Forums › Drugs › Amphetamines › Random drugs testing
in reply to Kornos thread (which unfortunately) has gone down the rabbit hole when I tried to shift it across sites here is a list of false positives, though my wider view is once a European company has gone down the route of testing it is not that easy to get around and there usually has been some sort of incident justifiying it (either safety related or a major financial loss) as its not a trivial cost to set up testing régimes…
I’ll send korno a msg on facebook to let her know there’s a reply here.
My view would be to try and find another job but times are getting harder and workplace testing is becoming cheaper and more available (though still not a trivial cost for a medium size company).
Incidentally I once considered joining HM Coastguard as a comms operator but decided against it due to the chance of drug testing (which is commonplace in safety critical industries especially transport and heavy industry). I can begrudgingly accept the reasons for this as there were a number of incidents in the 1980s (especially on the railways) caused by drug and alcohol use by workers but it must be harsh for older people who volunteer on preserved railways as if they get ill and have to take painkillers and benzos they would have to stop their volunteering.
What worries me far more is a trend in some companies to request it for high profile “business critical” rôles (including IT/telecoms), although these sorts of companies do tend to have other ways of refusing employment to those with “risky lifestyles” (even including regularly taking part in sports due to risk of injury and time off work) though this tends to be confined to high profile companies based in London and/or with strong links to the USA and Middle East and these are not the sorts of companies I’d choose to work for anyway.
it mu
I used to work on the railways, and it was this exact reason I quit smoking weed (TBH it was a god sent and couldn’t of happened at a better time for me).
I heard some fucked up stories about safety issues caused by drugs and booze from the older guys I worked with what you wouldn’t be able to get away with now days.
@DaftFader 553954 wrote:
I heard some fucked up stories about safety issues caused by drugs and booze from the older guys I worked with what you wouldn’t be able to get away with now days.
when I was studying in London and travelling from Reading every morning I once got a Paddington train back, and one evening one of my old high school friends (who was the school nutter and part time arsonist but I got on well with him :laugh_at:) climbed out of the drivers cab, wearing a British Rail anorak. I hadn’t seen the chap since high school and was glad to see him as I thought he’d surely ended up in Broadmoor, but it turned out that he’d made something good of his “respectable” hobby (trainspotting).
The train was terminating at Reading so he had spare time for a cigarette and to have a chat. I joked with him about the anorak, but he let me have a look round the drivers cab of the train and explained why they were worn – on this sort of train a great cloud of diesel smoke would be blown into the cab as it first started up (the window was often left open to watch for the guard and/or other folk who waved flags and lamps around to stop and start trains). Not only would this would black your normal street clothes, a great blast of cold air was directed into the cab from some fan (there was a reason for it, possibly to do with engine cooling), and there was no heating or ventilation. So BR issued train drivers with anoraks as they were cheap due to their unfashionable reputation, protected the driver, and trainspotters also wore them to get into otherwise out of bounds places.
After this, he asked me if I would like a beer – I was a bit surprised as it was only about 17:40 and he couldn’t just sod off to the pub leaving the train unattended, and more so when he produced a can of Tennents Super from a stash a sports holdall he kept in the cab, though we used to regularly drink the stuff together. He assured me that this wasn’t as dangerous as it seemed, and said there is more danger in crossing the street in London stone cold sober (which to be fair wasn’t untrue) as there is usually only one train each segment of track at any one time”. Also he showed me this contraption which usually looked like a plain black disk on it but explained that when the train was going it would open up like a dandelion, a loud bell would sound, and the appearance of this “pretty flower” meant you should put the brakes on (if you didn’t a few seconds later the brakes went on anyway). but he did say “I have to watch myself a bit, as there are some signals at Southall which are not on this system, and if you are not careful it is easy to go past on danger (red) and then into the back of the next train. (which someone else did a few years later).
ah, my mate quit his job within 2 weeks of the RDT being introduced! He said he wasn’t gonna let it rule his life.. There are other joiner jobs out there…
@General Lighting 553955 wrote:
when I was studying in London and travelling from Reading every morning I once got a Paddington train back, and one evening one of my old high school friends (who was the school nutter and part time arsonist but I got on well with him :laugh_at:) climbed out of the drivers cab, wearing a British Rail anorak. I hadn’t seen the chap since high school and was glad to see him as I thought he’d surely ended up in Broadmoor, but it turned out that he’d made something good of his “respectable” hobby (trainspotting).
