So I have to take a drug test for a job contracting with the govt. I go to the drug test joint 
and sit in this room waiting for my turn to pee-for-America. Off to my left I can see into another room through a doorway with no door. In the room is a small fridge. As I watch the nurse take the sample from the guy walking out of the bathroom (this wasn’t a “watch-my-willie” test) I see her put a label on it and take it into the small side-room through another doorway nearer to her end of the room. After a while this family comes in with mom, dad and about 5 kids who appeared to be hopped up on something themselves 
Mom and dad sit near me in the waiting room and the kids, well you guessed it, the kids go play in the side-room. You know - the one with the fridge, the fridge with all the samples in it, the fridge with all the happy little jars of pee in it. All the while the kids are playing their game of DEA agents and druglords or whatever the nurse is doing her paperwork and ignoring them completely. As I get called up I notice a sign on the wall about how carefully the “chain of custody” is gaurded and respected all throughout this sacred ritual. I go into the bathroom and do my duty for the War on Drugs. I give the jar to the nurse, fill out the paperwork, and hope those kids don’t drink my pee on a dare.
Insurance is a service industry? This statement made me laugh hysterically. They’re just out to make as much money as they can, like everyone else. In their case, service has very little to do with anything. Regarding HR policies, I agree with your miniature mission statement in your quote above, but the reality is that the executive leadership believes that drug screening will save money. Therefore, drug screening is a good thing and HR is mandated to make it happen.
Clearly, stealing is simple grounds for termination. Otherwise it’s extraordinarily difficult to fire someone (Trump’s Apprentice is not representative of how real corporate life works).
and 2a, that the drug test will show a false positive, and you will never get a job again.
Otherwise it’s extraordinarily difficult to fire someone (Trump’s Apprentice is not representative of how real corporate life works).
What planet do you live on? It’s pretty damn easy to fire someone for any reason you want, and guess what? The newly fired employee can’t do a damn thing about it. What are they gonna do? Hire a lawyer? With what? Their good looks or their personality, because it’s not like they oh, have money to hire a lawyer with anymore.
Maybe it is in private businesses, but in civil service (at least here) it IS hard for them to fire someone, once they have passed the probationary phase.
You should see some of the guys I used to work with.
Seriously, though, the supervisors here have to jump through hoops and document everything if they want to fire someone. Nothing short of murdering someone on the job or robbing a bank could get someone immediately fired.
What the FUCK?
The fact that I’m on meds (Paxil and Ritalin for the nosy), has FUCK ALL to do with how the shareholders want the company run. It has NOTHING to do with how I am as an employee.
I’m not ashamed of this-I have two disorders (OCD and ADHD-god, anymore it seems like that’s all I fucking talk about!)-that are NOT my fault. They’re chemical imbalances in my brain. That’s all.
BUT…I worry that a boss MAY have some misconceptions about such things and decide not to hire me. Or might act like I’m a freak. I made the mistake of mentioning that I have ADHD and am on Ritalin to one of the managers when I first interviewed at Kmart. He once asked me if I heard voices when I’m not on my meds. (when a couple of coworkers and I were joking around about talking to ourselves and imaginary friends. A customer mentioned it to the manager).
I laughed, but think about it-if he’s THAT uneducated about fucking Ritalin, an extremely common and well-known drug, then what else could someone come up with?
Yeah I’ve always heard that about government jobs, Lola. It’s like it doesn’t matter how incompetent you are, they’ll still keep you around.
surfs on over to USAjobs.com
Oh, he’s just following the libertarian doctrine here. To prevent, say through legislation, the giving of drug tests would be what libertarians define as “initiation of force” and thus bad. Pretty much all laws pertaining to worker’s rights, anti-discrimination, health and safety, environmental issues, building codes, well really just about everything that is legislated over in modern society, falls into that category in libertarian philosophy. For the libertarian absolute freedom is the only value that matters. You might frame a parallel argument to yours like this “the fact that I’m black has … NOTHING to do with how I am as an employee”. A true lib will still argue that the company should be free to discriminate against you anyway just as you are free not to work for them. No I don’t buy it either but that’s the doctrine.
