Not having a car is a fantastic way to
save money. The typical American spends more than $10,000 a year
gassing, maintaining, parking, and paying taxes on his or her car. And
while Seattle isn’t the easiest city in the world to navigate
carless—even though the first light-rail line opens this year, we
can’t compete with transit cities like Chicago, New York, or San
Francisco—a bike, a few Metro bus schedules (or a BlackBerry or
iPhone with access to www.onebusaway.org), a membership to
Zipcar (www.zipcar.com), and a
little patience should be enough to get you around the city without too
much pain and suffering. Just remember: Metro is not a cab (take a
book, prepare for delays, and learn how to share space with others), a
bike is not a car (watch where you’re going, ride defensively, and wear
a helmet), and bumming rides is only cool if you offer to help pay for
gas.
(to Replace That Car with)
First, ask around. You’d be surprised how
many people (your parents? Your friends? Your friends’ parents?) have
an old bike lying around. But you must get the bike tuned up
(around $40, or have a bike-geek friend do it in exchange for
beer—having brakes that work: priceless). If you have to buy a
bike and you have money to spend, the best bet is a new hybrid bike
from a brand like Marin or Giant,
which will set you back between
$300 and $500. The advantages: They usually come with some sort of
warranty (or at least a free initial tune-up), and you know what you’re
getting—used bikes could be damaged in ways that aren’t initially
obvious (like a bent frame). If you decide to buy a used one, go with a
reputable store: Recycled Cycles in the U-District has a good
selection. You need a helmet, and if you’re going to ride at night, a
front and back light. And a back fender is a good idea.
Is there a better job than being a drug
dealer? There isn’t. Fact. And there’s no better time to get into the
business than right now. An overburdened jail and court system means
you’re not likely to get prosecuted for minor drug offenses in King
County, especially if you’re only selling weed. Countywide budget cuts
have forced courts to brush away folks charged with possessing up to
100 grams of pot or 12 marijuana plants; up to three grams of cocaine,
heroin, or methamphetamine (but don’t use or deal heroin or
methamphetamine, okay?); up to 20 ecstasy pills; or up to 50
prescription pills.
Again, definitely illegal, but landing in the slammer is less likely
than ever. If you get arrested—which probably means you just
weren’t cut out for being in this line of work, anyway—you may
walk away with a gross misdemeanor on your record, which is, well, not
the felony you would have been charged with when the economy was better
and the courts had more money. As a bonus to being able to get high and
play video games on your couch for a living, you’ll be that much closer
to living out that Tony Montana fantasy you’ve had since you were 15
and gain some good material for your forthcoming rap album. Now all you
have to do is find somebody who can afford to buy your shit.
The whole point of unemployment benefits
is to help people who have been screwed over by a recession, or by
sudden big-business downsizing, or by some other economic force of
nature. If you want to receive unemployment benefits, you need to be
among the screwed over.
This means no getting shit-canned for stealing paper clips or
quitting in a huff over something stupid. “If you were fired or
voluntarily quit, typically you wouldn’t be eligible for unemployment,”
says Mark Varadian, spokesman for Washington State’s Employment
Security Department. (There are some exceptions if you’re forced to
quit for a “good cause” reason. For example: your pay and/or hours have
been reduced by 25 percent or more; your spouse is in the military and
has been transferred, forcing you to relocate; or your employer is
allowing illegal activities or unsafe working conditions.)
Your employer regularly pays into the state fund that distributes
unemployment benefits, and in general, a business has to pay more into
this fund if it has a history of layoffs. Which creates the possibility
of a perverse incentive—essentially, it can be in your employer’s
financial interest to have you quit (or find cause to fire you) rather
than lay you off. Questions? Fears? Employment lawyers aren’t cheap,
but they do know the ins and outs of this. And while the state
unemployment hotline (800-318-6022) can’t give out legal advice, it’s a
free resource and can advise you of all the job-
departure
scenarios in which you will (or won’t) get unemployment benefits.
