la bomba shelter

Costco trip

Michele sent me to Costco for a couple items today.  I snapped the picture of the dirty Subaru in the parking lot.  We tend to buy a lot from Costco because they have such great prices.  And I know they take care of their employees fairly well compared to the norm these days.  My mom and stepfather were big fans and even both worked there in Sequim, WA in their retirement years.

I have such mixed feelings about the place, though.  I don’t know for sure, but guessing they drug test every employee.  This is something that probably 75% of society doesn’t find objectionable.  But there are problems with it — especially with public opinion on drug laws beginning to turn.  I always wonder why its necessary to delve so deeply into people’s private lives, lacking due suspicion.  Shouldn’t we limit drug testing to critical aspects and job positions, and for everybody else just flag problems in normal performance evaluation procedures?

20 years ago when he was running for President, Ross Perot said something to the effect of, he wanted to get all those pot  smokers in jail where they could make license plates and bust rocks all day.  Haven’t we moved forward from that point of view a little bit by now?  Most of the time I think the only positive accomplishment of the proliferation of drug testing has been to create a whole new testing industry.

The other aspect of Costco I don’t like is having to stop on the way out and have somebody go over the items in my cart and compare them to the receipt.  The corporate culture of Costco seems to be that all employees are presumed to have drug problems and all customers are presumed to be shoplifters [subject to verification].  And it would be nice to treat both employees and customers with greater dignity and respect, if it didn’t affect their bottom line [potentially; subject to verification].

Most days I just forget about all that.  I guess the dirty, filthy Anchorage Spring breakup just has me in a funk today!