If EVERYONE in the company is equally subjected to random drug testing, and this is made clear as a condition of employment prior to hire… no. It’s not unfair. It applies to everyone equally.
What I object to is the lower level staff getting random drug tests while those in upper management do not. As I said, don’t impose restrictions on others you aren’t willing to endure yourself.
Really, there are a huge number of ways in which the ‘rules’ can be, and probably are, different for those on different levels at a company. Is it any more unfair to impose drug tests only on the lower levels than any of the other differences? They may have to punch a time clock, stay out of the executive bathrooms/dining rooms, wear uniforms, get lesser amount of vacation days, worse insurance plans, no 401K, not to mention get lesser pay.
Are all of those ‘unfair’ or simply the reality that Being the Boss is Better?
Addicts aren’t under recognizance of the state, prisoners are.
Addiction is a terrible thing, but making somebody comfortable in their disease doesn’t help. It’s often only after they’ve hit bottom that an addict will seek help.
It is relevant if you intend to wring your bread from the sweat of another person’s brow. If you really think giving people a pass on destructive behavior is the way to improve the situation you’re not helping.
Most poor people aren’t skid row alcoholics. If a person really would choose drugs to the point of starvation, they need help food stamps can’t provide.
It’s not a double standard. Any job I’ve had, I’ve submitted to a drug test because it was part of the agreement. I wasn’t being forced to work there or to pee in a cup, they weren’t forced to hire me. It was a voluntary agreement.
If a person owns a business, why would he force himself to take a drug test? Who would a CEO need to submit to a test for?
Life isn’t a kindergarten classroom where all the students have the same roles and there’s a teacher to ensure fairness. Different people occupy different spots, and it’s petulant to bemoan those different people having different responsibilities.
Do you have any evidence, whatsoever, that random drug testing isn’t being applied equally?
Yes.
WHY is the boss better?
Drug testing and the “war on drugs” all carries a heavy dose of morality these days. Saying the rank and file need to be tested but not the executives is a double standard of morality. It’s saying the upper echelons are so moral they don’t need testing whereas the rank and file are inherently untrustworthy and must be tested. Outside of situations where testing really is a matter of safety - train operators, pilots, and truck drivers, for example, where it’s a matter of not just the worker’s safety but the safety of others - to test some and not all implies that a different social level, not professional level. It’s saying the wealthy are inherently better people - and they aren’t. There is just as much drugging and drinking in the executive suite as in the mailroom and loading dock. If it’s so damn important that the stockman stacking rolls of toilet paper be clean and sobet why doesn’t it matter that the guy running a multi-million dollar corporation is equally clean and sober, particularly when his decisions affect the livelihood of potentially thousands of workers.
Starving people to hasten that is cruel and inhumane.
The “hit bottom” thing is poorly understand by most people, and doesn’t usually involved lying in a puddle of one’s own piss on a sidewalk.
Feeding people isn’t giving them a “pass”. Hell, we feed people on death row, don’t we? It’s fulfilling one of the most basic human needs that there are.
True. So why don’t we expend more effect to give them that help?
What does depriving them of food stamps accomplish?
Even the way we go about this is stupid - it’s not being an addict that keeps you off food stamps, it’s having a drug conviction. Even 20 years ago, when you’ve been clean and sober and a well behaved citizen for the past 15. It’s stupid. Meanwhile, someone drunk and high who has a clean record can easily qualify.
I’ve actually never been required to piss in a cup for any job I’ve had, although it was required for one Federal job I applied for (which, arguably given the job, was a reasonable requirement). I have worked where those below me were required to do that, though. I thought it was completely hypocritical in those cases, where the lower ranks were considered depraved and unreliable and the executives, who drank to excess during martini lunches and talked about doing lines of coke at parties, were allowed such things without comment. Because they were the aristocracy and would not be held to the same standards as the unwashed peasants. Very biased.
Not everywhere I worked was like that, but such places do exist.
To demonstrate he asks nothing of his employees he won’t ask of himself. That’s one of the marks of a good leader.
Aside from demonstrating that he is following the law and NOT using illegal drugs? I mean, why should that be OK, that he’s breaking the law?
A CEO is answerable to the board of directors, stockholders, owners - and the workers whose lives are directly affected by the decisions he makes. THAT is why he needs to be as clean and sober as anyone who works under him.
