I strenuously object to drug tests in most situations, but this is just silly. As has been noted upthread, it may be purely an insurance issue. Or perhaps you are going to work for the local outlet of a national chain, and the requirement is at the national level, whereas the local boss you will interact with doesn’t personally give a shit, s/he is merely following the rules.
Although I suppose your post could be read to mean that “people who impose drug tests for a defensible reason are okay, but those who do it unnecessarily, for their own sick purposes, are less than stellar employers.” If that’s what you meant, I mildly agree and if given a choice would much prefer to work somewhere that didn’t arbitrarily require drug tests.
However, not everything is worth getting all het up about. If I otherwise thought somewhere would be a good place to work, I imagine I could bring myself to overlook their stupid drug test.
IANAL, but IMO the laws are fuzzy as all hell on pre-employment testing. It depends a lot on the province you are in, and the industry as well. There does need to be bone fide requirements for pre-employment drug testing to be legal. Also, as addiction is considered a disability, refusing to hire someone with a positive drug screen can be considered discrimination. As a result, pre-employment testing is fairly rare, even in safety-sensitive positions. It still happens though, it’s fairly common in the oil and gas industry.
On the other hand, AFAICT post-incident drug testing is legally in the clear and significantly more common.
Yep, I’ve worked for lots of companies, and I’ve only had to do a drug test once–for a company that did educational software.
And working at Amazon? The drug tests are only for working on the warehouse side. None of that on the software side. And at 4:00 on Friday it’s very common to gather around your boss’s desk and have a cold one or two. Same as at Microsoft. Software companies absolutely cannot afford to refuse to hire developers who smoke weed every now and then, because they’d have to fire a quarter of their staff.
The big problem here is that testing for weed is not like testing for other substances like opiates, speed, coke, or alcohol. The tests for weed can detect whether you’ve smoked any time last month. For most other drugs all the can do is test to see if you’re high right now. Which is ridiculous.
It’s also one thing if you’re an airline pilot or a cop. It’s another if you’re a graphic designer.
It’s also true that the lower down on the totem pole you are, the more likely you are to be required to take a drug test as a condition of employment.
In the nuclear industry post-incident testing is certainly something I’m aware of. But I never heard of one at my facilitiy; Their safety record for anything substantial was pretty good.
Unlike Clothahump - my second worst employer was the one who required a drug test (not counting the Marine Corps - I knew I would be tested, and was not surprised). My third worst employer was the one where the top two did not drink, and further had issues with others who did (and I am not talking on the job).
I now check on both when interviewed, and won’t join a company that drug tests. Further, I make sure I have had a drink with the executive team before I join as well. There seems to be a correlation between those factors and job enjoyment. I work in tech.
Re: The survey. I don’t partake on any regular basis, so a spot test wouldn’t be an issue for me. However, I am secure enough in employment options that I would refuse a test and move on.
I’ve never had to take a drug test for a job. The closest I came was when I temped at the front desk of a temp agency. They offered me that job, and I knew that every temp who came through took a pee test, and I even asked if I needed to (the suspense was killing me!), but for some reason I didn’t have to.
But the jobs I’ve worked for the past two decades have mostly had a deal where if you made a worker’s comp claim, a drug test was a standard part of getting treatment, with the understanding that you’d be fired if the test were positive. One place I worked was a humane society, and I remember the dude who saw a “dangerous dog” sign on a cage and decided to test it by putting his hand into the cage; nobody was surprised at the results of his drug test, and it confirmed to me that sometimes drug tests were reasonable :).
You pick your tentative schedule, take your drug test, and several things at the time of application. The way we eat people, the no-vacancy light has never been turned on. And that goes for CA as well. :o
A Much better option is available than to stop using drugs in order to pass the drug test. Just stop using drugs. Seriously it’s not that hard and your life will be better because of it.
Having lived outside the US for so long, I had assumed drug testing was incredibly common in America.
My son had to take a drug test (urine sample) for his summer job in Hawaii this year, which was as a teacher’s aide to an ESL program. I can vaguely see the rationale for drug tests if you are working with children, as he was. But not really, as his job didn’t involve driving the kids anywhere or anything like that.
He’s used to being tested, as he’s been randomly selected for drug tests before while in high school (those tests used hair samples). But none of us like it. Unfortunately the international schools he has attended have families over a barrel: we had to sign blanket permissions, in both Egypt and Indonesia, for allowing drug testing in order to enroll him. But what are you going to do? There’s no alternative unless you want to send your kid to boarding school somewhere (and a lot of them probably have the same requirement).
A year or two ago son did lodge an official protest at his school in Jakarta, objecting to the random testing. Since he was a good kid who founded the school philosophy club and made a respectful, thoughtful argument, the administration was polite to him about it. (Also they knew he was the last kid in school who would take any illegal drugs - to say he is a goody-two-shoes is putting it mildly.) But, polite or not, they of course did not budge.
An incredibly ignorant statement. People use substances for a wide variety of reasons, and you’re in no position to judge their use or unilaterally deem that they’re “better off” without them.
Just wanting to reaffirm this statement. It’s not that hard. I quit smoking cigarettes, weed and crack and shooting heroin and breathing and drinking alcohol all on the same day and it was as easy as not drinking apple juice*.
*Which is an evil bastard btw and should be murdered in the face.