BF2S Forums How much information should employers be allowed?

As you're most likely aware but for those who aren't, MDMA is more about serotonin than dopamine. It basically releases a lot of serotonin at once whilst being an uptake inhibitor. This causes the serotonin to be fired multiple times and in much greater quantities than normal, resulting in greatly enhanced feelings of well being and euphoria. Eventually it wears off and you can sometimes feel very flat a couple days later, sometimes known as "terrible Tuesday". My research is a few years dated but last I read there was no conclusive evidence that MDMA causes any long term or permanent neurotoxicity with moderate use, according to the Surgeon General of the UK in the early 00's. One study could not find conclusive evidence of even very heavy use, though again it was some years ago since I last read up on it with any real desire to learn and be informed.

Last edited by Jaekus (2013-06-07 10:35:45)

Macbeth wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

he's not wrong. the military-industrial complex always puts lazy and directionless people to work in america.

I know he's not but it's just every single post he just has to harp on about military welfare this, veterans steal jobs that.

Considering the huge cost of tertiary education in the USA... Military is a pretty good option to get paid while learning a trade.

Shooting guns at sand people is a real marketable skill. The idea that people come out of the military with job skills is a myth meant to steer more people into it. If so many people came out with marketable skills the government wouldn't be begging businesses to hire them.

I could've gone straight to work with Verizon, TWC or Cablevision if I'd wanted to. Your infantile derision of veterans makes you look less intelligent with every post you make on the topic. Quit while you are well behind.

Macbeth wrote:

Jay wrote:

Macbeth wrote:

Shooting guns at sand people is a real marketable skill. The idea that people come out of the military with job skills is a myth meant to steer more people into it. If so many people came out with marketable skills the government wouldn't be begging businesses to hire them.

I could've gone straight to work with Verizon, TWC or Cablevision if I'd wanted to. Your infantile derision of veterans makes you look less intelligent with every post you make on the topic. Quit while you are well behind.

Could have sworn you went into infantry and spent most of your time sitting on top of a jeep driving shit around. At least that is what you said when you were trying to impress Marine and GS who just laughed at you. I would go read your life story again but I can't be bothered.

Next time GS is around you should go ask him how many job offers he had for maintaining and repairing civilian APCs. APC repair is a huge market over here. One of the very marketable skills people learn in the military. If veterans are so skillful why is the government running commercials to get people to hire them? Why was veteran unemployment 4 points above the national average before the government started giving tax breaks to corporations to hire them?. Why were veterans 25% of the homeless before the government started throwing money at them? It is because that job program doesn't put out marketable and skillful people as much as it keeps a paycheck going to a bunch of people who had nothing else better to do. And then when they come back they throw a pity party until we give them more free shit. Oh yeah some real self starters.

Nah, my title was Network Switching System Operator/Maintainer. Switchboards, routers, communications security, telephones, data links, radio links and the like. GS was infantry, and then he was military intelligence, but if he did work on APCs then there's lucrative work as a heavy diesel mechanic. They make good money in the civilian world.

Veterans have a hard time getting jobs because they become institutionalized the same way prisoners do. They get used to having a set schedule and people telling them what to do all day and find it very difficult to transition to the civilian world where no one really cares about you and you have the freedom to fuck up your life to your hearts content. Little things, like paying rent, are alien to people who have spent their entire adult life in the military (or prison). Others are just ne'erdowells who would crash and burn with or without the military.

In my experience, veterans who do have their shit together tend to do a lot better, and are more sought after, than people who simply went to college and have no life experience outside of a classroom. Military officers tend to move straight out of the military and into relatively high positions in the companies they apply at. Something about leading hundreds of men in combat makes them desirable...

So anyway, I know your opinions are based on either your own, or your professors, resentment for being made to feel inferior at some point in the past. I say get over it. You're doing yourself a disservice by voicing the opinions you do, they make you look childish and pathetic.

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

no, i'm basing my judgement of 'average soldiers' on the sort of people who go into military service here. we are exposed to our servicemen in civilian life and in the media a lot, you know. they are not the sharpest tools in the box. they are people who left school without academic merit, 'good with hands', or sports-players who obviously aren't gonna go pro anytime soon. that sort of figure. in america it's just made worse because your college education is prohibitively expensive. thus the GI bill and stuff like that is seen as a 'non-standard route' for college education in the US. it is a structural thing. like, it's so embedded and taken for granted.