Apply online (www.esd.wa.gov). If you must file your
unemployment claim by phone, don’t hang up if you’re put on
hold. On a recent Saturday, most calls to the state unemployment
hotline were answered in two minutes—but most people who were put
on hold waited only a minute and a half before giving up. “You have to
be patient,” Mark Varadian of the Employment Security Department says.
“If you are on hold, don’t hang up, because when you call back you’re
going to be at the end of the line.” (The hotline number: 800-318-6022.
The hotline hours: weekdays 8 am–5 pm, Sat 8 am–noon. Best
times to call: Wednesday and Thursday morning. Worst time to call:
Monday morning.)
What do you need to know before you sit down at the computer or pick
up the phone? “You need to know the names and addresses of all your
employers for the past two years,” Varadian says. “You also need to
know your start dates and end dates, and why you lost your job.” That’s
it. Your employers will report how much you were paid and the
Employment Security Department will calculate your benefits based on
those reports.
Been Laid Off But Think It Might Happen
It’s complicated, and the best way to
figure it out is to go to www.esd.wa.gov/uibenefits/benefitcheck/how-much.php.
But briefly: Say you’re filing for unemployment sometime this month,
March. If so, your unemployment check will be based on what you made
between the fourth quarter of 2007 (Oct, Nov, Dec) and the third
quarter of 2008 (July, Aug, Sept)—specifically, on the average of
your two highest-grossing quarters within that period of time. By
looking at paycheck stubs, you can figure out which were your
highest-grossing quarters, add the gross income from those two quarters
together, divide by two, and multiply that figure by .0385. This will
be your weekly check amount within a decent degree of accuracy. For
example, if you were making $36,000 a year back then, with no raises
and no breaks in employment, your weekly benefit amount would probably
be around $346 per week. The bottom of the current weekly-benefit scale
is $129 per week, and the current top of the scale is $541 per week.
But thanks to the passage of the recent federal and state stimulus
bills, weekly unemployment-benefit checks will be going up, with the
Feds giving you $25 more per week (retroactive to Feb 22, but not
showing up in your unemployment checks until first week of May) and the
state giving you $45 more per week (effective the first week of
May).
Artists have been doing it forever. The
performer and Free Sheep Foundation cofounder DK Pan, for instance, has
been paid about $10,000 over the last decade for the medical
experiments he’s taken part in. One involved him taking an
antipsychotic drug with 30 other men, all of them sitting around a
table and trying to stay active for six hours while testers yelled at
them to keep them awake. Another involved being hooked up to a morphine
drip and given electric shocks. But those were exceptions. In general,
he says, “It’s boring and just involves a lot of blood draws.” The main
lab looking for subjects locally is Charles River Clinical Services
Northwest in Tacoma (3615 Pacific Ave, 877-NW-STUDY). You can also sell
your blood plasma ($20–$50 each time, Biomat USA, 7726 15th Ave
NW, 782-6675, don’t bother if you’re a sexually active man who has sex
with men), sperm ($60–$100 per shot, Seattle Sperm Bank, 4915
25th Ave NE #204, 588-1484), eggs (up to $5,500, www.overlakereproductivehealth.com),
or hair (www.thehairtrader.com). On the Hair
Trader, the record sale is a 37-inch dark-blond-with-red-highlights
ponytail from the head of a girl in Wenatchee, Washington, for which
she got $2,600.
Want more? Be paid to drink socially: Call UW Project FRESH at
543-5536. Be paid to eat carbs for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center (if you’re a healthy, overweight, nonsmoking man aged
18–45): 667-2547 or www.carbstudy.org. Get a $30 Safeway
card to smoke or not smoke: Call 543-7680 or e-mail sarahruu@u.washington. Get
paid to continue having Irritable Bowel Syndrome: 616-9955. Get paid to
have skin biopsies if you’ve had nongenital HSV-2 (herpes): 720-4340 or
visit www.herpes.washington.edu.