Don’t all members of a company have an obligation to follow the law? Or are you saying executives don’t have to follow laws regarding drugs and their use in our society?
If it’s so damn important to the company that everyone be tested to show compliance with the law (or morality) why do those at the top get a free pass?
Since we aren’t even speaking of a particular company that’s a ridiculous question. Other than some companies test and some in the exact same industry don’t. The fact it’s not universal indicates it’s done for some reason that isn’t strictly business or profit based.
Cocaine and methamphetamine are also appetite suppressants, I think in the past there was even a weight loss pill that contained meth.
When you think about it preferring to strike out on your own rather than be trapped in a dysfunctional welfare system that disallows savings just because of personal cultural distaste is just as irrational as most of the behaviors discussed in this thread, if you do it solely because you find the idea distasteful. If you rationally weigh the pros and cons, and have a strong expectation of being able to get by financially without it one thing, just giving up benefits because it feels right is another.
EDIT:Yup!
Being an entrepreneur is a high risk proposition. Why take the risks if there weren’t certain benefits? High level management is a stressful job requiring lots of education and skills. The pool of potential CEOs is much smaller than the potential pool of janitors or ditch diggers. They have more leverage.
You’re not starving people. You’re telling them that you’re willing to help them if they are willing to help themselves.
If you make a resonable request of somebody in exchange for benefits, but you don’t deny benefits when they refuse to meet that demand, it’s a pass.
Food is a basic human need. If a person can’t control him or herself so others can meet that need for them, they’re struggling with a dsyfunction it would be unconscionable to perpetuate.
Depriving them of food stamps for not passing a drug test accomplishes bringing these people into the work culture. They need to join the work culture if they ever hope to be self sufficent.
It reinforces the idea that there is no freed lunch. It helps to give them positive incentives. You yourself have said that the welfare system provides perverse incentives. Encouraging folks to keep clean is a good incentive.
It’s not okay for him to break the law. It is okay for the owner to treat himself different than his employees.
I hold stocks. I care if the stocks perform well. I couldn’t give a shit less if the CEO does in his own life. It’s simple, it’s not a condition of employment for a CEO to take a drug test.
I’m not talking about obeying the law. I’m talking real life. The demands and benefits of being the boss are different than the demands and benefits of being a worker.
That’s certainly part of it for me. I don’t think I could ever feel ‘at home’ in a rented place.
Many companies test to maintain their Drug-Free Workplace status, so that they can comply with federal and state contracts that require it. Once again, how can random testing be “unfair”?
The actual “foodie” phenomenon, is essentially the same old “Gourmet” business of decades past, except that the ingredients involved have become much cheaper and readily available. It’s a hobby, to be honest. Foodies like trying new and weird stuff, and when they cook, it’s more of an event than it’s just putting food on the table. That’s why you’ll get (IMO) somewhat idiotic menu items where every ingredient is oh-so-precious. “Berkshire pork chop seasoned with French Sea Salt and Telicherry pepper, beside with heirloom organic long grain rice from Bhutan, and served with a pan sauce made from organic flour, pan drippings and grass fed milk.” would be the way they’d describe a pork chop with rice and gravy, and it’s pretty odious, if you ask me. And I’m something of a foodie myself.
Anyway, the hobby nature of this foodie business lends itself to recipes of Baroque complexity, much the same way that any hobby lends itself to absurdly intricate preparations and steps to get the very best out of equipment, or the most accurate presentation (model railroading, I’m looking at you), even though the 80/20 rule has been passed long ago and nobody else can tell. Homebrewing is no different; recipes with a zillion steps and ingredients are common, even though it’s almost certain that most commercial beer recipes are much simpler (with the exception of a few craft brewers who are bit by the same bug).
That’s why you’re unlikely to see a “foodie” presentation of inexpensive, nutritious foods prepared in a simple fashion. That kind of thing isn’t cool for a hobbyist to do.
It’s not that the boss is better in himself, rather that the status of being the boss means you get better treatment. The richer you are, the more toys you get – a simple fact, not a moral judgment.
I think it’s supposed to inspire you to strive to climb the ladder. You know, you want so badly to stop having to pee in cups or wear that awful on you tan uniform that you scrape up $100 grand for a MBA from a good school or something…
Yes, it IS a moral judgement. Some farm animals are more equal than others.
We now measure a person’s worth solely in dollar signs.