3 people? yeah this is really based on 3 people. how about you "come on". are you denying there's a contingent of american servicemen who only join so it will put them through college? or are you really trying to say that's "only 3 people", or else a tiny minority?

Trotskygrad wrote:

I'm with zique here

while I do know a couple who joined up simply for the experience, a lot of people I know simply joined up for benefits, or even citizenship.

Ofc the USAF attracts the cream of the crop for fighter pilots, but even then a lot of people see them as a way to get a good technical education as a maintainer, etc.

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

the thing with veterans is they get that rude pride and sense of entitlement and will never look back on themselves before joining the military and admit that their reasons for joining were either venal, cynical, or just trying to better themselves in any way possible. service seems to indoctrinate vets with a sense that their work was 'civil service' and was 'noble' and 'inspired' by 'good principles'. as if any 19 year old even gives a shit about that. most young teen dudes couldn't even give a shit about anyone beyond their immediate family and friends.

13/f/taiwan wrote:

cougar don't pretend like military recruiters don't target low-income, parent-absent, directionless and generally below-average, in terms of school work, youth. i'm willing to bet they comprise more then just a minute fraction.

I think what you are all failing to take into account here is the "before" rather than the "later".

So what if they recruit poor, parent-less, under achievers in school and or dumb jocks.  Most of the people in the military signed up BECAUSE OF THIS!  Why would the silver spoon in the mouth rich kid want to go?  But there is something to be said for someone who wants to better themselves.  Someone who CAN'T afford college, someone who DIDN'T have someone in their life to make sure they made the right choices, maybe even someone who had no direction, no skills, no hope. 

But they joined the military and made something of themselves, an opportunity is there and they take it.  They learn a trade, a craft, get an education, and they learn some respect, civil service, duty and the all important skills that most civilians lack of service before self and excellence in what they do, attention to detail so on and so forth.  Where as a civilian gives up money for an education, military people (most of whom wouldn't have money for an education otherwise) give up their social lives and sometimes their actual lives to achieve the same.

So my issue with all of this idiotic statements is that you are all basically saying that these people are lazy, stupid or gullible for joining the military for the "free shit".  You couldn't be farther from the truth.  I never met a single person that said "I didn't sign up for this" or "This isn't what I expected", or "this is bullshit, I wanna go home".  You have to have some respect for people that joined and served.  They either joined because they actually wanted to serve their country, wanted to better themselves, wanted to make a better life for their families or wanted to make a difference in someone elses life.  There is not a goddamn thing wrong with any of that.

america looks after its little do-gooder imperialists.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-06-07 17:21:22)

yeah all those people who took college loans instead of free government money... they don't deserve the respect that the military kids did. some people needed the state to help them structure their day, get them motivated, and help them pay their way through college. they somehow deserve 'more respect' because they're 'trying to better themselves'. unlike the vast majority of lower-middle class kids who go to college and take huge loans that they have to pay off until they're 40. they don't deserve any respect. taking the easy route.

marijuana and pain medication. sounds legit/prescribed. for a medical ailment. you can't use this as some dumb 'degenerate drug user fucks up at work'. sounds like the dude was taking medication for some sort of ache or pain. if it's legal and prescribed for a condition, it's about as damning as saying someone "had high levels of caffeine" in their blood when something goes wrong. i thought your whole point 'IT'S THE LAW!!!'

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

yeah all those people who took college loans instead of free government money... they don't deserve the respect that the military kids did. some people needed the state to help them structure their day, get them motivated, and help them pay their way through college. they somehow deserve 'more respect' because they're 'trying to better themselves'. unlike the vast majority of lower-middle class kids who go to college and take huge loans that they have to pay off until they're 40. they don't deserve any respect. taking the easy route.

Your dad paid for everything so just shut the fuck up already. You're the last person in the world that should ever criticize the difficult decisions that others have to make. You were handed everything in life. Cry more.

Take it to the college and/or investment threads, cyborg.

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

let's break this down, and make it a little more than 'i've taken drugs and here's my anecdote' vs. 'i've never taken drugs, you are scum, here's my anecdote':

In 2004–05, the consumption of alcohol was estimated to cost Australian society  $15.3 billion (Collins & Lapsley 2008a). These costs included both tangible costs (such as for healthcare, road accidents and crime) and intangible costs, including for pain and suffering. The majority of social costs for alcohol (71%) were tangible costs (Collins & Lapsley 2008a). Businesses bore 50% of tangible costs and governments 26%, with individuals making up the balance. Recent research has suggested that when additional social costs to individuals around the drinker (rather than to the drinker themselves) are factored into the analysis, the financial burden of alcohol use in Australia is higher (Laslett et al. 2010).