The day-labor market isn’t exactly
booming, but it’s an option. Time was, you could show up at the
Millionair Club Charity (2515 Western Ave, 728-5627) between 6:00 and
8:00 a.m., sign up, and probably be out on a job that afternoon, making
at least $9 an hour gardening, pulling carpet tacks out of hardwood
floors, and so on. Not anymore. According to spokesperson Deborah
Crawley, the number of people looking for work has gone up 15 percent
and the number of people looking for workers has gone down 15 percent.
The hall is full every day, she says, and if 30 out of the assembled
125 find work, “it’s a good day.” (Winter is slow, anyway.) CASA Latina
(2330 Western Ave, 229-2272) has a similar day-labor program with
similarly grim numbers. Unofficially, the Lowe’s parking lot (2700
Rainier Ave S) is the place to hang out and wait for day-labor work.
Even if the Millionair Club probably can’t find you work, it can get
you fed. Around 500 people a day eat breakfast and lunch there. Anyone
can eat, no membership or faked enthusiasm for Jesus necessary. Last
December, the Club served its 10 millionth meal.
Ironically, due to massive budget cuts,
the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has completely overhauled
how it prosecutes crimes like theft, forgery, possession of stolen
property, organized theft, identity theft, money laundering, insurance
fraud, and burglary. If you’re smart about what you steal, and keep
your crime under $1,000, you’re not likely to face felony charges.
(It’s possible your case could get kicked down to the municipal courts,
but then it’s only a misdemeanor. And hell, you may not even get
caught.) Some officers in the Seattle Police Department already say
they’re hesitant to do anything other than catch and release small-time
shoplifters and petty criminals, and the King County Sheriff’s Office
has also said it will be hard-pressed to investigate low-level property
crimes.
According to law-enforcement sources, “most of the stuff” on
Craigslist is stolen, but there’s not much the police can do. Just make
sure you’re not offering a too-good-to-be-true discount. That’s what
the cops are looking for. Two final pieces of advice: Don’t go stealing
cars (the county still has a mad-on for car thieves), and don’t rob a
bank (two-thirds of bank robbers get caught, and the average amount
obtained in bank robberies is $10,000—not nearly enough to live
somewhere warm for the rest of your life sipping drinks with tiny paper
umbrellas in them).
First and foremost, lock your shit up!
Thieves and marauders won’t be able to gain easy access to the contents
of your home, car, or CB-2000 if you just take this one little step.
Get a U-lock for your bike. Don’t ever leave anything of any value
visible in your car. Carry a fake wallet around—filled with a few
bucks and a worthless ID card—if you’re worried about getting
mugged. Listen to your gut. And call the Seattle Police Department if
you believe you’re in any real danger.
If you’re low-income—it varies based
on family size, but a two-person household making between $758 and
$2,333 a month qualifies—you may be eligible for the Washington
Basic Health program (www.basichealth.hca.wa.gov), which provides
preventive, mental health, urgent, and other basic care for little or
no cost. However, because the budget for Basic Health was cut last
year, you may have to wait a while to get a slot in the system. Even if
you don’t qualify, everyone is entitled to use King County Public
Health clinics (http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health.aspx),
which offer low- or no-cost medical services including family planning,
immunizations, STD screening, and basic health care. The downside: long
waits. There are also a number of privately run community health
centers—Country Doctor Community Clinic (500 19th Ave E,
299-1600) is probably the best known—that serve people on a
sliding scale throughout King County. A complete list of community
clinics is also available on the county health department’s website.
Although the county offers some dental care, you can also get low-cost
cleanings and other services at the University of Washington School of
Dentistry (www.dental.washington.edu). And for family planning,
STD treatment and screening, and abortion referrals, go to Planned
Parenthood (www.plannedparenthood.org/ppgnw).
