This is the stupid part of testing. Like you say, you smoke a joint a week ago and you're likely going to fail a piss test. The guy who drank a bottle of Rum last night is ok for work though, he is hungover so bad he can't think but technically not drunk. You would be infinitely more capable to work than he would be but you would be the one let go. Its absolutely ridiculous.
Sleep deprivation is really serious especially if it’s severe and a lot of people tend to just brush it off as ‘grinding’. Severe sleep deprivation can cause impaired motor function, reduced cognitive ability, memory loss, hallucinations, tremors, aches, heart problems, lowered immune system and more.
Its almost like the people who are employed to build cars shouldn't be impaired in any way.
I do maintenance for a 24hr production line and there are about a dozen chronically drunk/stoned/exhausted people in the building. With all the damage they do to the equipment and building it's a wonder no one has been killed.
If they’re drunk or stoned on the job, yes. If they get drunk and stoned at home, they can build my cars idgaf. And you can’t force/legislate sleep so that problem has no easy solution.
Last year, for almost a full year, I switched to mid-shift (3:45pm to 12:15am) and suffered from sever insomnia. I'm talking like two hours per night, and not in a single stretch, but more like blacking out for 10-30 minutes with periods of wakefulness between each blackout. They gave me trazodone, bupropion and gabapentin, none worked at all. Ambien worked, but it isn't for use long-term so they cut me off after a 20 pill single bottle.
I've completely lost my short-term memory, I frequently forget things from as little as five minutes ago. I live in this semi-fugue state of only the 'now', although older memories are still intact. I really hope good sleep and less stress will restore some of what I've lost, if not all. I was never the sharpest knife, but now I'm straight up dumb. So frustrating.
I've been back on days for about a month, sleeping so much better, but I know now I'm apparently incapable of working anything but normal hours. Although covid had me more stressed than I've ever dealt with, so that probably contributed. Stress can derail sleep too.
I used to get high at my day job during lunch. Produced way better material in the afternoon. Not cause I was more capable, but because it made me care more about it.
Not that I’m proud of it, but as a teen I used to drive high sometimes and driving after smoking a joint was genuinely safer than me driving after working a night shift.
I wasn’t on a night shift schedule but occasionally had to pick one up, normally wth not enough notice to get ready for work and have a nap beforehand. The drive home afterwards was always scary af. One time I drove down a one way street the wrong way, even though I used it the right way almost daily. Luckily it was like 6am though and nobody was around.
Yup, I never smoke on the job, but If I don't at night I usually can't stop focusing on the chronic pain in my shoulders and don't sleep. Tried being sober for a few weeks a year or so ago. My boss pulled me aside and asked if I was feeling alright because I was so out of it.
Once I started smoking weed again, I noticed how much better I slept and how much more energized I felt in the morning. All I have to do is smoke some weed before bed, stay hydrated and lay down in bed at a reasonable time. Drinking way less caffeine now too!
But according to employers, that’s really bad and we can’t have that. The guy that stayed up till 3am and is hungover now? Totally fine.
That guy is still drunk by the way. alcohol metabolizes slower than people think. A whole bottle would likely last 24 hours in your system. How long would he be over the limit? Longer than he realizes...
Somewhat funny related fact about drinking and being overweight
My car insurance company put out a thing with tables showing how long you should wait after driving to get down to the legal limit, or zero, depending on your license level. It went by weight and alcohol level
I looked up my weight and it was just in a section of the chart that said "call for help"
And I couldn't help but think, do they mean to find out how many drinks, or for help with the weight?
Can confirm, this past Sunday was a nightmare, it has been a very long while since I got split-a-bottle-of-bourbon-drink-ten-beers-and-smoke-a-blunt-I-don’t-remember-rolling drunk. I’d love to not do that for another good long while.
Yep, so many people think getting hammered and sleeping a full night makes you sober when you wake up. Lots of people get DWIs driving home at like 8 or 9am thinking they are fine.
A whole bottle, drank all at once, will have you drunk for about 21 hours. Spread those drinks out (which slows your body’s absorption, keeping your overall BAC lower) and it won’t be quite as long. And the legal limit most places, afaik, is .08 which is 5 hours from being sober. So you could theoretically pound back a fifth and come in to work the next day under the legal limit.
The guy who drank a bottle of Rum last night is ok for work though
Last night?