In 2004–05, tobacco smoking was estimated to cost Australian society $31.5 billion in tangible costs (such as for healthcare, fires and lost productivity) and intangible costs of pain and suffering (Collins & Lapsley 2008b). The majority (62%) were intangible social costs. Of the tangible costs, the government sector bore 8%, while households and businesses bore 50% and 42%, respectively.


In 2004–05, it was estimated that illicit drug use cost Australian society $8.2 billion. Most of these costs (84%) were the tangible costs associated with crime, lost productivity and healthcare (Collins & Lapsley 2008b). In 2008–09, Australian governments also spent $83.9 million on the prevention of hazardous and harmful drug use associated with illicit drugs (AIHW 2011c). A further $114.5 million was spent on prevention related to ‘mixed’ drugs (programs that targeted more than one drug type). These funds were spent on prevention activities such as information campaigns and education programs.

hmm, startling cost to society there by these illegal drugs and their meltdowns. so the government and employers both lose a lot more money in costs/losses to alcohol and tobacco than they do to drugs. i guess it's a really high priority for an employer to know if their job applicant takes MDMA once every 3 months! let's look at the health stats:

There were 15,512 deaths attributable to tobacco in Australia in 2003 (Begg et al. 2007). The overall burden of disease in Australia from smoking decreased from 10% of the total burden in 1996 to 8% in 2003 (Begg et al. 2007); however, it remained the largest single risk factor contributing to disease and death.

In 2003, the most recent year for which data are available, an estimated 2% of the total burden of disease in Australia was attributable to excessive alcohol consumption, with a large proportion of this burden falling on males under the age of 45 years. However, alcohol was also estimated to prevent 1% of the total burden of disease (Begg et al. 2007), mainly through its protective effect for heart disease in older populations. The net impact of alcohol across the whole population was almost 1,100 deaths and over 61,000 DALYs (disability-adjusted-life-years)

The health impact of illicit drug use has been estimated in a study that looks at the sources of disease burden in Australia. The last study of this kind found that illicit drug use was responsible for 2% of the total burden of disease in Australia in 2003 (Begg et al. 2007). There were 1,705 deaths in 2003 and almost 51,500 disability-adjusted-life-years (DALYS or lost years of healthy life) attributable to illicit drug use.

tobacco again way out ahead. alcohol manages to draw about even with illicit drug use in terms of direct health problems, recouping 4,692 'saved lives' in 2003 through the putative 'health benefits' of (responsible) alcohol consumption, for e.g. stroke, ischemic heart disease in elderly people. alcohol still claims far more 'disability-adjusted-life-years' from society, however, in terms of productivity and misery. alcohol is still also a much bigger problem demographically for young- and working-age- people - the health benefits only recouping the losses for the elderly.

now let's look at this mental health category. people being "fried" because of drugs.

Mental health’ in this section includes both mental disorders, as defined by the ABS’s Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, and self-reported psychological wellbeing. The 2007 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing gathered information about drug use disorders. The alcohol-related disorders captured were ‘harmful use’ (the pattern of use responsible for, or substantially contributing to, physical or psychological harm) and ‘alcohol dependence’(a maladaptive pattern of use in which alcohol takes on a much higher priority for a person than other behaviours that once had greater value) (ABS 2007).

The survey found that around 4% of Australians aged 16–85 years had experienced harmful alcohol use or were dependent on alcohol in the year before the survey. Around 23% of 16–85 year olds had experienced one of those disorders in their lifetime. The 2010 NDSHS also asked people about their psychological wellbeing. It found that people drinking at risky levels for lifetime harm or at levels that put them at risk of harm from a single occasion of drinking were more likely to report moderate to very high levels of psychological distress than low-risk drinkers and abstainers.

Some patterns of drug use and associated harms have a detrimental effect on mental health and wellbeing. Around 8% of people in Australia aged 16–85 years have had a drug use disorder (including harmful use/abuse and/or dependence) in their lifetime (ABS 2007). In 2007, about one in seventy people (1.4%) had a drug use disorder in the last 12 months.

looks like alcohol loses, again, by quite a margin. so it seems you live in a different reality to the rest of us. your "i know a few people who have lost their heads to drugs, none on alcohol" translates to 8% of people in a lifetime suffer a drug-related mental health problem, and 23% with alcohol. hmm. that's okay, though. rational and intelligent science types who regard the law as an immutable authority often suffer cognitive dissonance when it comes to the empirical facts.

source: 'drugs in australia 2010: alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs', australian institute of health and welfare (canberra: 2010)
www.aihw.gov.au/WorkArea/DownloadAsset. … 7420455‎

None of that matters, its not drugs vs alcohol when it comes to employers - its about hiring people who are law-abiding and follow the rules vs people who ignore the rules because they're annoying, inconvenient or breaking rules is itself cool.