Testing
There’s only one guaranteed method to pass
a drug test: Don’t do drugs. But you’d have to be high to choose that
method. Realistically, passing your test is more difficult than it was
a decade ago, when a glut of products cleaned urine with reliable
results. As technology to detect those products advances, fewer and
fewer work. The best advice: Stop smoking pot the moment you find out
you’ll be drug tested. THC, the active ingredient in pot, is by far the
most tenacious of the chemicals that can linger in your system. Drink
lots of water beforehand to dilute the concentration of metabolites in
your urine. Don’t let your first piss of the day be the one you take
into that cup; metabolites build up as you sleep. If you can, switch
your piss with a sample from one of your straight-edge friends. And
there are products online and in tobacco shops to help: detox pills,
shakes, and drinks. (Note: Evading or tampering with a drug test could
be illegal—of course, so is smoking pot.) If you fail your test
anyway and you still want that job, superstar pot-defense attorney
Jeffrey Steinborn recommends challenging the scientific merits of the
test (you’ll need a lawyer to do this). Most labs can’t afford to prove
in court that their methods—chemical scans, print-outs, and data
analysis—actually work. “When you are desperate and have no
choice but to challenge that test, you have a damn good chance of
prevailing,” he says.
What stage of indebtedness are you in? If
you’ve only missed a few payments, the best route is to call the
company and see if you can negotiate a deal that allows you to keep
your credit rating mostly intact while paying the company back at a
slower rate. This sometimes requires freezing your credit card for a
while, but that’s better than losing a source of credit altogether. If
your cards have been frozen or your debt has gone into collections, you
still have options. Figure out—before you call your creditors or
pick up the phone when one of them calls—exactly how much you can
afford to pay. In most cases, creditors are happy to negotiate over the
exact amount of monthly payments—they want to get their money
back, even if it takes a little longer than they’d like. The worst
thing you can do is ignore them—contrary to all-too-common
belief, debts cannot be wished away. Deal with them head on, and
remember: Even credit collectors are people, too. 
How to be a thief. Heh heh…
The leg is looking at cuts of up to 40% to Basic Health. Good luck waiting at the public clinics.
In reference to the first paragraph – if you have a goddamn blackberry or an iphone, you best not be complaining about money. Those things are rich man toys.
In fact, if you’re paying for the internet and complaining about money, please re-evaluate your priorities. I promise you can go a month or two without reading Savage’s come-dodging stories (remember, you can do that in print)or finding the most obscure Ukrainian porn.
Selling hair seems a little weird. I understand this is all about finding revenue, but we should at least mention options like Locks of Love (http://www.locksoflove.com).
I’m growing my hair out for this cause, as it seems like such an easy way to help a little girl going through chemo. Knowing that someone could benefit from my haircut avoidance makes it tough to justify selling it to the highest bidder.
Selling weed, however, is a great way to make money AND help cancer patients.
Internet access is pretty much mandatory for job hunting. Sure, you can find some jobs without it, but you’ll be competing speed-wise with everyone else who does. It also helps with reducing entertainment costs.
Blackberries used to be rich men’s toys but not anymore. Service isn’t much more than a normal cell phone. And contracts mean you can’t simply drop the service without incurring an even larger charge.
Better places to cut back are drinking and eating out. That’ll save the $100/mo blackberry and internet service cost.
this article didn’t actually give much information on HOW to do anything.
Hell yes you can wish away debts. It just takes a long time.
Statute of limitations for debt collection:
http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/SOL-…
And if you don’t do shit about a debt, and continually deny it to the agencies, it won’t be on your credit report after seven years.
This isn’t GOOD ADVICE if you can avoid it, but if you can’t avoid it long term and don’t want bankruptcy, then dig in.
If the debt collectors call you, don’t give them any information. Ask for an address. Write a letter that says “stop contacting me, forever” and move on and wait the seven years.
How about dumpster diving? We did that in college all the time and you’d be amazed at the well packaged gems you can find just slightly past pull date.
Pizza places and doughnut shops or bakeries are great to hang out behind right after closing time. Employees are often instructed to dump the day’s leftover food, but if they see your puppy dog eyes chances are you can get some great food for free!
OMG a hybrid bike? What a joke. You will never look cool on one of those.
Learn how to ride a fixie, loser.
