Blackmoor Vituperative

It’s 06:00 Sunday morning. I have been laying awake for an hour.

I had a job interview Friday at one of the more prestigious companies in Richmond. It doesn’t matter which one. Toward the end of the interview, they mentioned the section on my resume toward the end, where I state:

I will consent to pre- or post-employment drug testing only if I am or will be directly responsible for the lives of others, or if I must obtain and maintain a security clearance from the Unites States federal government.

The interviewer said that a humiliating invasion of my personal privacy (i.e., “drug testing”) was a requirement for the position, and that I wouldn’t be offered the position unless I consented to it. Note that I hadn’t actually been offered the job, but if I were offered the position, consenting to this debasement would be a condition of my employment.

I really want that job. I still do. It would be a great opportunity for me, with a great company, doing exactly what I want to do. I grudgingly said that I would consent, if offered the job.

I have hated myself ever since saying it. If I am offered the job, and if I consent to this pre-employment rape just to get a paycheck, I will hate the company and every moment I work there.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”

Has this phrase become meaningless? If it doesn’t apply to your most intimate of medical information, then what good is it?

I am going to start lobbying the General Assembly, to ask them to create an Employee Medical Privacy Act. The legitimate business interests of an employer do not extend to the private medical information of their employees and prospective employees. This grotesque and despicable invasion of Virginians’ privacy has gone too far. The practice has become so commonplace that only action by the General Assembly can protect us from it. If they won’t protect us from this vile and humiliating practice, then they need to be voted out of office and replaced with people who will.

In the meantime, I am going to contact that employer on Monday, and tell them that although I would love to have that job, that I will not and will never submit to being humiliated and debased as a condition of employment. If more of us stood up and said this, this despicable practice would end. But because most of use aren’t standing up against this obscene invasion of our most intimate private matters, it won’t stop until the government of Virginia puts a stop to it.

Frankly, I do not expect that to happen. But someone has to try, and I don’t see anyone else trying, so I guess I will have to be the one to start.

In case I was wondering if my decision to get out of IT (eventually) was just an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato… the fine folks at TechRepublic and ZDNet have put my mind at ease. The era of independent IT consulting is, indeed, over.

Even as little as five years ago, an IT consultant was an outside expert called in to solve problems, or to create value for a business who wanted to find an edge over the competition. As the holder of knowledge and skills few others possessed, we were respected, and clients listened.

This is no longer true. IT has become a commodity: widely available, aggressively priced, and valued as much as a business values its janitorial staff or the company that handles its payroll. IT is simply another necessary cost which provides no significant business benefit other than to keep the status quo in place.

A good friend of mine, who provides technology policy advice to the state of Virginia, put it this way: when there is a job that your business needs done in a way that no one else is doing, you want to hire the best you can find and make sure you keep them. When that job is something every business needs to have done, in pretty much the same way, it makes sense to outsource it at the lowest cost possible. IT is just overhead, like janitorial service, or building maintenance, and it is put in the same category in the business’ ledger.

There is nothing here to “ride out”. IT has become a commodity, as valuable and respected and as easily replaced as light bulbs and batteries. We had a good run while it lasted, but technology and society have moved on. One might as well try to open a boutique that sells paper towels.

Dixie Sommers, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, recites a list of the 10 occupations that the BLS expects will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade. The bad news? Six of the top seven fastest-growing occupations are low-skill, low-wage jobs.

Not great news for me. IT has become a commodity for businesses, much like janitorial service or payroll — a necessary expense, and one which a great many people are willing to provide, aggressively competing on price in the process. The days when legions of businesses were scrambling to hire the best and brightest IT people for a competitive advantage are over. We have become temps.

There is no sense in gnashing our teeth, tearing our clothes, and bemoaning a changing society. As with buggy whips and “copyright”, the days of earning a lot of money just by goofing around with computers is gone — whether or not people want to admit it.

So, what to do? Change fields entirely? I have not the stomach for the health care industry, so that’s right out. Switch from Computer Science to Accounting, perhaps?

