Pre-employment drug screens ate my balls
This is a really old k5 diary that I’m proud of. The original post is here. I made some minor edits.
The bratty and unhelpful HR troglodyte just called and said she forgot to mention earlier that I’ve gotta take a pre-employment drug screening.
Now I gotta go and piss in a goddamn cup.
She’s unhelpful because so far, she’s been unable to answer even one of my questions about vacation, benefits, health insurance or retirement without putting me on hold and asking somebody else first. She’s bratty because she doesn’t like how I ask her to explain the nonsensical corporate jargon she throws out; I think she’d prefer that I just trust her judgement about my options rather than try to comprehend them myself.
Anyway, she should have told me about the drug test two weeks ago when I got the offer. Now I gotta get to the new city a few days ahead of my original time so I can excrete urine for these fuckers.
Dogs urinate as a sign of submission. Maybe that’s how this drug-testing thing got started; it’s just a way to break the worker’s spirit right off the bat.
I tend to glaze over when libertarians fuss about stuff like grocery store club cards, or Radio Shack asking for my address. I agree with them, but I don’t really get upset about it.
But pre-employment drug tests really make me mad. It’s not what you’re thinking. I’m clean, man. Just like our president, I can pass the FBI background check that examines the last seven years.
And I doubt these tests really accomplish anything, anyway. It’s not as if American productivity shot up after employers started screening new hires. Almost any of the tests can be easily circumvented. They’re just another sign that we’re slowly giving our dignity away.
I’m not mad because I think drugs ought to be legal. I don’t really care anymore about whether they should or shouldn’t be illegal; they are illegal, and most likely, they’re going to be illegal for a really long time. People might as well rant about bad weather. Furthermore, I wouldn’t touch them anyway.
I don’t like being treated like a criminal. Drug screening places are always shitty hellhole offices, with employees that are unhappy at the fact that they handle piss all day, so they take it out on the poor saps that need work bad enough to submit to this degradation.
This job didn’t perform a credit check (well, at least not to my knowledge) but I’ve been asked to grant permission for those for other jobs.
My sister had to take a lie detector test in order to get a promotion at one job. Where does it fucking end? Will firms send out investigators to root around houses of job applicants and look for anything that might mark them as a bad employee? Why not profile family members and find out if any of them indicate a family predisposition towards deviance? Maybe future junior partners at PricewaterhouseCoopers will have to go out and kill some nameless victim in order to make it to full partner; that way, the company always has something on them.
It’s days like this that make me want to cash out my retirement and head out of town, buy a farm, and live off the grid. But that’s not really very safe anymore either, right? A bunch of bored ATF assholes would probably come after me.
A friend warned me not to eat any poppy-seed muffins before the test. That got me thinking. In some other parallel universe, I’m gonna look up every drug analog possible and eat all of them: poppy seeds, cough syrup, cranberry juice, etc, and try to grand-slam that drug test. I want a goddamn siren to go off because of everything I (falsely) test positive for. Based on the results, doctors will want to know how I can remain standing.
But in this universe, I figured out what I’m gonna do. I’m going on an all-asparagus diet the week before my test. My piss is gonna stink so bad, lab techs will have to wear masks or risk losing consciousness. They’ll have to close the place down to fumigate.
CHris said,
May 16, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
I feel the same way. Just recently I took a pre-employment drug screen and the lab tech sniffed my urine. She said “thats funny it doesn’t smell like urine”, I almost started laughing thinking to myself… Is she going to see if it taste like urine…
matt said,
July 4, 2008 @ 10:23 am
Chris, Thanks for the comment!
vemrion said,
July 4, 2008 @ 11:45 am
Drug testing = fascism
Not only is it a violation of our dignity and 4th amendment rights, it’s also completely ineffective. There’s nothing stopping someone from doing 18 lines of coke right after passing the “test” (is it just me or do tests get worse as you get older?). What utter futility; the only point is to break our spirits like you mentioned.
ggggopalon said,
July 4, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
My friend had to recently submit to a drug test. He asked a buddy who doesn’t do drugs for some pee and kept it in his freezer for a couple of weeks. On the big exam day, he boiled it up in a ziploc and then poured it in a bottle. Once it cooled down a little bit, he crotched it and proceeded to the piss handling facility. He passed with flying colors.
