9 ms·

> Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows. I bet yo

> Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows. I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary. > Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test. So don't give drug tests? > Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of showing up on time (or at all) even after that’s explained as a part of orientation. Try paying more?

toomuchtodo 9y ago
> So don't give drug tests? While I agree that drug tests are a scam as a white collar worker, I do think they're necessary from a liability perspective if you're in construction, manufacturing, or driving a company vehicle. I fully support the use of recreational drugs on someone's own time, but you have to weed out (forgive the pun) those who are under the influence when loss of life or limb is a risk.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  So give sobriety tests, not drug tests.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  We don't give breath tests, but people rarely show up drunk. Yet the same arguments apply. Doesn't that say something about the effectiveness of testing?
- Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago
  I imagine that there is probably an issue with these workers making half of what software engineers make, but with higher expectation of no drug use. I'd imagine recreational drug use is even greater in lower-waged workers. Culturally, recreational drug use isn't that big of a deal, at least to millennials. You can completely be responsible enough to enjoy some cannabis on personal time, while also doing your 40 hours productively.
  - smallnamespace 9y ago
    > You can completely be responsible enough to enjoy some cannabis on personal time, while also doing your 40 hours productively. The problem is one of information from the POV of the employer: they are ultimately responsible for what the worker does on the job. Even if P(no problem | drug use) = 0.99, the amount of negligent liability they will incur if an accident does occur, the person was intoxicated, and the employer could have checked for drugs, but didn't, is probably so high that they can't take that route.
- eric_h 9y ago
  I would be okay with drug tests that didn't fail you for weed. That can show up on a test weeks after it's been consumed. The drugs that would actually significantly impair you (alcohol, opiates) clear out of your system in hours/days.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    TBF weed will significantly impair you. Driving a car or operating machinery on weed is super dangerous. Just not weeks after consumption...
    - eric_h 9y ago
      TBF it depends on the weed, but yes, I agree that it can significantly impair you. My point is that the test is testing the wrong thing. A sobriety test would be best.
  - Kalium 9y ago
    There are drug testing companies that exist solely to farm out the work to a lab and remove any marijuana hits from the results. Some companies in places where weed is legal use these.
bkohlmann 9y ago
The thing about manufacturing jobs is that they often involve operating heavy machinery. Drug use and intoxication drastically increases the chance of death or dismemberment - for the inebriated, or often, others around them. As a pilot, I seriously don’t care if you show up to work high or not - unless you’re doing maintenance on the jet I’m supposed to fly.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  Fail drug test != show up to work high.
  - killjoywashere 9y ago
    Past performance != future performance But it's the best signal we've got. Ignore it at your peril. Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-guide-to-reducing-lifes-risks.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-gui...
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      > But it's the best signal we've got Except that's not true. We can actually test for sobriety. And by doing drug testing instead, we're actually using a worse signal in place of a better signal! See e.g., http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages-of-impairment-testing-over-drug-testing-to-improve-workplace-safety http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages... > Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. I'm not really sure if there's more than a vague analogy connecting Diamond's hypotheses to drug testing policy. And I don't find that exceptionally vague analogy to be compelling evidence. (And I'm one of those people who doesn't even buy a lot of Diamond's work anyways; in fact, I think I'm in good company on this one among the sober, grown-up anthropologists out there...) My weathered experience tells me to prefer hard data over vague analogies to pop science writers who are themselves known more for their well-written vague analogies than their well-researched hard science :-)
maccard 9y ago
> I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary. I'm not sure exactly what industry the original poster was referring to, but broadly my experience has been that there are many people who are just unreliable. I worked in retail a few years ago, and it was incredible. People just don't show up, or show up so intoxicated from the night before that they're not actually capable of doing their job. Now, as a developer, I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone has shown up too hungover to work, and I can tell you exactly (0) the number of times someone has just flat out failed to show up when they were supposed to be working. > So don't give drug tests? For lots of jobs that may not be an option. Operating heavy machinery puts lots of lives at risk, or it could be an insurance requirement. > Try paying more? Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > People just don't show up, or show up so intoxicated from the night before that they're not actually capable of doing their job... Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time. Anecdotally, I know several people who worked retail throughout college and showed up super hung-over basically every weekend, but who are now extremely responsible professionals in software, medicine, etc. Again, I think salary and a sense of career prospects / something worthwhile to lose are far more important than individual proclivities or responsibility. People know their retail jobs are bullshit, dead-end positions. There's nothing to lose and 10 more identical jobs waiting for them on the market. > For lots of jobs that may not be an option. Operating heavy machinery puts lots of lives at risk, or it could be an insurance requirement. Sounds like a policy (law) option to me.
- mgkimsal 9y ago
  > Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time. But in terms of initial applicants, who may not be as flaky, advertising higher starting salary may bump up the non-flakiness of people showing up for an interview.
- darpa_escapee 9y ago
Clubber 9y ago
>I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary. That's both the easiest solution and the one last chosen. Complaining about how shitty the workforce is usually comes first. :)

toomuchtodo 9y ago

> So don't give drug tests? While I agree that drug tests are a scam as a white collar worker, I do think they're necessary from a liability perspective if you're in construction, manufacturing, or driving a company vehicle. I fully support the use of recreational drugs on someone's own time, but you have to weed out (forgive the pun) those who are under the influence when loss of life or limb is a risk.