Has cocaine destroyed your collective moral compass? Thievery is always wrong, from Enron execs down to toothless crackheads, that shit is wack. Seriously, whoever authored this section deserves a kick in the nutz, and to have their shit stolen. Cornholers!
selling weed is actually a pretty lousy way to make money (unless it’s in LAARRGGE quantities), but it is a *sweet* way to keep yourself stoned for free, if you don’t mind all the running around required.
Your blurb on drug testing left a LOT to be desired. You were right to advise that you must stop smoking pot immediately. A one time high (non pot smoker takes 3 hits off a joint) can test clean in 3 to 5 days. A regular heavy duty stoner can take up to 3 months to test clean. I hit 3 bowls a day, 180 lbs with good metabolism and it takes me about 3 weeks abstaining to test clean. Your fat content greatly determines how long the THC will stick around. Fatties will test positive much longer than a lean 9% fat yoga instructor even if they smoke the same quantity of good bud.
Nothing you can eat or drink at the headshop will make you piss clean. They may slightly help the dilution process, but you can do that yourself for much cheaper (those drinks can run between $40-60. All they are is gatorade with salt, creatine and multi-vitamins.)
Drinking lots of water days before the test is useless. THC is not water soluble. Drinking a reasonably large amount of water just prior to the test can help, but labs can easily detect dilution by measuring your creatine and specific gravity levels (and they all do.) If you are going to dilute you want to start taking creatine supplements a few days before and eat lots of red meat. And dilute with gatorade, not water. It will keep your specific gravity in line.
Substitution is the best way to pass a drug test. If it’s a pre-employment test it’s the way to go. A DOT or “reasonable suspicion” test will probably be observed so substitution won’t work. You can use either a clean friends pee or go to the headshop and buy QuickFix. Quickfix is pre-mixed synthetic urine and currently cannot be detected in a laboratory test (but that is coming soon enough.) Regardless of which urine source you choose, it must be between 92 and 100 degrees. Keeping the sample in your tighty whities will keep it that temp for an hour or so. You can wrap it in a hand warmer pad to keep it hotter longer. If the pee is not within the right temperature they will make you give another sample prior to leaving. And of course your own pee is dirty right? So don’t screw up the temperature. Clean human pee stays in the refrigerator for a few days. Quickfix is good for months as long as it’s not subjected to sunlight.
You can challenge drug tests scientifically if you want, but it won’t help you one iota if it’s for a pre-employment drug test. The employer has no legal obligation to hire you, and they certainly aren’t going to be persuaded if you start threatening lawsuits, etc. You might be able to scientifically challenge a drug test that leads to you getting fired. But of course then your employer is just going to look for another reason to shit can you.
It’s a sad fact, but you can snort coke on your way to the drug test and have a reasonable chance of passing since it takes awhile for the metabolites to hit your urine. Then it leaves your body in a couple of days. But THC can be detected easily, cheaply and for a long time after smoking. Also, simply testing positive for THC has no bearing whatsoever on your state of impairment since it may have been weeks since you last smoked. While it may be absolutely ridiculous to subject pot smokers to this treatment, it is just the way it is.
For more advice, go to http://www.marijuana.com and check the drug testing forum. The forum is moderated by real live drug testing technicians who actually like helping pot smokers pass these tests. They have helped thousands of stoners get and keep their jobs. The website is semi-commercial but I am not paid one dime to drop their name. I have just been greatly helped by their advice and you can be too.
Winner. Steal stuff, deal drugs. So if you were already not planning for your future by putting money aside while you did have your job, you are going to feel Double Awesome by doing these recommendations.
Where’s personal accountability in this, or doing something edifying that brings you closer to your goals/dreams?
I suspect this is falling on deaf ears, but doing this stuff will not lead to anything positive that leads to you getting to where you really want to get to and accomplishing the truly great things you want to in your life.
seriously. there have been two level-headed responses, both dealing with personal responsibility. how did we get here? psychopathic thinking. why is there so much injustice? people taking what they need at the behest of others. the fact that a popular “magazine” would promote these selfish, destructive, psychopathic remedies to what is essentially a problem of ethical accountability is laughable at best and just plain destructive, irresponsible, and misleading at worst. what the fuck are you trying to prove by promoting criminal sociopathy? think about the ramifications.