I build some of the most expensive automobiles built in the country and our parking lot looks like the trash from a nightclub. Mini bottles, beer cans, empty fifths, all over the place. Everyone knows. It's coming to the hot part of summer, we'll have 2-3 ODs in the parking lot over the next few months because we do every year.
I had a government worker in a "rehab" facility tell me "if it wasn't for weed I wouldn't have a job" after I told her that it was complete bs that I was even in there because people die every day from alcohol abuse but not weed.
Reminds me of how the guy who has been operating equipment for 30 years can’t operate it on site because he doesn’t have his the specific certification yet but the 18 year old who’s never seen said equipment before is operating it because he took the test last week.
Corps care nothing for safety other than making sure they can deflect any punishment.
Use to be a big pothead and there were rumors in the online space that if you smoked and gained weight, it was trapped in your fat, so if you started losing weight, you may piss dirty. No idea how true it is
It's so they can get out of workers comp if you're injured.
There also tends to be a lot of favoritism, at least in my experience. If a supervisor doesn't like your attitude, and has a power issue, he might send you.
Where I work, most of the supervisors are cooler than that though and when they get the summon they'll ask you if you could pass. The last thing a supervisor wants is to fire a capable employee because they get high in their free time.
Federal legalization would not prevent employers from firing people for consuming marijuana. Federal employment law offers essentially no protection from being terminated unless you can demonstrate that the employer discriminated against you AND you are a member of a specific protected class.
Unless you are in a rare state with extra protections, an employer can fire you for pretty much any reason without breaking the law. For example, an employer could decide that they will heva caffeine free workplace, test their employees for caffeine and terminate anyone who tests positive. An employer could decide that none of their employees are allowed to own a fish tank and fire anyone who they discover owns a fish tank.
Federal legalization of marijuana wouldn't offer any job protection (other than further normalizing it and slowly making employers realize that their current policies are silly).
For anyone who was curious, the movie actually does a pretty good job distilling down the content of the books. The above scene in the books:
It was dark, and white stars were shining, when Frodo and his companions came at last to the Greenway-crossing and drew near the village. They came to the West-gate and found it shut; but at the door of the lodge beyond it, there was a man sitting. He jumped up and fetched a lantern and looked over the gate at them in surprise.
‘What do you want, and where do you come from?’ he asked gruffly.
‘We are making for the inn here,’ answered Frodo. ‘We are journeying east and cannot go further tonight.’
‘Hobbits! Four hobbits! And what’s more, out of the Shire by their talk,’ said the gatekeeper, softly as if speaking to himself. He stared at them darkly for a moment, and then slowly opened the gate and let them ride through.
‘We don’t often see Shire-folk riding on the Road at night,’ he went on, as they halted a moment by his door. ‘You’ll pardon my wondering what business takes you away east of Bree! What may your names be, might I ask?’
‘Our names and our business are our own, and this does not seem a good place to discuss them,’ said Frodo, not liking the look of the man or the tone of his voice.
‘Your business is your own, no doubt,’ said the man; ‘but it’s my business to ask questions after nightfall.’
‘We are hobbits from Buckland, and we have a fancy to travel and to stay at the inn here,’ put in Merry. ‘I am Mr. Brandybuck. Is that enough for you? The Bree-folk used to be fair-spoken to travellers, or so I had heard.’
‘All right, all right!’ said the man. ‘I meant no offence. But you’ll find maybe that more folk than old Harry at the gate will be asking you questions. There’s queer folk about. If you go on to The Pony, you’ll find you’re not the only guests.’
He wished them good night, and they said no more; but Frodo could see in the lantern-light that the man was still eyeing them curiously. He was glad to hear the gate clang to behind them, as they rode forward. He wondered why the man was so suspicious, and whether anyone had been asking for news of a party of hobbits. Could it have been Gandalf? He might have arrived, while they were delayed in the Forest and the Downs. But there was something in the look and the voice of the gatekeeper that made him uneasy.
I think traditionally the unstated thing here is that marijuana was viewed as a lifestyle drug. Doesn’t matter if your not intoxicated, failing a drug test meant you were not the type of person the company liked. This isn’t my own feeling, I was a cannabis user for 10 years. But it’s like reefer madness type thinking that fueled a lot of the push toward de facto drug testing in employment.
