RE: the OTHER test

["Rock, Megan" <Megan -dot- Rock -at- fanucrobotics -dot- com>]

I had to take a drug test as part of my pre-employment physical, but only
after I had accepted the job.  I didn't find it offensive or an invasion of
my privacy (they didn't send somebody into the little girls' room to watch
me provide the urine sample).  I've never been a drug user and am not
currently a drug user, so I never thought twice about taking the test.  I
was more irritated at having to sit in the waiting room for over an hour,
then put on one of those stupid paper gowns and sit in the little
examination room for another 35 minutes, waiting for the doctor to come in
and spend two minutes listening to my heart and asking me whether I'd ever
had any back pain that would prevent me from doing any heavy lifting.

My company designs and manufactures industrial robotic systems, so I can
understand there would be safety risks with hiring someone whose brain was
routinely fuzzy from drug use or who wasn't physically fit enough to haul
machine parts or huge user manuals around.  I'm sure the company has a
standard policy for pre-employment physicals and drug tests, and in order
not to discriminate, they require all new employees to jump through the same
hoops.

There is no further drug testing once a person is hired and begins working,
so in that sense, the safety risk isn't eliminated simply (there's that
word!) because an employee tested negative for the pee test at the time of
hire.

Megan E. Rock
   Technical Writer
   megan -dot- rock -at- fanucrobotics -dot- com

All views expressed are entirely my own and are not necessarily shared by my
friends, co-workers, or employer.