Before we get another “soap box” preacher about personal responsibility, let’s keep in mind the audience for and attitude of Le Stranger:
1) Average median age of a Stranger reader is 35 (according to a Stranger article I can’t recall)
2) The Stranger places its “tongue firmly in cheek” (or other orifices)about these type of things (aka taking the piss)
3) Someone is not going to deal drugs or commit a crime for the first time based on The Stranger. Hell, do you really think any of these degenerates would. No, they are too busy dealing and stealing.
4) Finally, people who read the Stranger are most likely upper-middle class (read “white”, DINKS, SINKS, etc) with disposable income or have cash to blow on piercings, tattoos, beer, etc. C’mon it is Seattle people.
God Bless the Stranger for one of the few forms of media that treats its audience as thinking adults and not mindless zombies.
Evidently lacking a moral compass is only something that we criticize politicians or large corporations for and don’t apply to our daily lives.
As mentioned previously, you don’t have to pay your debts, at least not immediately. Don’t even bother calling collectors if you don’t have the cash or can’t commit to paying on a specific date. Otherwise you’re in for a long, pointless and one-sided conversation.
Collectors may be ‘people’ too, but they’re usually ignorant, petty and vindictive people.
To avoided the auto-dialer simply use a free phone service or cheap pre-paid cell phone and provide the phone number to the creditor as your “home” number. Then turn off the ringer and check at your convenience.
Once you’re back on your feet, offer to settle the debts and then dispute anything that shows up negative on your credit report. Haggle. Don’t pay the extra fees, and the fees upon the fees. Don’t settle without pressing them to remove the negative item from your credit report.
About that shoplifting, you know you liked it, Stranger editor,cause you highlighted it. Probably thought it was edgy when it’s just old fashioned. Maybe you still think shoplifting is sticking it to the man, but don’t forget, anybody who gets their revenue from advertising dollars is the man. (Got a mirror handy?) Maybe your advertisers should think twice about paying money to a group which advocates stealing from their very shops. Too bad you don’t sell your paper, cause then I could start stealing it. But why would I want to?
“How to be a thief. Heh heh…”
I’m guessing you’ve never been ripped off, Scott. Perhaps you should be. And to the staff of The Stranger who wrote that bit, it’s a shame you didn’t think more about what you were writing. You’re typically a better paper.
Next time your house is broken into, and your stuff ends up on Craigslist, remember that this “newspaper” told their readers to become habitual burglars and shoplifters. And, by the way, were not brave enough to sign their names to the article. Nice.
While we may not like it, drugs other than alcohol and tobacco are illegal. To encourage people to become drug dealers, with the attendant risks – the police are the least of it – is incredibly reprehensible. But what can a person expect from a publication which has a feature entitled “Drunk of the Week”? Or whose main political reporter gets busted for shop-lifting a bottle of wine, and plea bargains?
Why not a section on how to gay bash and get away with it? Some people find that to be entertainment but don’t like the being caught part.
Typical shitty advice from the Stranger. People who steal stuff usually get about 1/10 the new price. That means to steal enough stuff to make a difference in your budget, you pretty much have to commit a felony. If you’d done some research, you could have written a story that was useful, but that’s not what you’re about. You’re all about the attitude.
Well, fine, when someone rips you off, remember it was your advice. And I’m sure your readers will remember as well.
Are you all whacked out of your mind, or what? Anyone who responds to this article/s with their moral compass personal responsibility (all good things) on their high horse (a rather unbecoming trait) really must be clueless as to the historic tone and humor used by the staffers at the paper.
As one said earlier, tongue and cheek. Do you recall an article a few years back about urban hunting – squirrels, pigeons etc… (and, actually, I just realized they reference some of those tips in this issue, as well)
Gee, I wonder: did that result in a surge in people hunting these critters for grub?