The train was terminating at Reading so he had spare time for a cigarette and to have a chat. I joked with him about the anorak, but he let me have a look round the drivers cab of the train and explained why they were worn – on this sort of train a great cloud of diesel smoke would be blown into the cab as it first started up (the window was often left open to watch for the guard and/or other folk who waved flags and lamps around to stop and start trains). Not only would this would black your normal street clothes, a great blast of cold air was directed into the cab from some fan (there was a reason for it, possibly to do with engine cooling), and there was no heating or ventilation. So BR issued train drivers with anoraks as they were cheap due to their unfashionable reputation, protected the driver, and trainspotters also wore them to get into otherwise out of bounds places.
After this, he asked me if I would like a beer – I was a bit surprised as it was only about 17:40 and he couldn’t just sod off to the pub leaving the train unattended, and more so when he produced a can of Tennents Super from a stash a sports holdall he kept in the cab, though we used to regularly drink the stuff together. He assured me that this wasn’t as dangerous as it seemed, and said there is more danger in crossing the street in London stone cold sober (which to be fair wasn’t untrue) as there is usually only one train each segment of track at any one time”. Also he showed me this contraption which usually looked like a plain black disk on it but explained that when the train was going it would open up like a dandelion, a loud bell would sound, and the appearance of this “pretty flower” meant you should put the brakes on (if you didn’t a few seconds later the brakes went on anyway). but he did say “I have to watch myself a bit, as there are some signals at Southall which are not on this system, and if you are not careful it is easy to go past on danger (red) and then into the back of the next train. (which someone else did a few years later).
:), that brings back memories, I remeber when I was training and they took us round all the control rooms from the British train system. You got to see this massive map of the uk up on the wall with all the train lines on and lights at every signal and section of track telling the operators where the trains were and what the signals were on and all sorts of alarms would go off if a train went into a section it wasn’t supposed to where another train was. It actualy reminded me of a james bond “arch enimys” lair the way it was layed out lol.
@korno 553971 wrote:
ah, my mate quit his job within 2 weeks of the RDT being introduced! He said he wasn’t gonna let it rule his life.. There are other joiner jobs out there…
fair play to him.
My late father (who was around 1.58m height, shorter than me at 1.65m) would daily consume enough benzos (and god knows what else) that would put a man twice his size to the floor (starting in the 1970s) and yet was particularly good at carpentry and DIY in general (including building the portable medicine cabinet he kept his stash in various items of furniture and a big loudspeaker cabinet that I had in my bedroom in the 70s).
He also managed to run a laundrette for several years (including fixing the washing machines when they went wrong) then worked as an engineer in the petrochemical industry, drive several motor cars without being involved in any crashes as well as raising two kids;. Of course that level of drugs consumption eventually knackers your insides, but it does not stop you becoming a productive member of society.
yes! My mate pretty much said the same thing as you. what he does on his weekends is none of their bloody business as he is a brilliant and dedicated joiner.
They were told that the drug testing was going to be happening at 1 out of their 9 sites every monday, so they never knew if it was gonna be their site and it could even happen two mondays in a row for all they knew, so they were never really safe and it was fucking up his weekends out with us cos he was too paranoid thinking about monday!! So that’s why he left the job.. He;s just taking a break off work for a few weeks at the moment but already a mutual friend of ours has said his brother can get him a job 🙂
@DaftFader 553954 wrote:
I heard some fucked up stories about safety issues caused by drugs and booze from the older guys I worked with what you wouldn’t be able to get away with now days.
yeah i read like tales on the Usenet railway newsgroups, managers gaffers and blokes all boozing together lunchtimes and even trains (meant to be parked) running away whilst crew were down the pub. 99.9% were safe and solid of course but there seem to have been a few only kept on the rails (as it were) by other staff covering incidents up. scary thought.
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Forums › Drugs › Amphetamines › Random drugs testing