Or perhaps find a niche that will allow me to struggle on, perhaps not quite as comfortably, but still in the field that I love. Perhaps I should strive to break into auditing, and work toward a CISA certification.

I am not certain. What I do know is that I will not be able to continue on the path I am on. It was paradise while it lasted, but nothing lasts forever.

This is for any potential employers or hiring managers who might take the trouble to Google me before scheduling me for an interview: I do not sign covenants not to compete. If you do not want me to use my skills for the benefit of your competitor, then treat me honorably and pay me fairly. It is just that simple.

There is an implicit assumption behind these “noncompetes” that the employer’s needs and wants are more important than those of the employee. Employer-employee is a business relationship. Each gives something. Each gets something. They are equals. Any agreement of any kind that favors one over the other should be rejected out of hand.

Have you ever seen a noncompete where the employer is forbidden from replacing the employee for six months if they leave? Of course not. That would be ridiculous. So why do people sign promises that they will be unemployed for six months after leaving a company?

When I was younger and more easily intimidated, I would sign nearly anything an employer asked me to sign. I am older and wiser now. If the agreement does not treat both parties fairly, I don’t agree to it.

Note that a covenant not to compete is not the same thing as a nondisclosure agreement. Preserving the trade secrets of a previous employer is just ordinary ethical behavior, and I have and will preserve those secrets with or without a nondisclosure agreement. Since signing a nondisclosure agreement will not alter my behavior in any way, I will cheerfully sign one — as long as it is a nondisclosure agreement. At least one potential employer has asked me to sign a “nondisclosure agreement” which was, in fact, a covenant not to compete. I suspect the irony of that attempted deception was lost on them.

This is for any potential employers or hiring managers who might take the trouble to Google me before scheduling me for an interview: I do not consent to drug testing. Any medication I may be taking is a matter of interest to two people: me, and my doctor. No one else.

To be more specific, I will consent to the insult and humiliation of pre- or post-employment drug testing if and only if the person making the request has a truly compelling reason for asking. Here are a few reasons I consider adequately compelling:

1. I am or will be directly responsible for the lives of others. For example, if I am a heart surgeon, or if my primary activity will cause the immediate gruesome deaths of the people around me if I make the slightest mistake — some kind of bomb disposal, perhaps.
2. I have access to information which will place others’ lives in immediate danger if it is revealed. For example, if I maintain a server which contains the names and assignments of law enforcement officers. (In fact, I gave my consent for this reason when I worked for the US Coast Guard in Norfolk, VA.)
3. I must attain and maintain a security clearance from the Unites States federal government. (I gave my consent for this reason when I worked for the US Joint Forces Command in Suffolk, VA.)
4. Any other circumstance where my responsibility literally means life or death for another person. The life of another person is more important than my dignity.

I think that should be sufficiently clear, but just in case, here are some reasons that I do not consider adequate:

1. The pre-employment screening is “company policy”. (That’s not a reason: that’s an evasion.)
2. Everyone else in the company, including the owner or stockholders, has consented to be tested. (Peer pressure is not a good reason to smoke, and it is certainly not a good reason to allow someone to treat me like a criminal.)
3. I have access to information which could potentially cost the employer trillions upon trillions of dollars if it is revealed or misused. (No amount of money is worth my privacy and dignity.)

It is my opinion that no employer worth working for will make unnecessary humiliation of the applicant part of the “screening” process, and that no competent, self-respecting person will consent to it unless they are truly desperate.

I think I may get out of IT.

I am tired of Windows and the poor decisions it encourages. I am tired of companies that ostensibly hire you for your competence and professionalism, and then micromanage your software choices and filter your internet access. I am tired of companies that make ritual humiliation part of the interview process. I am tired of competing with people from India who are just as smart as I am and who will put up with more BS.

Most of all, I am tired of companies that see IT workers as little more than D-cell batteries of knowledge — just as disposable, and just as easily replaced.

Maybe I am just tired.