So I’d say that drug testing is useless, especially if someone is willing to put forth the effort to circumvent it.
carny666 said,
July 4, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
Heh.. everybody, including my manager, would fail where I work.
Bud said,
July 4, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
Its an imperfect device for screening low-productivity, sick-frequent employees. It’s no more or less effective at no doing so than screening through college degrees, tests, or other methods.
ZxEfR said,
July 4, 2008 @ 11:38 pm
vemrion — It’s not against our 4th amendment right for a private company to ask you to take a drug test! Companies can’t force anyone to take a drug test….but they can fire you or not hire if you don’t….and that is their right and better frickin remain their right too. We have the right not to be forced to work for them….plain and simple.
The problem lies in the fact that the sheople are dumb enough to go along with it. Just like in politics the sheople are to dumb to realize that they are the ones with the power. So when there is someone else that is stooopid enough to submit to a drug test then that screws the rest of us.
rick said,
July 7, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
The asparagus idea is the best idea I’ve ever heard…I’m going to go apply for a job just so I can give them a week’s worth of stale asparagus pee. HAH!
meh said,
July 14, 2008 @ 6:39 am
Whinge, whinge, whine, whine. Let me guess, you’re american?
Upset said,
July 14, 2008 @ 11:48 am
So, Meh
You think that because he whinges (I really don’t even know what this is) and whines he is American. I take it from your comment that your intellectually challenged. He may be American, but honestly who cares, whether your American, British, French, Canadian, German, or a smurf, everyone has the right to complain about things they don’t like, don’t listen if you think it is too much.
Shadus said,
July 14, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
Its kinda funny but some of the absolute worst workers I’ve ever met worked at companies with “random drug testing” policies. I worked at an ISP back in the mid 90s, we were one of the first companies to provide DSL in our area, we became a phone company to do it (which ultimately got us bought out), and we were ultra productive. There were more stoners working there than you could shake a stick at, from management all the way down to technical support. I’d guess 85% of the work force smoked daily. Made money hand over fist. Damn druggies.
kpstoner said,
July 16, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
I agree with Shadus. You might be surprised to find out that your neighbor, your lawyer, your doctor, or several
‘influential” people that smoke the evil weed. Of course, there are us construction workers, landscapers, plumbers, and other blue collar type who enjoy it, as well.
Jim said,
July 18, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
I had to submit to a drug test to get hired at home depot for the summer.. I smoked the day of. Drank an assload of water and took some vitamin b12 to make my pee yellow, and I was good as gold.
Seismicmike said,
July 24, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
I think this country has it backwards. We shouldn’t be testing people who are getting jobs or are currently in a job. I say if you’re gainfully employed and your ‘vice’ doesn’t negatively affect your work, you should have the right to enjoy yourself for a while. Just like alcohol.
What we should be doing is drug testing the people who get unemployment and welfare checks. I know some there are people on unemployment who can’t find work, but let’s be honest: the vast majority of the people on unemployment are the ones who don’t want work - some of them because of the drug test.
How many fewer people would be unemployed if they had the incentive of being able to smoke as much pot as they want so long as they hold some kind of job? It’d take care of illegal imigration, that’s for sure.
deez said,
July 25, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
Matt didn’t mention if he would have not got the job if he tested positive.
Ask HR… why do you need to test me and what happens if it is positive? Last time I had to pee in a cup for a job I didn’t stop smoking weed…I just went and took a piss and I toke everyday so the test likely came back positive for marijuana. I worked there and nobody said a thing about it to me ever.
just because they test you doesn’t mean they’re gonna use it against you..