Trend Analysis

A topic that I think would be very interesting for my Trend Analysis paper would be to research the soaring usage of the drug methamphetamine and how it destroys the lives of many every day people who get caught up in the drug. It is very interesting because people can make this drug in their homes.

"Nickel and Dimed"

While applying for various jobs in Minneapolis, Ehrenreich is required to take drug tests before being hired. She is worried about passing them and is badly in need of a job, so she looks for solutions to her problem on the Web. During her search, she finds many ingestible products that all promise to rid the body of elements that may show up on a drug test. One site even offers a vial of good urine to use in place of one’s own for a drug test. The urine also conveniently comes with a battery-heater to create a realistic body temperature, which is key for a drug test. These drug tests are seen as unnecessary and useless by Ehrenreich, because she sees the many ways around them that people likely use every day for these screening tests. She doesn’t even think some companies use or care about the results as much as they make it seem, which makes the tests even more useless and wasteful of money.
Requiring employees to take drug tests isn’t very effective, because drug-using applicants often foresee this obstacle and can easily overcome it by using the method Ehrenreich did or by simply staying drug free before interviewing for a job. A person dependent on drugs isn’t going to stop just to be hired and to get a job. If they pass the test and are hired, it is likely that they will continue to use drugs while they are employed, causing problems that the company was trying to avoid in the first place. Drug testing is a waste of company money because it isn’t very effective in preventing or even monitoring drug-use among potential or current employees.
Companies may even be getting less productive workers by giving a drug test to all of their employees upon hiring them, because the employees may feel that the company doesn’t see them as trustworthy or respectable, and negative feelings may develop between employer and employee. The employee probably won’t do his best work or put in an extra effort for a company that he sees as condescending towards its workers.
If I were required to take a drug test before I was hired by a company I would immediately feel that I wasn’t trusted by the company. Even though I know an employer only does it as a precaution, I would want my word to be enough proof for them that I’m not using drugs. Also, I would want my actual interview to have more influence on whether or not I was hired than the results of a drug test.
I don’t feel that drug tests are necessary to find if an employee will be responsible and productive on the job. Let a person do what they want on their own time, and if their leisure activities affect their job performance, let them pay the consequences then.

Ethnography Proposal

The subculture I am considering to study for my ethnography paper is the mothers who are part of the ECFE program in New Prague. They are young mothers who get together in small groups to talk about many various things: mainly being young mothers. The ECFE program is for parents with preschool children. Many events are planned for families to enjoy together, and previously I didn’t even know that there were smaller parent (or mother) groups that got together.
I plan on doing the research for this paper with Ellie and she brought this possible subculture to my attention. Ellie’s sister, Lindsay, proposed that we study this subculture because she is part of one of the groups and thought we would both enjoy spending time with the women in them. This subculture interests me because I would like to become a mother someday, and I think it would be a good learning experience for me. I chose this subculture partially because I couldn’t really think of another one, and when Ellie suggested it, it sounded interesting and fun. One bias I have coming into this project may be that I am expecting many of the mothers to be stay-at-home moms who don’t have anything better to do during the day. Especially if the group we observe is during the day. I know this is unreasonable but aren’t all biases? Other than that I don’t think I’m very biased because I can’t really be biased against a group of mothers.
Some obstacles I may run into along while working on the project are finding a time that a group meets that also works into my schedule. I know some of the groups meet in the middle of the day and I won’t be able to attend these meetings because I will be in school. Just finding time to do this project is the major obstacle I’ll run into, but I think that by making sure I start early and continue to work on it through the trimester I will be able to finish it.
I may interview Lindsay, Ellie’s sister, since she is part of a group, but right now I don’t really know of any others I could interview. I haven’t been in contact with anyone else from the groups or the organization. To begin my project I will need to know the times and dates of the groups so I can attend the meetings. I don’t feel I will need to do much research on the subculture because I have been around mothers before and have some knowledge of them. Also, I can’t think of anything that I would do to offend the mothers in these groups.

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