you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 33 points 1 day ago* (51 children)

I am 47, and I have never not once been tested for drugs for work.

For most of my jobs, I’m relatively certain that drugs were in fact required.

If anyone tried to test me for drugs, I would tell them to go fuck themselves, and I’d happily walk away from the interview.

  • source
  • hideshow 51 child comments
  • I've been tested only twice in my life (I'm nearly 60), once while in college for an engineering internship at IBM and once five years ago when I started driving a school bus. I actually failed the IBM drug test (for marijuana) but they just told me to "clean up my act" and gave me the intership anyway. I'm kind of OK with drug testing school bus drivers only because there's not really any way of testing whether or not a driver is currently high. On the other hand, they don't regularly test drivers for alcohol and it's more common than most parents would want to know for drivers to be drunk.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 child)

    I live in Germany, and over here unless your employer can present a damn good safety critical reason for why you must be sober at work (e.g. operating heavy machinery) it's not even legal to randomly drug test employees.

    For your standard office job, or McDonalds cashier, or even high level office positions it would all be illegal for the employer to (randomly) drug test you.

    As long as you're not operating dangerous machinery, it's none of your employers business what you do off the clock at home, even if that's consuming illegal drugs. They can (obviously) ban you from being high at work, but they would reasonable suspicion to accuse of you violating that, and potentially trigger a test (which means effectively the thing that is banned is for your performance at work to be impaired by drugs. If you work equally well high as sober, and don't reek of weed when you walk in, you can pretty much just work high without risk of much consequences)

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 18 hours ago*

    All I know about Germany is that, aside from producing the world‘s most AWESOME gay porn, and having some extremely bizarre trash disposal laws, it is an confoundingly boring country.

    But it’s nice to know that, aside from the outrageously restrictive drug laws, they don’t do on the job drug testing.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 16 hours ago

    I have told prosprective employers to fuck off over:

    take a drug test

    Take a psych test

    Unlock my credit for credit checks

    Take a full face scan

    Register with id.me for the application process

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 18 hours ago (16 children)

    Im 46, and I've only had one job that didnt do a pre-employment drug test. But most of my jobs have involved machines that can hurt people if not handled right.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 16 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 15 hours ago (4 children)

    The only jobs I didn't get a piss test were all retail/food service. Every professional job I've had (tech) has made me drop a UA. I may have had to study to pass the pre-employment test, but thankfully no place I've been does randoms.

    As my former manager put it, boss man isn't going to make us drop a UA cuz he knows he's lose his whole IT department.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

    Ok, storytime!

    I worked in a little fabrication shop back in 2013 or so. The general manager got a hair up his ass and decided he was going to drug test everyone.

    We lost everyone on all three shifts except for me, and my supervisor. My supervisor had been picked up a month prior for possession, and was getting regular drug tests from someone else. Im just boring.

    The shop closed down a few months later. They couldn't get anyone to work there, because people who do that kind of work talk to each other.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago*

    I was a programmer for 25 years and never had a drug test in that time. No employer ever even contemplated doing it. In general, programming high or drunk isn't going to hurt anybody, but I did once have a colleague accidentally shoot a 125 mph knuckleball a foot over a kid's head. He wasn't coding high as far as I know, but he was coding stupid, which is a lot worse.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 17 hours ago (1 child)

    I'm 46 and my line of work is one of the more dangerous jobs involving heavy equipment. There is always a drug test as a pre employment screening, but that's basically it. Nobody checks again because they'd have to fire half the workforce.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • I'm a school bus driver and drug testing is a DOT mandatory requirement. Some of the districts around me have a reputation for making sure the "random" tests are only give to the drivers they know will pass, so a driver just has to keep clean long enough to pass the initial screening.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 18 hours ago* (6 children)

    There are some jobs for which I can understand when it would be very important to ensure the operators of heavy equipment absolutely must be guaranteed to be sober at all times.

    Beyond heavy machine operators, this also includes livery drivers, airline pilots, etc.

    But those are specialty jobs for which my previous comments are excluded.

    Thank you for doing your job well, and soberly

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

    I'm skeptical that's what we're actually testing for, though. Employment drug tests are just to see if they'll stop doing drugs for a month. We don't expect heavy machine operators to do a field sobriety test at the start of their shift.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago (7 children)

    I'm 36 and have been drugs tested once. They reckoned they'd seen me drop a gram of coke on camera so I got 6 weeks paid holiday.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

    I have been drug tested several times, and I am in fact "on drugs". So, I get a call within a couple of days of getting tested to provide them with access to my pharmacy records to prove they are legally prescribed.
    So, wtf were they doing that you got 6 weeks?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 18 hours ago

    Apparently it fell out of my pocket on a Monday morning (doubtful but I did head home for the weekend and blacked out a bit so possible...but I would have done the coke if that was the case 😂) got dragged into a meeting on Wednesday, pissed clean and just got told to go home until I heard otherwise.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago* (3 children)

    Obviously, because nobody oopsie-daisies a gram of coke without going back to grab it, lol.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

    😂 I don't live in the best area and my dog is an early morning boy, I've found 3 grams this month. Kinda feel sorry for whoever lost it but I'm also no longer a fan so hopefully that might help someone

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago* (5 children)

    Yeah, most restaurants dont test for drugs for a reason.

    On the flip side, I've had to take a drug test for every single job I've ever had. Most are sales related. But I travel for work so I kind of understand the need 10 years ago when everything was illegal. Now that weed is mostly legal everywhere its pointless to even test for it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 1 day ago

    I work with a vulnerable population. In addition to every job doing piss testing my fingerprints and DNA get recorded and checked against unsolved assaults / murders. Nothing ever comes up but I always worry I'm gonna be like the last person that touched a vase before the dude that bashed somebody's head in with it and the dude who did it isn't in any databases and I'm gonna have to answer a bunch of intrusive questions.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Anytime I have worked for fintech I’ve been tested and fully background checked every time, pretty annoying but the trade off is the pay I suppose

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (15 replies)