Party Vibe

Thanks for that, i am a bit miffed as to why i am to take a drugs test because although this job is with a well known steel copmany (who shall remain nameless) i’m only going for a job in the accounts office – whats the most damage i can do with a photocopier and a fax machiene?! Lol.

I do not intend on giving up my lifestyle, i just want to get this test out of the way and get my foot in the door. I think that drug testing for certian jobs (such as office jobs etc) is violation of human rights because what i do with myself in my spare time is nobody’s business, however i do agree with it if you are operating heavy machinery etc.

Have only just been introduced to SJ and PV and these forums are great, it’s nice to communicate with people who don’t judge, preach or turn their noses up at you… :flowers:

I work in a finance/HR department myself … its a bit of a complicated issue in somewhere like a steelworks or a transport company – many jobs are very safety critical as you would expect

Other employees and the unions often argue (quite correctly) for “equal rights and conditions for everybody”, they feel if the people working on the shop floor with the crucibles and furnaces must be drug tested then so should everybody else, even the office workers.

There’s also an argument that particularly in finance the work is business-critical – if you make a mistake then the company may incur extra expense or a customer may cancel an order because of an error which caused them inconvenience.

You do also get people who quite frankly take the piss, they get caned to the point they cannot perform their job, lunch out their work/pull sickies and other team members end up picking up their share of the work.

People who do this sort of thing are detrimental to the organisation and should indeed be disciplined, however these sorts of people usually are poor performers anyway and unsuited to the job they are doing.

and sadly it is because of them that drug testing is being introduced here (remember that it costs the company money to carry out the tests and is bad for employee relations, most well-run organisations do not incur spend and create conflict unless there is a gain at the end of it).

I know plenty of people who balance their lifestyles so they ensure they can still perform acceptably at work even if they have been partying…

At the same time many other things than substance use can cause problems.

Someone could have been sitting up all night watching Wales play the All Blacks live from New Zealand, or have spent loads of extra time training for a cycling time trial (or other intensive sports) without taking anything illegal whatsoever, but they could still be tired at the workplace and make a dangerous or costly mistake.

Or they could bust their leg playing sports and be off work for a long time. (Some employers actually discourage or prohibit their staff from playing contact sports for this reason, although that may be against human rights legislation now)

OTOH in “frontline” factory situations most accidents happen because corners have been cut by management trying to speed up service/product delivery in order to compete in a fast moving market place, whilst not deploying sufficient resources to ensure the job is done safely.

All of these business risks can be prevented by standard performance measurement procedures, and perhaps reaction time testing where appropriate – in a well-run organisation there is actually no real business need for such intrusive practices as drugs testing.