Absolutely. Back in '98 I interviewed for a landscape foreman job in Cincinatti. The owner asked where I stood on pot, and I gave the pat "I'll handle my employees based on your policies." He exhaled and said he was relieved, given my police background (my resume showed my 4 years dispatching). We were in a small 10x30 office inside the warehouse. He said "we get here at 7, and just toke up for half an hour before we head out. Gets the day off right, you know? Boy, you can't see from one wall to the other by 730!"

Drug use seemed way higher in the midwest when I was there- in SoCal it was pretty negligible, at least during work hours.

Yup,

Agree with you on that one. Worked with a crew boss back in the mid-90's who used to make pit stops we found out later at the bar or the liquor store on the way home from installations. And since he was the only one with a DL the other two were sort of a captive audience. I think there was illegal hiring going on there too. Also, worked with a couple other young men who had issues with alcohol and showing up or not showing for work on a regular basis.

What you don't see is how many people around you are prescribed medication. It is far more prevalent than you think. ..even in your sheltere group f friends.

laag, are you saying people are abusing prescription drugs or just that they are taking their own legally prescribed drugs? Not sure I get your point.

I've always been pretty oblivious to drug use around me until it's right under my nose.

I do know lots of people on antidepressants. I even was one myself for a brief time. My research on depression taught me that many people abuse alcohol or drugs to attempt to self-medicate undiagnosed depression or other forms of mental illness.

I'm saying that we are surrounded by lots of people who are prescribed medication legally as wel as illegally. I think there are a lot of Doctor's whose first response to anything is to prescribe.

I have a back problem and whenever it "acts up" and I'm half bent over trying to walk around, I will be offered all kinds of prescription pain killers from all kinds of people. Everyone seems to have a prescription for them. I use Ibuprophen, if I use anything at all. I figure that being physically limited is better than being physically and mentally limited at the same time.

Seldom do any of these people look like they are in intense pain. We should know we are in trouble when we see countless ads for medication that tell us to ask our Doctors if it is right for us. I thought that a Doctor makes a diagnosis and prescribes when necessary.Now we are suppose to look for reasons to take medication and ask our Doctors for prescriptions?

I wonder why health insurance is so expensive?

Landscapers are a lot like pirates. It's a rough crowd.

I could never understand gardeners that smoke. Though there are plenty of drinking stories to be told by landscapers at the water cooler. There are no shortages of DUI's amongst landscapers.

Where I work now though on the job alocohol drug use is for the most part non existent. No one is going to risk losing a goverment job and a pension to use illegal drugs.

Still it amazes me .. a trip to the local convienence store and you will see one construction worker after the next buying tall boys of beer at six in the morning ??

Myself a few ounces of rum after a long hot day at work.

NOW Coffee is another story !! The more the better.

Good Day ...

Physical labour has always been hard. Baring any political agenda it is done by those who are prepared to exchange the toll physical labour takes on the body for a wage that will provide for themselves and their family. Slaves had no choice of course. Even a light skim of the history of labour will turn up evidence of mind numbing 'substances' provided by land owners or made by the workers themselves. Physical labour has no perceived value and consequently only those with nothing else to offer do it, and this can be tough on those who are equally human, so blocking it out may happen.

My experience has been you see what you want to.

When it comes to tobacco and alcohol, the primary labor pool for landscaping is young men. Any surprise they drink and smoke? Add to that the similarities with most construction trades, and the noticed lack of "genteel" peoples in these trades, you better expect that they imbibe. Further, it's a seasonal trade. When you are hiring at a certain time of the year and want people who can work your schedule, weather permitting, you tend to notice a distinct lack of qualified applicants if you start asking too many questions.

My experience has been the opposite of what is mentioned above. I've worked for a couple of guys who would buy the crew a case or two of beer after a hard week...always on Friday, and always to be had at the shop, after everything is put away, after you punch out. Drinking or smoking anything that could impair motor reflexes with the presence of power quipment...yeah, good way to get really hurt, or if you're lucky, dead.

Most of the landscapers I know are pretty gung-ho individuals. What they do, they do pretty hard. It's time to work, and you better not get in their way. Same when it's time to party. Most, however, have known how to keep the two separate.

