Ahh, the piss test. I have a deep seated hatred for them. When I was in the USAF, I was subjected to “random” drug tests. I don’t know if there was a bug in the system, but the tests were certainly not reandom. I know people that have served four years without a single random drug test. Me, OTOH, had drug tests at least once a month and, in one case, six times in three months.
I did work with classified messages and had a Top Secret clearance, so I understand the reasons for the testing, but not the frequency.
If I worked a normal day shift, I would have had no problem with it. I could have taken a couple hours off of work and peed in a cup. The thing that really chapped my ass is that I worked swing shift and usually did not get to bed until 5:00 AM. They would usually call me at 7:30 - 8:00 AM to tell me that I have 20 min to report for the piss test. The worst part was that they somehow knew the nights that I had been drinking, because those were the mornings that they would usually call. I would show up half drunk, half hung over and severly dehydrated - which made pissing in a cup, while someone stood over your shoulder to watch, somewhat difficult.
If this had happened a couple times a year, it would have been no big deal. I just don’t get how someone would think, “hey, he hasn’t done drugs the last five times we tested him in the last few weeks, maybe we’ll catch him this time.”
Sorry, I don’t mean to get into it with you or anyone about this…just sayin’ testing’s overdone on a massive scale. I don’t have any beef except with the ubiquitous Powers That Be, or the current paradigm, etc.
My mother is 72 years old and works full time in the Summer at a theme park in this area. She doesn’t operate the rides, she stands at the entrance all day taking patrons’ tickets. She is frequently asked to go for ramdom drug testing. Come on, the lady is 72 years old, she works her ass off for the park and several times a season she is made to feel like a criminal.
I don’t have a problem with it. People can go ahead and call me a tool, or a sheep, or any number of derogatory remarks. At the same time, I am very supportive of people who turn down jobs on the principle of not wanting to submit a drug test.
Why? Because it makes it that much easier for myself to get hired. If myself and a better-qualified applicant both wanted a job, but he turned it down on the basis of a piss test, guess what? that guy just gave me the job. It is much easier to compete with people on ‘principles’ than things like GPA or X years of experience.
Oh boy…I guess I could rant about this for hours but the simple reply is that a line has to be drawn regarding privacy and I think this clearly steps over it. Using the logic that its ok to drug test then why not allow your potential employers to search your car? How about your home? How about they interview all your neighbors and friends and ask about all your secrets? I don’t think its gets much more personal than asking for your bodily fluids so why not consent to any measures that a company might want to take so they can get an insurance discount?
In the end I feel its a privacy violation that should be reserved for very sensitive positions and law enforcement…I should be entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty whether in court or not.
Ok, apparently I’m not able to completely walk away from the debate part of this. Probably because so far, everyone’s being civil. I promise to try to keep it that way.
But what do you care what I’m willing to consent to? If it steps over your privacy line, that’s fine – no one’s making you do it. But what’s the big deal if I decide to let them search my car or my home? I did let them interview all my neighbors and friends and ask about all my secrets, btw – that comes with having a security clearance. You might not be willing to jump through all of the hoops that a clearance requires, but why is it so bad if I am?
Who are you to decide which of my rights I’m entitled to give up?
What you’re entitled to is to work somewhere that doesn’t require testing (or searches, or interviews, or what have you).
Side Note: I got an e-mail today from my new employer confirming that I am, in fact, not on drugs. That was step 1 … now I wait for them to complete my background check, and then I can schedule my start date.
I don’t care what you consent to, I care about what the government allows business to get away with in regard to privacy issues. Its one thing for you and I to have our personal opinions about who can search who and how far it goes…its another thing for a government to allow private business carte blanche to investigate in agonizing detail someone’s private life. Again, this is about drawing the privacy line. History will show time and again that the more power a person or organization is given the more it will be abused and allowing drug testing in positions where it is clearly not necessary is one small example of the way someone’s right to privacy is being trumped by a businesses desire to have lower insurance premiums.
That statement is shortsighted and wrong. If I want to work and make a living wage then I almost certainly will need to take a drug test, against my will, in order to do so. In effect someone is making me. You could always argue that because I choose to smoke pot then I do not deserve the benefits of a modern society but I would take issue with that. I think a rational, responsible adult can in fact smoke pot while still doing a good job…at least as good as someone who does not. Should I have to give up my rights to gainful employment because of that? I don’t think so but that is my opinion. The changing of laws like those that govern pot use won’t change by asking nicely…there needs to be a taste of civil disobedience and I guess choosing to smoke pot AND demanding that no testing be allowed for positions that do not demand it is one example.
For a security clearance, for airplane pilots, and for lots of other positions where it makes sense to test then of course it must be done. For a retail clerk and many other non-sensitive positions its a farce. I am not objecting to testing in jobs where it makes sense, I object to testing across the board for every position.
And saying someone is entitled to work where there is no testing is kind of silly. How old are you? How many jobs have you held? I am 34 and have had about 20 jobs. Of those 18 have drug tested me. Of those 18 I think 10 have been professional positions and every single one of them required a drug test. To tell me that I should seek employment where there is no testing isn’t practical at all.
Business can only do what the individual allows. How is business “getting away with” anything when I’m providing consent? This is the question I keep asking over and over, and that no one seems able to answer.
You are claiming that every job that pays a living wage requires a drug test. Sorry, I don’t buy it. Maybe most jobs in the field you chose do, but I doubt someone held a gun to your head and told you to go into that field.
I never have and never would make such an argument. Thanks for the paragraph-long strawman, though.
Your last post said that, but the post of yours that started our little interchange was a broad condemnation. So that’s what I reacted to.
Condescending much? I’m 35 and have had a similar number of jobs as you – I’ve been out of school for 13 years, have been in this industry for the past 8 years, and as you can tell by the subject of this thread this is the first time I have ever been asked to take a drug test. And, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, none of the other jobs I recently applied for (all in this field, only 1 or 2 requiring a clearance) would have asked me to take one.
Well our mileage clearly varies, doesn’t it? (Speaking of things that I’ve already said in this thread.)
Just my $0.02 - when I was first applying for the defense force, if you were female, they ran a drug test on your pee and dipsticked it for pregnancy. I’m not sure what the results were if you were pregnant, though I found it a little unnerving that they thought that a bunch of 16-17 year old girls could be knocked up, not know about it and still be applying for the award we were after.
Or that maybe we did know about it and weren’t really paying attention.
When I tested for my last job, for some reason I had my daughter with me and she wasn’t in daycare (probably an ear infection). I showed up, but I didn’t have a sufficient quantity of urine to test. So I sat around and waited and nursed my daughter and drank a lot, and nursed my daughter (I didn’t have to pee much lactating and the second problem was that preganancy had left me with enough urinary incontenance that “saving it up” was still sort of dangerous - I could go to the bathroom four times an hour and get about twenty six drops each time - but if I only went three times an hour to get 32 drops, I’d wet myself). After a while I was able to get a barely sufficient quantity to test.
The technician kept looking at me and saying “this may be the stupidest drug test we’ve ever run.”
