Advice for recent and future ISU grads
- Thread starter MNclone
- Start date
If I perform sufficiently at work, and what I do in my spare time does not affect my production at all, what do they care?
Why are they entitled to know what I'm doing off-hours?
maybe there is more to you than suffciently?
No one is entitled to a job.. no matter how well they perform.
-keep
Not to mention if you're doing drugs at home, sooner or later you'll come into work with a buzz from the night before, it'll happen just wait. And then that becomes a liability for the company.
While I absolutely agree that this is likely, it's also a hard line to distinguish where to stop. Hangovers can affect work, so do they test for alcohol use? Lots of man hours are lost due to smoke breaks - do you test for nicotine? It's just hard to draw the line, although there is the argument that we're an at-will employment state, so it's pretty much in the employer's rights to test for whatever they want.
As an example, our employer pays for all of our health and dental insurance. All 50+ employees only pay a $5 annual premium. Our owner has kicked around requiring that all people who receive the full health care benefits much be non-smokers, or that they must pay for their health care. I think that this is an understandable policy, but it raises some of the same questions. I don't really have a strong opinion either way, since I can see both sides...
If you came in under the effects of alcohol you better believe you'd be tested, or just fired. Since alcohol is out of your system much faster than most drugs a test would not be feasible. A person could drink 2 days ago and obviously wouldn't test positive, but smoke marijuana 2 days ago and you're screwed. Also, drugs are the only one listed that's actually illegal, so it's got that going for it, which is nice.
As for the health insurance issue, I think it's absolutely within an employers rights to say that in order to qualify for the healthcare they pay for the employees take reasonable steps to be healthy, ie. not smoking, no excessive drinking.
I'm totally ignorant of roughly how long it takes alcohol to get entirely out of your system - 18 hours? I know it depends on the amount you consume, body size, etc... I was just wondering if a bender the night before would show up in a test first thing the next morning. I've never had to take a drug test - I assume all are urine samples, but isn't THC supposed to stick around in your hair follicles? Is that just an old wives' tale?
I realize you're joking, but it could happen if these lines start to be crossed.
While I can 'somewhat' understand the weed thing, since it is illegal, the smoking thing starts to cross an even more important line. One could argue that being obese is as great of a health risk as smoking (I'm not sure of the numbers, but they're both bad as far as health is concerned), and if you eliminate smoking, then you could eliminate obesity, and bacon double cheeseburgers would be next.
The point is that if you take a drug test at work and fail it, then that's not your free time anymore. You're coming to work with drugs in your system.
I think if it was easier to fire people then they wouldn't have drug testing in most places. They would just fire you if you showed up high. The drug test gives them grounds for firing legally I'm guessing.
I remember taking my drug test. Even though I 100% knew I was fine, I dont remember the last time I was that nervous.
Pretty crappy deal. He was apparently good enough to get hired for the job and apparently didn't have any problems doing the actual job so what's the problem? Unless it is noticeably affecting the job performance of the person stay the hell out of their business. Especially for a freaking engineering job...
There's also the point of if you have an employee that is fine with doing one illegal thing i.e. doing drugs, what other illegal activity is he ok with? What it boils down to is that someone who is doing illegal drugs in their free time is more than likely not the type of person you want as a part of your company.
Sorry but that kind of logic just might be the reason the Minnesota I 35 bridges were defective in design and materials.
Every job, big or small requires and demands your undivided, undrugged attention to details.