throwawayjava 9y ago
So give sobriety tests, not drug tests.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
We don't give breath tests, but people rarely show up drunk. Yet the same arguments apply. Doesn't that say something about the effectiveness of testing?
Y7ZCQtNo39 9y ago
I imagine that there is probably an issue with these workers making half of what software engineers make, but with higher expectation of no drug use. I'd imagine recreational drug use is even greater in lower-waged workers. Culturally, recreational drug use isn't that big of a deal, at least to millennials. You can completely be responsible enough to enjoy some cannabis on personal time, while also doing your 40 hours productively.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  > You can completely be responsible enough to enjoy some cannabis on personal time, while also doing your 40 hours productively. The problem is one of information from the POV of the employer: they are ultimately responsible for what the worker does on the job. Even if P(no problem | drug use) = 0.99, the amount of negligent liability they will incur if an accident does occur, the person was intoxicated, and the employer could have checked for drugs, but didn't, is probably so high that they can't take that route.
eric_h 9y ago
I would be okay with drug tests that didn't fail you for weed. That can show up on a test weeks after it's been consumed. The drugs that would actually significantly impair you (alcohol, opiates) clear out of your system in hours/days.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  TBF weed will significantly impair you. Driving a car or operating machinery on weed is super dangerous. Just not weeks after consumption...
  - eric_h 9y ago
    TBF it depends on the weed, but yes, I agree that it can significantly impair you. My point is that the test is testing the wrong thing. A sobriety test would be best.
- Kalium 9y ago
  There are drug testing companies that exist solely to farm out the work to a lab and remove any marijuana hits from the results. Some companies in places where weed is legal use these.

bkohlmann 9y ago

The thing about manufacturing jobs is that they often involve operating heavy machinery. Drug use and intoxication drastically increases the chance of death or dismemberment - for the inebriated, or often, others around them. As a pilot, I seriously don’t care if you show up to work high or not - unless you’re doing maintenance on the jet I’m supposed to fly.

throwawayjava 9y ago
Fail drug test != show up to work high.
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  Past performance != future performance But it's the best signal we've got. Ignore it at your peril. Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-guide-to-reducing-lifes-risks.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-gui...
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    > But it's the best signal we've got Except that's not true. We can actually test for sobriety. And by doing drug testing instead, we're actually using a worse signal in place of a better signal! See e.g., http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages-of-impairment-testing-over-drug-testing-to-improve-workplace-safety http://www.predictivesafety.com/news/2017/2/6/the-advantages... > Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. I'm not really sure if there's more than a vague analogy connecting Diamond's hypotheses to drug testing policy. And I don't find that exceptionally vague analogy to be compelling evidence. (And I'm one of those people who doesn't even buy a lot of Diamond's work anyways; in fact, I think I'm in good company on this one among the sober, grown-up anthropologists out there...) My weathered experience tells me to prefer hard data over vague analogies to pop science writers who are themselves known more for their well-written vague analogies than their well-researched hard science :-)

maccard 9y ago

> I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary. I'm not sure exactly what industry the original poster was referring to, but broadly my experience has been that there are many people who are just unreliable. I worked in retail a few years ago, and it was incredible. People just don't show up, or show up so intoxicated from the night before that they're not actually capable of doing their job. Now, as a developer, I think I can count on one hand the number of times someone has shown up too hungover to work, and I can tell you exactly (0) the number of times someone has just flat out failed to show up when they were supposed to be working. > So don't give drug tests? For lots of jobs that may not be an option. Operating heavy machinery puts lots of lives at risk, or it could be an insurance requirement. > Try paying more? Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time.

throwawayjava 9y ago
> People just don't show up, or show up so intoxicated from the night before that they're not actually capable of doing their job... Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time. Anecdotally, I know several people who worked retail throughout college and showed up super hung-over basically every weekend, but who are now extremely responsible professionals in software, medicine, etc. Again, I think salary and a sense of career prospects / something worthwhile to lose are far more important than individual proclivities or responsibility. People know their retail jobs are bullshit, dead-end positions. There's nothing to lose and 10 more identical jobs waiting for them on the market. > For lots of jobs that may not be an option. Operating heavy machinery puts lots of lives at risk, or it could be an insurance requirement. Sounds like a policy (law) option to me.
mgkimsal 9y ago
> Again, people are flaky. Suddenly paying someone more isn't going to make them start showing up on time. But in terms of initial applicants, who may not be as flaky, advertising higher starting salary may bump up the non-flakiness of people showing up for an interview.
darpa_escapee 9y ago

Clubber 9y ago

>I bet you'd get approx. 0 noshows if you bumped salary. That's both the easiest solution and the one last chosen. Complaining about how shitty the workforce is usually comes first. :)