Then there was the one job...where we laid 1800 square yards of sod a day. Every day of the week, six days a week. Inevitably, someone would show up on one of the early Saturdays with a hangover, thinking they could gt the job of driving the tractor or the forklift. The boss had been through that before. They worked on the ground, bending over, laying sod until it was done. Funny thing, for the rest of the year, no one came to work with a hangover again.

My observations with this issue in this industry pretty much mirror those of heptacodium. Folks work hard and then party hearty but the two tend to be quite separate. We do the same at my nursery, with regular after work potlucks during the height of the season that generally involve some sort of liquid refreshment, typically provided by the nursery director.

And I'd be extremely reluctant to attribute this tendency solely to this industry. I was a banker in a former life and I have yet to see the quantity of liquor and/or pharmaceuticals consumed by those good ole boys (and girls) - and often during the work day - come anywhere near to being approached by my fellow employees in the hort trades.

We have a beer fridge in the garage/office, and a large potted banana tree and a couple of plastic chairs in the driveway under it so we can relax. And that's on company property. But then again, the greenhouse is at my house, so I guess it's pretty much all company property!
When old Jimmy Buffet's playing in the greenhouse, it sure makes you want to have a margarita, but usually during the day, I'm working too hard to even be able to keep track of my morning coffee cup.
That being said, if you want to get in a whole carload of old ladies from church who want a grand tour of every plant in the place, all you have to do is crack open a few cold beers late on Saturday afternoon, it never fails to draw in a customer or two. Either that or get in the pool with my daughter during the heat of the day-when you haven't had a customer in hours-- that is always good for business too!
I have noticed that lots of employees smoke cigarettes, and lots of greenhouse operators don't seem to crack down on the no-smoking in the greenhouse. I can't see that when that could carry viruses. I don't let customers smoke either, and if I see they have been, I don't let them handle the plants either. I have too small of a profit margin to let somethng like that happen.

gardengal, I am a former banker too, and you're right, they did put away the liquor!

We used to have a ton of smokers in our cramped little offices and the truck, and it nearly killed me. I was sick the whole first winter. Now I work solo out of my van, so I have my own smoke-free environment (whew!).

I was surfing the other day and came upon a website put together by some insurance company or the like and it spoke to unhealthy habits in different workforces. It only varied by a percent or two right down the line for each vocational area. I cracked up when it talked about "professionals" and how they were less apt to be substance abusers. It's just more secretive, I suspect. What I have noticed is that employees will be as open on the job with any substance, legal or not, as the employer lets them get away with or accepts. The percentage quoted for substance abuse ran around 10%. Scary, huh?

Sandy's comments made me laugh. Here the customer radar goes off when the bum hits the toilet seat, or you sit down to lunch. Never fails. Also they don't come shop in late spring before ten or after four. They come mid-day when you've been watering in the selling house for an hour and are blinded by the sweat running in your eyes..... and then they putz around a hour in 110 degree heat looking for just the right geranium as you're having a heat stroke.

Yeah, what is it about sitting on the toilet seat? When my daughter was little, I used to swear that there was an alarm in there, because whenever I sat down, she would have some crisis or other!

10%? Wow, that is high, and scary. Interesting that it doesn't vary much between industries. Thanks for the info!

What I notice is smoking while operating small engines. Not enough toxics inhalation from the one, we have to do the other too?

A pruning crew I tried to run for a short time (found out later the owner told everyone on it they were the foreman, must have been that pit-employees-against-each-other-and-see-who-comes-out-on-top game) had a guy who disappeared at noon to go drink in any bar that happened to be nearby. What a pain.

97 and high humidity? The folks are out in force. Three days later and it's 84 and LOW humidity? Not a customer in sight.

Remind me of why I love this job so much?

;~)

melanie

Are you saying it is enough to drive you to drink?

I think poor peoples get more and low quality drugs....
It's important to everyone to stop drugs...
because it not only affect your health but also affect the happiness of your family...
please think...
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Bob
Suffering from an addiction. This website has a lot of great resources and treatment centers. http://www.treatmentcenters.org