Me thinks not.
Lighten up. When did you go from being a reasonable reader of The Stranger, who was moved by the serious things and knew when to laugh at their dark humor, to a person who one day forgets that they’ve been cheeky the whole damn time.
Strange people.
Onions- don’t criticize the stranger for getting money from ads. they need money to run, and ad money enables them to provide seattle with a free paper. I think it’s socially/culturally/politically important for us to have media we don’t have to pay for. I don’t want to be part of a society that is divided into the cultured class with enough disposable income to afford to indulge in culture and the servant class that can’t read and doesn’t know why anyone would want to. Thinking and engaging with other thoughtful people through various media should not have to be a luxury we cut when times get rough. Revenue from advertising is the only viable option for making this happen right now. At least The Stranger’s ads are generally local businesses not corporate greed-mongers.
Re: paying for the internet and complaining about money– yes, the internet is necessary for job hunt. use the internet at the library. I think they mentioned that in the article.
BEWARE of the Charles River Clinical Services Northwest in Tacoma!
WARNING about the Charles River Clinical Services Northwest in Tacoma: DO NOT participate in the clinical studies there!
In the last two years I completed successfully four studies at that research center. When the last study officially ended I tried respectfully to contact by the telephone a female staff-member of that center to ask her gently if she was interested in a personal relationship with me. I liked her immensely; she was exceptionally friendly to me. I enjoyed numerous, congenial interactions with her (regretfully, she proved later to be a very mean-spirited woman).
In response to my attempts (three in total) the center’s worker – an affirmative action, senior supervisor – treated me with a shocking hostility – like a rape-suspect. She punished me with a month and a half suspension in study-participation illegibility. I thought I did not deserve that punishment so in order to undo it I contacted the Alpha Independent Review Board – an ethics organization – for intercession. I requested that they ask Charles River Northwest to lift the suspension and that they bring up the hostile treatment of mine to the attention of the center’s management. Instead of fulfilling my wishes the supervisor barred me from the studies permanently! That’s right – the center’s management retaliated against me in such a blatantly unethical way for my enlisting help of an ETHICS organization!
I was enraged and indignant by the supervisor implying that the safety of the female staff member I wanted to make contact to was threatened by me. It was totally an unjustifiable, insulting, slanderous, preposterous lie. Motivated by spreading of that lie by the supervisor I sent emails to three representatives of the center asking them to rescind the supervisor permanent bar. I described chronologically all events preceding my attempts to contact the female staff-member.
I didn’t receive reply from them. Out of frustration of not getting feedback from the management I sent an email to the coordinator of the study involved asking her to recommend me a proper individual in the management of the center, who I could address my appeal to. She replied that she forwarded my “concerns” to proper individuals and that I would soon receive reply from them.
I did finally receive the reply – from the legal department of the Charles River Laboratories International, Inc.!
The reply was: Cease and desist order. They asked me to not communicate anymore in any way with the Charles River Clinical Services Northwest staff, under the threat of filing a restraining order against me with the Tacoma police!!!
That’s my chronicle of my involvement with the Charles River Clinical Services Northwest in Tacoma.
As you could make it out from my account, what happened to me was a malicious, brutal, regardless treatment by the Charles River Northwest management in response to my innocent attempts to make a contact with a staff-member for personal reasons.
By having reacted to me in such a thoroughly-inexcusable – bordering-on-psychopathic – way, the center’s management demonstrated a complete disregard for the most fundamental humanity of the clinical-study participant. Their actions against me were extremely unethical; they made a mockery of their center’s stated, humanistic objectives.
DO NOT BE THE NEXT ONE TO BE BRUTALIZED BY THE CHARLES RIVER CLINICAL SERVICES NORTHWEST MANAGEMENT.
Do not participate in the clinical studies at that center!
Maciej Marczak
May 3, 2010
If you have any questions please leave me a message at: (206) 666-6817.
You can also send me a message through my Facebook account, which is there under the name of Maciej Msm.