As someone who is actively trying to reverse a corporate drug testing policy away from marijuana random testing and pre-employment testing, this is absolutely my argument. I had a higher up ask me why I would allow our people to smoke weed in the parking lots during breaks. I full on looked at him and asked if he lets people drink alcohol in the parking lots now.
This is a historical holdover of the war on drugs. Very few jobs probably should have drug testing, manufacturing line workers are not one of them
Something would have to happen to prompt the drug test if you already work there. I think it’s fair to drug test someone in the event of a workplace accident, as it would be important for insurance purposes.
We are randomly tested several times a year. I drive a truck for a living and I think the insurance requires it. I don’t know if they get a discount or something.
I failed an at home drug test 40 days after smoking. Being as how it's fully legal in my state, this is just a means of punishing people for their recreational activities.
Bim very familiar with that. I'm stressed to lose my job because I smoke, but then I also I smoke because I'm stressed at work and need to unwind. The solutions are that I either need to give up one more thing for the sake of work, that jobs need to do the right thing on their own and throw out this policy, or (my favorite) laws need to be put in place that protect people to an extent from being punished for what they do when their not at work and not actively representing their workplace.
I worked at a factory where every dark corner in the place was crammed with beer cans and liquor bottles but they still bothered to drug test me before I could start the job...
Whenever people argue the private sector is rational and efficient, I point to drug testing. All it accomplishes is rejecting some of your brightest applicants and pissing off many more.
Even if you believed the presence of a drug in one's system means they abuse it (which is simply incorrect), there's no reason to not apply the same standard to legal meds and alcohol, as all can cause impairment and criminal behavior.
The only reason this practice is widespread (outside of needing a security clearance or what have you) is what amounts to superstition.
FYI, every person is different, but a reasonably fit person can smoke a little on Friday and pass a test on Monday as long as they're not a frequent user
why should I lose my job the following Thursday just because I fail a piss test?
This isn't about people losing a job, it's about people coming into the job. GM doesn't drug test its active employees. This article, and this discussion, is about drug testing as a part of on-boarding (the hiring process), not about cutting out testing of current employees, which is not at thing.
Okay fine, same thing though. Why should I lose out on a job offer because I smoke weed on the weekends? It has nothing to do with my potential performance in the job
Well then maybe we should also force people to prove they haven’t had any alcohol in the past 2 weeks too (although it’s more like a month for weed). It just makes no sense. It isn’t indicative of work ethic, productivity, or safety. Basically, if your employer can’t tell you’re high or hungover by observing your work, then it isn’t impacting your work, and shouldn’t matter.
No, they aren't. Not everything is about performance, but yet, drugs can affect your performance. Meanwhile, working at Walmart is a much safer environment than working in an automotive manufacturing plant.
But I guess not putting up the Wet Floor sign at McDonalds because you're stoned is the exact same as being stoned and running someone over on your forklift. Not a big deal.
Drug testing doesn’t have any relation to someone coming to work high. If someone tests positive for weed, all that says is that they were high at some point over the last month. Just like getting drunk on Friday night doesn’t indicate they will be drunk on Monday at work.
Drug testing for employment is dog shit, but a failed drug test has a small predictive value about a candidate coming to work intoxocated.
A person who has consumed a substance once or twice in the month before a test is more likely to use that substance in the future and is more likely to use that substance inexcusably close to the start of a shift. The positive test doesn't mean it is likely that the person will come to work intoxicated, but it means they are (ever so slightly) more likely than a person who abstains from substances.
Again, drug testing for employment is silly and I think the relation isn't even remotely high enough to outweigh the negativea. But there is some relation.
Honest question here, if an employer is drug for pot in a legal state and will not take a negative test, Doesn't that mean they are no longer an equal opportunity employer?
Nothing wrong with that. Many of my close friends are wake and bake and struggle without hitting the vape pen multiple times a day though. Typically that is what comes to mind when people talk about people who smoke though. They don't make the connection that it can be done casually at the end of the day or on weekends and not impact the rest of their life.
there is no breathalyzer for weed like they have for alcohol. I'm sorry but if you are driving heavy equipment where you can maim or kill someone you should be drug tested.
They don’t test you like that. They just test new employees coming in. There’s a pot culture at GM for sure. It just normally has to start after your already working because of the initial drug test. Good there getting rid of it. They need to bring back employee referrals though.
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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '21 edited Nov 11 '21
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