If it’s so effing important to be clean and sober at work then the boss should set an example for the rest, not excuse his/her own excesses because of their status in society.
Right… only hitch is that we can’t all be CEO, you need indians as well as chiefs.
How is random drug testing unfair? Thanks in advance for your reply.
So, let’s lay our cards on the table. You think poor folks should be able to get benefits regardless of their use of illegal substances, but it unreasonable for a person who builds a business and has no boss to forego a drug test. Would that be a fair characterization of your views?
Not to defend Shodan unduly, but he has a point of a sort.
If you’re going to look at published poverty statistics and draw conclusions, you pretty much HAVE to use the Federal guidelines as the determiner of poverty.
Otherwise, the whole thing devolves into comparisons of relative poverty and fuzzy notions of what poverty is and isn’t, and all the other absurd stuff that comes with that.
And… whoever said that it costs $100k to get an MBA from a decent school is kind of mistaken; you can get one from atop 40 program for half that.
Whatever you think about the Federal poverty level, it doesn’t differentiate between (or among) major metro and rural areas in the lower 48 states. It’s kind of ridiculous to say that a person in NYC has the same standard of living at $15k/year as a person in, say, rural Alabama. It’s simply shorthand for Federal programs eligibility and such things. Obviously it costs more for basic needs in some places than in others.
But it does provide a baseline to have a conversation about generalities from.
From there we can go to specifics.
Yep, raising a family of special needs kids - who were not special needs when you had them when you had two high income jobs - but then there was that horrible minivan accident and now you are a single mom with special needs kids - on a $30,000 a year income in San Francisco is really tough. And sometime the lawsuits will settle and you’ll have money, but until that happens, its all you can do to feed your children oatmeal.
or
Yep, its really tough to live off a $30,000 a year trust fund as a single person. I suppose I could get a job, but I haven’t found anyone to pay me to utilize my MFA in performance art - and when I compare myself with my trust fund cousins and siblings who stay employed - I’m deprived of ski weekends in Vail because I’m so broke.
(yes, truly ridiculous extremes - although I’ve known a few people who have had a lot in common with the second - and a few who have experienced the school of hard knocks where they have made good decisions - and gotten dealt lousy hands).
It is not unfair IF:
OR
I have encountered companies where #2 is the rule - everyone from the bottom to the top is subjected to random testing. I’m OK with that, because everyone is treated equally by company policy.
Although I do prefer the system used by my current employer: testing is done when there is a reason to believe there is a problem (accident with forklift, obvious signs of intoxication, etc.) But that applies at all levels of the company.
Not exactly.
What, exactly, are we as a society trying to accomplish with the SNAP and WIC programs? If the answer is “keep people from starving” then denying people benefits because they are addicts makes no sense because drug addicts get hungry, too, Indeed, malnutrition is a feature of some addictions. Being an addict does not magically make you immune to hunger or starvation, nor am I convinced it does anything to persuade addicts to give up their chosen poison though the latter is an opinion.
Maybe we should deny all medical care, including the emergency variety to addicts? Oh, wait, we don’t do that as a society. In fact, we stupidly are willing to have these people be frequent flyers in the local ER, driving up medical costs for everyone, rather than fund treatment programs or means of mitigating the damage of addiction when we can’t cure it.
What, exactly, are we trying as a society to accomplish with drug testing? Is it to increase safety? Then lets test those who operate heavy machinery or work in positions where being impaired can affect the safety of others. Assigning liability? Then let’s test after every car accident. Locating addicts in society for treatment or prison? Making employment difficult for addicts? If you make crime the only alternative them expect more crime.
Where is your evidence that companies aren’t applying it equally?
Interestingly enough, I’ve worked at a place where both were true. Since we had FAA licensed test pilots, they had very stringent drug testing requirements, and the company decided that what was good for them was good for the rest of us. So EVERYONE (rank and file, as well as management) got tested like we were freaking test pilots- random drug and alcohol tests.
More than one person was freaked out about residual alcohol in their systems come random alcohol testing time; apparently the rules were pretty strict- you didn’t have to be drunk to get dinged on that kind of thing at our company. In 2.5 years, I got randomly chosen like 3 times, and that wasn’t uncommon.
Before and after, it’s been pre-employment drug testing and supposedly random testing, but nobody I know seems to get picked. Been at my current job nearly 7 years, and haven’t been randomly tested yet.