Pre Employment Drug Testing?

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The government may require me to do it but if I ever got rid of my commercial rigs I would still do it. So that said, it has nothing to do with rights other than my right to choose who I hire. They are not required to test, they can find work elsewhere if they don't want to pee in a cup. Stig, if that young girl you like so well didn't hardly work at all, would you hire her? I mean she is a free person...;)
 
Willie, assuming that you weren't required to, would you consider not testing someone that told you up front that they weren't a user, or do you think that being suspect of not telling the truth needs to be applied to all people? Has it become that bad?
 
Jay, it's not being suspect of an individual person so much as that practically ALL drug users will lie about their drug usage. So asking somebody if they are a drug user isn't going to give you any helpful information because the answer you get will invariably be "no" regardless of the truth.
 
Like I said, I have let guys go that passed pre employment and randoms but got back into it anyway.
 
This testing business has turned into the McCarthy communist witch hunts of the early 60's .There have been so many erronious tests that have ruined peoples carreers such as one Naval aviator that proved the test was incorrect .Even so because of a blemish on his record as far as the navy was concerned he was done .That's just one example .

I'm oppossed to the whole thing myself .FWIW as if it's anybodies business I'm clean except for a few Budweisers every now and then but I still think the whole thing is wrong .
 
I agree Al, the first George Bush took a page right from Mcarthy's book with the drug free workplace laws...there were already plenty laws. Test companies love the easy revenue (even with slipshod accuracy) ... big bucks when , say the US Navy tests the entire crew of an aircraft carrier,
 
It was a carry over from the Regan administration ,the so called war on drugs which has proven to be ineffective .More or less just eyewash as far as I'm concerned .

If the testing was truely infalable it would be one thing but it's been proven time again that's not the case .I think like just about every govermental endeaver the whole thing has turnd into another giant bureaucracy with all the political implications .You have attorneys getting their slice of the pie ,the testing agencys and every other Tom Dick and Harry that can get a chunk of it .
 
In the job I do... I went into it knowing that testing was part of the deal. I have been tested 8 times in the last 6 years. We also have a 12 hour rule on alcohol consumption. No alcohol period 12 hours prior to a work shift. Works for me, and I comply, and I love my job.

So would you want me keeping planes apart while I was gonzo?

Gary
 
I had to take a screening test too before I was hired in .It's too good of a job to screw up so I don't .

So I do what I have to do .Having said that though I still don't trust the system .
 
Only two groups of FS empoyees are subject to random drug tests...CDL drivers (buses and fire engines, pretty much covers that group) and those authorized to use firearms in the course of their duties. I was in the second group. Like Al, the job was too good to risk, so I lived with it, but didn't like it much. Think about it...how many innocent bystanders could a doped up driver of a 3/4 ton pickup (of which the FS has many, many thousands) driving past the local grade school at 7:45 in the morning produce, vs. me with my 5 clip, bolt action .22-250 target special?
 
I remember, back in the day, all of us drinking beers in the crummy, going home. We wouldn't get shitfaced, but definitely a couple beers were had. I can't imagine doing that, nowadays.
 
It was like that back in the day in the FS, too...maybe not in the crummy, but on the landing after dark when we'd finished a site prep burn. And the fire boss brought the cooler :).
 
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swingdude said:
I been sober 8 years and I expect my workers to show up ready to work and not intoxicated, or go home it's that simple. Don't want that headache around me, had my time and it wasn't fun in the end. What a person does on their own time is their business, just don't bring it to my job. It's difficult finding climbers or groundies in this country who don't drink or drug ( mostly weed ). As Brian said, they would be in another job most times if they didn't. At least that is what I see here.
Click to expand...

Right on the money in my opinion. How do you weed out those with a problem???? In my 10 years of running the business only one climber didn't have an issue. He climbed like a conservative work horse and then moved on to a better paying supervisor job outside of tree work. If you gotta work the next day, take it easy!!! Get your groove on Friday and Saturday nights. Why is that so hard?? Before a surgeon does open heart surgery on you would you want him/her smoking dope and swilling a 6 pack of Sierra's the evening before your 7 am surgery? Our work can kill people. A person who abuses is a severe weak link in the team. How do we hold people accountable if they can't do it themselves?
 
Man, I could tell ya many stories about partying at the landing. Then, we WOULD pass a good time, usually sponsored by the owner.

The Times, they are a 'changing...
 
sotc said:
The government may require me to do it but if I ever got rid of my commercial rigs I would still do it. So that said, it has nothing to do with rights other than my right to choose who I hire. They are not required to test, they can find work elsewhere if they don't want to pee in a cup. Stig, if that young girl you like so well didn't hardly work at all, would you hire her? I mean she is a free person...;)
Click to expand...

Obviously not!

Read Al's post #30, he took the words right out of my mouth. Maccharthyism reborn under another name.

I see all that drug testing as a natural follow up of Nancy Reagan's personal little war on drugs ( BTW, I don't normally categorice weed as a drug) that has gotten out of hand.
What will be the next thing you have to subject to testing for if the ultra christians have a good election?
Having had sex in "unnatural" positions, maybe.
Or illicit homoerotic dreams.

The part that irritates me, Willie, is that I've just been watching parts of the republican convention, and heard all the flaming oratory about the Land of the free, the holy rights of the American individual, as opposed to communist Europe, where we all live under the thumb of " Big Brother" the government.
A theme , I may add, that is sometimes sung here as well.

And despite all that, Ya'll meekly succumb to having to piss in a paper cup monthly!!!!!


I simply don't get it.
 
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Maybe with age comes wisdom --or not .I remember wooping it up on a regular bassis .Hooting with the owls but soaring with the eagles so to speak the next day .

Then the realization sinks in that if the conditions present themselves as in the case of an accident weather it's your fault or not you're the one that catchs the blame .So facing facts you can't play into a pat hand in poker speak because eventually the odds will catch up to you .Some people get it and some never will .
 
Generally its a plastic cup, nonetheless its bullshit. However even if you fail at most large corporations just telling them you are addicted usually gets you a second chance.
 
I haven't once heard of any drug testing in the country where I live. The per capita use of drugs must be lower by a vast margin, say as compared to the states, but when it comes to drinking, the whole place is practically an open bar. That being said, I haven't much heard of work related incidents due to being intoxicated. It must happen, but less often than one might think. I'm guilty of hitting the sake bottle while doing tree work, but perhaps with the old schoolers, the first crew I worked with here, where everyone bar none was also doing it, possibly only one person drinking and out of sync, is more dangerous than the whole crew doing so! Haha, I don't really think that, but drink on the job was once very common. No longer that for sure now. Perhaps with the pervasive work ethic that is in place here, testing isn't important. If widespread testing is necessary, you must be looking at a cultural problem, as opposed to simply seeing it as rogue individuals. Testing may be an end result of the situation, but it would seem the gist of the problem really runs a lot deeper than just what is happening on the job, more it's people unable to assume responsibility for their actions. It seems like that could have ramifications all through society.
 
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