrow purposes, and those purposes are very clear and well defined, and the self-policing penalties for posting out-of-scope stuff is well known. But still people feel the need to put things where they don't belong. Somehow finding new ways to justify it. Somehow. And then even getting all pissed off when the obvious wtf'ing starts.

People are just not smart enough.

We need some polite bilerplate that basically says, "You screwed up. And we can see you've been here long enough to know better. So if you'd thought about it for even a few seconds you should have realized this was a bad idea. We're left with the conclusion that you just aren't smart enough. We're sorry. Please don't get mad at us. But we feel it's time someone told you this. You might try a blog. It doesn't have those pesky rules and guidelines that you're tripping over."
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:35 AM on April 4, 2006

bilerplate
What an awesome neologism.
posted by boo_radley at 10:36 AM on April 4, 2006

You might try a blog.

Somehow, this is the most cutting line in the whole thing.
posted by cortex at 10:37 AM on April 4, 2006

And I think "bilerplate" would make a cool word.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:37 AM on April 4, 2006

Well, maybe we can use this useless thread to discuss the stuff that going on in another thread before it was closed.
posted by dios at 10:47 AM on April 4, 2006

>>My cook buddy found out about this stumble...
ha ha cock buddy
posted by naxosaxur at 10:47 AM on April 4, 2006

I could post my movie idea from the other day again, and we can talk about it.
posted by ND¢ at 11:15 AM on April 4, 2006

Does anyone have a clip of themselves riding a luckdragon?
posted by Gator at 11:18 AM on April 4, 2006

flagged as redundantly redundant, overly excited, insufficiently motivated, irradiated and genetically modified.

You know what MeFi needs? A nemesis. Maybe we could all get together and gang up on... oh I dunno, Yahoo? or maybe the New York Times? Or even Fark! We attempt to Get Our War On, and focus all our stockpiled venom at the enemy!

Or have we met the enemy, and the enemy is us?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:21 AM on April 4, 2006

Metafilter: complain about dios and then whine about newsfilter and it'll push this horrid and offensive abortion down the list
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:23 AM on April 4, 2006

>>My cook buddy found out about this stumble...
ha ha cock buddy

Haha! High five, b!
posted by ludwig_van at 11:55 AM on April 4, 2006

OH, CLINT!
posted by cortex at 11:57 AM on April 4, 2006

And I think "bilerplate" would make a cool word.

I think that's how they pronounce it in West Virginia anyway...
posted by BobFrapples at 12:18 PM on April 4, 2006

cortex writes "Somehow, this is the most cutting line in the whole thing."

That's how it read to me, too.
posted by OmieWise at 12:18 PM on April 4, 2006

Jesus what a clusterfuck.
posted by keijo at 1:46 PM on April 4, 2006

Or, to retask that as religious criticism, Jesus: what a clusterfuck.
posted by cortex at 1:49 PM on April 4, 2006

Cloister: What a Jesus fuck
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:50 PM on April 4, 2006

Overheard in Aramathia:

"Jesus!"
"What?"
"A clusterfuck!"
[giggles, sound of men running in sandles]
posted by cortex at 2:01 PM on April 4, 2006

Metafilter: giggles, sound of men running in sandles

What's the difference between sandals and sandles anyway?
posted by keijo at 2:39 PM on April 4, 2006

poppo
posted by languagehat at 2:40 PM on April 4, 2006

Well, the pumps don't work cuz the vandles stole the sandles, is the thing.
posted by cortex at 3:14 PM on April 4, 2006

"Metafilter: complain about dios and then whine about newsfilter and it'll push this horrid and offensive abortion down the list"

I actually thought about this a lot today (because I spent a good portion of my day watching automated OS installs), and I decided it's better truncated to:

Metafilter: complain about dios and then whine about newsfilter
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:19 PM on April 4, 2006

"...so I clipped what I wrote there about drug testing and am posting it here."

Why? MetaTalk isn't your diary.
posted by majick at 12:46 PM on April 5, 2006

I'm not "getting all pissed off when the obvious wtf'ing starts" - I accept the statement that trying to preempt off-topic yack and make related but not immediately relevant to the question answers here was A Bad Idea. However much I'm willing to admit I'm wrong doesn't change the fact that I don't think much of jerky behavior.

I don't think MetaTalk is my diary and it wasn't my intention to pontificate or make it my blog; I just wanted to add what I thought was an worthwhile bit of advice to the original question.
posted by phearlez at 2:48 PM on April 5, 2006

Man, the first of those was definitely snark first and foremost, but the latter two -- especially the middle'n -- read to me as completely harmless goofery on the established theme.

Sucks to be on the receiving end of blowback, especially when you were trying to do right; I think that perhaps as a result of that you're reacting more sensitively to the topic than you'd be outside of your particular position.
posted by cortex at 3:03 PM on April 5, 2006