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Would You Hire Someone
dav1965
Member Posts: 26,543 ✭✭✭
Would you hire someone that takes morphine and oxycodone daily?
Comments
For 26 years, I was an electrical foreman/superintendent on very large jobsites.
While it may be rightly required to reduce your pain, and under a doc's supervision, your diminished, {and don't tell me it doesn't} brain activity may get you killed or others hurt.
Get a job where a mistake won't hurt someone, like an office job.
Turning on the wrong circuit breaker may kill a worker on the other side of the building...
filing a paper in the wrong file cabinet won't.
We maintained a 100% drug free work place for 15 years running.
Flame away.
"Never do wrong to make a friend----or to keep one".....Robert E. Lee
Maybe the safest approach is to require the applicant to get a medical exam, & give the doctor permission to release the results to you. You are looking for a "fitness for duty" report. Either way, the report should protect you from liability, as much as that is possible.
Neal
+1
My company does large construct projects at industrial facilities. Some of the largest companies in the world.
We will try to help the homeless, addicts, ex-cons, etc. I have a two time felon on my payroll at this moment, he is my go to guy, he made mistakes as a youth and paid for it dearly. He has made his peace with GOD and has been transformed with a nice family and good paying job.
Substance abusers are another matter. Addiction changes people, and YES, that includes Marijuana users. That is all I will say on the matter.
Never let a contractor work on your small business or YOUR HOME without current proof of liability insurance and proof of drug testing policy. You may save some money by doing business with the guy that works out of his truck, but if his guy comes back from lunch HIGH and falls off your roof, you and the guy that employed him will be meeting one of the slim ball Lawyers that you see on TV.
Mike
Business jobs/white collar it most likely is not a problem.
However if it is a job operating machinery, running heavy equipment, working with electricity, etc...then it has a bearing on the ability to perform the work without impairment.
Think of it this way. Would you want to have a surgeon performing an operation on you if he/she was on a heavy narcotic for pain control? As an EMT, I was not allowed to operate a unit on the street if I was taking any medication that could impair my ability to safely operate the ambulance or would impair my judgement/ability to evaluate/treat a patient.
In the military we remove people from certain duties when on narcotics. If they end up having to remain on narcotics, then they are cross trained into a different career field that does not have the potential to cause damage to equipment or loss of life to others.
I've meant very few people who could thrive while on drugs. In most cases, it is a downward trajectory, may take months or even years but most all regular drug users are on the way down.
I've seen productive competent people that have their lives slowly erode around them from drug use. Cocain seemed to be the worst, it would make a person's life and productivity grow in the beginning, then the tipping point, then the downward spiral. Seemed to erode a persons judgment as well as their morals, they seemed to lose their center. I've watched it happen many times, it has never ended well. I've kept them on the job way past when I should have cut them loose hoping for them to get better, never happened.
Mike
If found to be using illegal drugs once employed, would be dismissed instantly.
We have enough gun laws, what we need is IDIOT control.
Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family.
I thought getting old would take longer. :shock:
Full disclosure, I have been on opiates since '94. There is zero chance of me being able to work without them. I would be forced to be another person taking from SS instead of contributing to it. I have tried reducing or stopping (slowly), both times led me to literally being down and out and existing on a mattress on my living room floor, that is not living. When taken right, especially long term, there is no 'buzz'. It just takes the sharpness off sciatica and other nerve inflammation.
Now, to performance... I have graduated from college on them, I have driven that whole time (25+ years now) in city traffic with no wrecks that were my fault. The only ticket I got during that time was when I was out of state and rolled through a stop light at 2am. They used this to harass this out-of-towner and due to the laws there, I ended up having to fight a DUI in spite of all the above. It should have been a traffic citation (if even needed, the cop and I were the only ones on the street).
Depending on the job, I would use copious amounts of care if someone gets hurt and just starts taking them (that has never been on them before). Like the commercials state, don't do certain things until you know a medication will affect you.
Due to junkies, the opiate laws in this country are getting absolutely asinine. It is obvious they are driven by people that haven't used them, or been around people who needed them. Like gun laws, they may be well intentioned, but in the end it only really negatively affects those who are doing the right thing. The abusers will get them anyway.
In a word ; NOPE !!!
Thanks !!!
I Grew Old Too Fast (And Smart Too damn Slow !!!) !!! :?
The immoral comment seems to be directed at illegal users, Mike.
I have spent a week or two on opiates following a couple major surgeries. There are some things one should not do when so medicated, but many that would not be restricted.
For me, hiring would depend upon the job description.
Brad Steele
We had a member who was doing just that - he is gone now.
And perhaps I am a rare exception due to my circumstance - and perhaps members here respect me and understand the situation I am trapped in - and while they may dislike me personally that at least accord me some respect based on what I have been through...
But Dave and Maloxx and myself and nord and a bunch of others seem to fall into a category of second class citizens - or unwashed untouchables - weak drug seeking addict who are not ready in much pain we just like getting high and are untrustworthy...
I don't say you have spoken those words or ascribe to that belief but a bunch of members have and do...
And it hurts and feels like an attack from those I considered friends and peers.
Maybe that's not fair either - but I hope his can see the corner we feel we have been painted into - the Scarlett letter we wear...
No shouting or rage - just an insight and explanation.
Hope for understand.
Mike
I got off them as soon as I could because of how they made me feel. Refused them after my last few surgeries. For me, the pain was more tolerable than how I felt after using oxy-something.
I wouldn't worry about what some people say or think. If you need something you need it, and as I have stated before, your story and Dave's story, and that of a couple of others here are an inspiration.
The need to use painkillers does not diminish someone in my mind, but we all need to understand that there are limitations as to what someone can be expected to do while using them.
Don
Brad Steele
The pain and the underlying symptoms that causes the need for them certainly limits me. For newer users, I cannot disagree. But, for those of us that have to rely on them for many, many years have learned to deal with them. It is really no different than a person with limited mobility driving. At first it may be dangerous and scary to everyone, but once they get used to it, then it isn't much different.
If I was to hire a truck driver there would be zero tolerance for any drug use.
I'm on Fentynal and Oxycontin for chronic pain from 2 compressed vertebra, thanks to osteoporosis thanks to a doctor that kept me on steroids for nearly 5 years to control IBSD (gut ulcers)
? otherwise, you'll find an excuse.
Does the drug know the difference???
I don't care why you took it, I'm not letting a person on drugs put a lock-out tag on a 4160 volt switchgear, so someone 600 yards away can unbolt a lug from a transformer.
You got pain, you got a doctor's scrip, good for you or You like the street high you get, it's your life. Now stay off my jobsite.
That would save the taxpayers billions annually in court costs and keeping them in jail or putting them in rehab.
We have enough gun laws, what we need is IDIOT control.
Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family.
I thought getting old would take longer. :shock:
That would save the taxpayers billions annually in court costs and keeping them in jail or putting them in rehab.
We have enough gun laws, what we need is IDIOT control.
Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family.
I thought getting old would take longer. :shock:
That right there would get you kicked off the job site I?m on. If you?re the one touching the gear, you put the loto on yourself.
I?m not trusting my life to anyone else?s lock.
And to the OP, in this line of work, you?re on light duty, not allowed to touch things if you?re on prescription opioids.
I over simplified the lock-out for the non-electricians here.
Our procedure was Me signing the tag with my cell phone number, the name of my Co.,
and the date. Only I had the keys to the lock outs. ALL my workers were present at the locked out switch when put on, along with the "head" of the plant, building, who ever was in charge of the customer we were working for.