BF2S Forums How much information should employers be allowed?

Bertster7 wrote:

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.

I think it stays in your blood stream for about a month. Pain medications can also stay in the blood a long time.

This does nothing to indicate that the crane operator was in any way intoxicated or unfit to do his job. He'd have been fine within 24 hours and so the results are pretty much meaningless.

I don't agree with blood tests for drugs for precisely this reason - they can cast otherwise perfect employees in a really bad light, when they have done nothing that impacts on their work - one of the reasons they are rarely used. Employers hate to have to fire people that are good at their jobs over stupid bullshit - when I was working at Apple, loads of people got fired for having pirated films on their work laptops, which is stupid but doesn't impact on their work, the managers spent ages trying to get HR to let them off with warnings but to no avail and it caused some nasty problems.

Saliva swabs in the place of work for testing would be another story - being under the influence of any substance at work is certainly something that your employer has every right to be aware of and all without demonising employees who are great when at work, but might enjoy a joint or two on the weekends.