Lets change tack, because you obviously think you're a special little flower and taking drugs is your personal hobby.

It was/is fairly common to put on a CV 'Full driving licence, no endorsements', and not uncommon for employers to ask for it in the job description, for jobs which either involved no driving or only very peripherally, such as occasional use of a company car (and some companies keep a single notional 'company car' solely for that purpose).

Why? Is it:

A: Because employers are very concerned about traffic law and see it as their job to be an arm of goverment and prevent people who enjoy having a laugh on the road earning the income they're entitled to. That and they enjoy getting in peoples faces and fucking up their shit by preventing employees having a good time zooming around at the weekends, getting a little pointer to point at a number its not supposed to be pointing at, even though its none of their business - they're just great big meanies basically.

B: Because employers like to winnow out people who are careless, reckless, have a problem with authority or staying within simple and well-defined boundaries, or are academically clever but practically stupid - and being able to drive a car without hitting things or coming to the attention of the police too often is a reasonable indicator of both a basic level of personal responsibility and competence in mastering a skill.

Is it unreasonable for an employer to to see your driving record, ask for a drug test or criminal record check?

I don't think so really, managing people is hard enough, managing people who don't much care about instructions, rules and procedures is doubly tiring, but thankfully we can usually fire those people if they fluked their way through the hiring process.

(FWIW I worked for a company which asked every employee to provide a criminal record check, on the basis there was a creche in the building. Sneaky maybe.)

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2013-06-08 03:05:17)

UnkleRukus wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

marijuana and pain medication. sounds legit/prescribed. for a medical ailment. you can't use this as some dumb 'degenerate drug user fucks up at work'. sounds like the dude was taking medication for some sort of ache or pain. if it's legal and prescribed for a condition, it's about as damning as saying someone "had high levels of caffeine" in their blood when something goes wrong. i thought your whole point 'IT'S THE LAW!!!'

I would never want a crane operator to have pot or pain meds in his system. They're put in charge of lifting several tons of items 30+ feet in the air. Stuff that swings like crazy in the slightest breeze. It is illegal for equipment operators to be under the influence for a reason. They put their lives, as well as their coworkers lives at risk.

You can't argue with this idiot, don't even try.  Thinks soldiers are stupid, lazy moochers and anyone should be able to smoke pot whenever they want.  You can't reason with that level of fucking retard.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed lawsuits Tuesday against discount retailer Dollar General Corp. and a BMW manufacturing plant in South Carolina over their use of criminal background checks to screen out job applicants or fire employees.

In both cases, the agency claims the practice discriminates against African-Americans, who have higher arrest and conviction rates than whites.

The two lawsuits are the first since the agency issued revised guidance last year to warn employers against using overly broad criminal checks in a way that could limit job opportunities for people with past convictions. The commission says it wants to reduce barriers to employment for those with past criminal records who “have been held accountable and paid their dues.”

The EEOC alleges that BMW’s policy affected dozens of employees working for a contractor that staffed a BMW warehouse in Spartanburg, S.C. The contractor’s policy was not to employ anyone with a criminal record within the past seven years. When a new contractor took over the company, BMW ordered a new round of criminal background checks and fired anyone with a criminal record from any year.

Of the 88 workers fired, 70 were black. Some had worked for BMW — through the contractor — for more than a decade, the EEOC alleged in a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Spartanburg. The commission claims the BMW policy is a “blanket exclusion” without any regard for the nature and gravity of the crimes, how old they are, or whether they are relevant to the type of work being performed.

BMW spokeswoman Sky Foster said the company “believes that it has complied with the letter and spirit of the law and will defend itself against the EEOC’s allegations of race discrimination.”

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013 … applicants
Could have done without the accusation of racism.   Reminds me when we went to a tour of a BMW plant in the 4th grade. BMW has a policy of not hiring anyone with a criminal history period. Found it funny when the tour guide told the whole group of 4th graders "sorry if you have ever been arrested you can never work here".

Last edited by Macbeth (2013-06-18 11:33:52)