what do you think about drug testing
i think it's pretty good i think they should do it especially in uh in companies where
uh you deal with uh either with other people or with uh stuff that uh
i want to say uh
deals directly with people's lives like hospitals and stuff
yeah yeah but
um everywhere uh you know when uh when i was in college
when uh everywhere i i applied a job for uh pretty much did a drug test because most of them were like defense contractors and stuff
uh-huh
except uh the the last job the job i actually took
they didn't care
oh is that right was it a large or a small company
so
it's a big company it's uh MCI telecommunications and i think uh they may require it for like the field engineers the people that actually go out you know and drive their trucks around and stuff like that uh or run the heavy machinery but they don't require it for you know the engineering positions
uh-huh
uh-huh
is that right
yeah i was kind of surprised but
defense contractors only want you doing it because uh they don't want you to sell drugs or buy drugs for you know for secrets or something you know
well sure i there's that part of it i think and
and i think most defense contractors also have other divisions of the company
right
that can also be affected by that and i think what they have to do in the interest of fairness or to keep from getting sued or something is test everybody in the company at least on a random basis in other words no matter whether you work in uh defense or
um-hum
um-hum
hum
right
consumer products or whatever you'd you'd have an equal chance of being tested
um-hum
i don't i don't know i just think it's a sick thing that we've come to that i don't like the way the world's going
yeah i mean
yeah i mean i have i have no problem i mean people complain so much you know about random drug testing and infringing their rights and all this stuff
and you know i i don't know i guess it's bad you know to to go inside somebody you know hand them a urine sample bottle you know but uh
well
does it i've heard a lot of discussions about this and i guess the scariest part of it is the chance of a false positive
right right
and and that's what
what really upsets a lot of people who are you know very straight and probably wouldn't ever think of using drugs but the idea that they could lose their jobs
right
or in our case be forced to go to all this counseling and that sort of stuff you know just in the case of a false positive
uh-huh
well i mean now even if you had a false positive i mean they're they're better you can have retests or what do they do test on your hair
uh no urine
they can uh
well can't they also test your hair
yes they can and i think that's probably be more acceptable i believe it's more accurate
right right
but that's not what they're doing at my company
oh really
no it's urine samples i haven't been tapped yet to do this
okay well you know
but they certainly started out i believe with the managers and folks like that
uh-huh
uh-huh
well they uh i mean all the places i went to you know they gave us you know small tests and stuff like that i guess if uh
you could always get a second opinion i mean if your company
tests positive
i mean i i i would just think there was a way there'd be a way around it if i mean even if you did test positive you could probably get tested again
and uh
test negative
yeah well
and any way have time for that
wouldn't it
yeah i i suppose i suppose it's
it's just you know the whole idea of all the hassles you'd have to go through and certainly the records that would be left behind
yeah
um-hum
you know everybody has databases these days
and they know a lot more about me than i'll ever remember i'm sure
yeah and a matter of fact i think there are too many of these dull databases going around
yeah well i'm i'm certainly certainly sure that uh any drug test results would become a part of that
yeah that's true i guess they put it in your personnel file
probably so
yeah because i i'm i'm you know
i'm surprised they don't do it you know in uh in my organization
yeah
but uh
well i certainly believe in it for uh people like airline pilots
right
or uh what seems to be more of a problem train drivers
uh-huh yeah
train and also uh uh
uh boat captains i mean not necessarily big boat captains
but small the uh small personal boats
uh-huh
they had trouble with uh not just substance abuse but uh alcohol abuse and stuff
oh sure
and they had these boat crashes and you know all these people were getting arrested and
and they finally said no more alcohol out there
you know in uh like where i used to live in Virginia
oh
they had a lot of problems with uh with boat wrecks and involving you know alcohol related incidents and uh drug related incidents
yeah
so they finally just said uh if we catch you we're going to take away your license and take away your boat if we have to
huh
so
straightened a few people out
well i guess it would i guess so
well i don't know i
i i really haven't sorted out all my feelings on the drug testing uh i'm totally straight would never consider using drugs
um
um-hum well you know i'm the same way
but uh it it sort of goes back to it's a presumption of guilt and you have to prove that you're innocent
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um-hum um-hum
on the other hand uh