I’ve been unemployed for a year. There are not a hell of a lot of principles I wouldnt betray right now for a paycheck. Or a McDonalds gift certificate for that matter.
Pee in a cup, collect other peoples pee in a cup…drink from the same cup. If meant getting a job, and being able to support my family again…hell, even getting a good nights sleep without laying awake wondering who is going to sue me tomorrow or how long till I run out of things to sell on ebay and lose my house. I think I average about four hours sleep a night.
Principles are for the employed. The rest of us cant of afford them.
Just out of idle curiosity: for those that protest drug testing due to the fact that the testing facilities may potentially tell employers what prescription medication your taking, do you plan on getting medical benefits through your company? Do you plan on using said benefits to pay for those private prescriptions?
I would think it would be just as likely that a company could get a record of all prescription benefits paid out to employees as it is for a drug testing facility to supply that information.
Not really. The health insurance company that actually pays for the drugs can’t release that information to your employer if I’m not mistaken.
I have not found that to be the case. Even though our state is an “at will” state, our HR makes it very difficult for me to fire. They are so afraid of lawsuits that I must put the employee on a Personal Improvement Plan and then take detailed notes for 3 months before I can fire someone. And if the PIP is passed, then I it is even MORE difficult to let someone go. Of course, my experience may be unique
No. I can vouch that your experience is not unique. It’s not even uncommon.
I have heard about these rumored companies where they fire people at will, but I’ve never actually known anyone who has worked at one. OK. I’ll stop with the sarcasm. I don’t doubt those companies exist. But truly, I’ve never known anyone who’s actually been employed at one.
I’ve been personally involved with probably a score of employee situations where the employee should have been fired for performance reasons. But, they get put on a performance monitoring plan for three months and they always seen to squeek by. The only easy terminations were for theft. Even then, if they can prove they’re on some sort of medication they’re protected under the ADA and instead of being fired were just put on warning.
Maybe it’s that my experiences are all white collar. I do not know if things are different with blue collar type companies.
The government knows what’s best for you. Do not criticize their legislation. It’s for your own good.
Drugs are bad. Drug companies are good. Insurance companies are good.
All hail Bush. All hail Ashcroft.
They should. That’s what no limited liability means.
If a company breaks the law and incurs a fine the investors already do lose their money. So we have at least that level of accountability.
So if I invest in a company and it’s execs act like a bunch of Enronistas I can go to jail or get fines along with them? Hmm… So I diversify my holdings in, say 100 companies. Let’s say the probability of any one of them doing something illegal in a given year is 1%. The probability of at least one of the hundred doing so is now 1-(0.99^100) or about 63% And that’s just one year.
My point was that it’s very possible, especially in our sue-happy society, that the testing facilities have the same deal - that they can only release information as it pertains to illegal substances. Meaning they can’t give your employer information about any prescription drugs you may take. I would ask if they have such a policy in place prior before I got all bent out of shape that they were going to pass on all your personal information to anyone that asks.
If they’re as careful with their data as the company in my story was with their samples then I wouldn’t be surprised if his prescriptions ended up on an Al-Qaeda website complete with directions to his house.
I don’t know if they’re supposed to, but they do.
Heck, we had our insurance agent call and talk to our receptionist about how one of our employees put “diverticulitis” on his insurance application. The insurance company called the agent, who called us and talked to the receptionist instead of Personnel or directly to the employee.
They also used to send us lists of all of the insurance claims made for the month and by which employees. When the HIPAA laws passed, we got a notice that if we wanted to continue to receive said documents, we had to sign a paper that said we’d follow a chain of custody procedure for the papers. We didn’t want the documents in the first place and declined to sign.
Oh, and the reason we didn’t institute the drug testing despite the savings we’d get from the BWC? Because we were afraid we’d have to fire long-term employees who ended up testing positive for pot.
Yes, you are bent over a barrel and are not in a position to do anything about what employers might or might not want to put up your butt as a condition of employment. Libertarian, Crazy Cat Lady and Algernon would say, “Anything at all, it’s the nature of the employee/employer relationship.”
The rest of us think there should be limits.
I’ve peed in a cup myself, but I never thought it was right and never will think it’s right.