Urine tests have long been known to show cannabis use for weeks to months, unfairly punishing an employee with a pink slip, even if they’ve never sparked up before work in their employment history. Pee tests are also intrusive and an unwarranted search of your person. It’s a booming business, but one that is intrinsically flawed, with false positives abounding and not to mention the divide that it creates between upper management, management and employee.
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Cannabis is banned from professional video game tournaments (only the day of), perhaps because it is an enhancement drug, perhaps to keep the integrity of the anti-doping message, but the video games being used to test impairment in the workplace aren’t typical. There are no characters or missions, but shapes and cognitive tests that are tailored to your past results. Results that are so unique to you “sober” that the test can tell if someone else took it for you.
These types of test could save companies a lot of money and save a lot of employees who don’t get high before work, but enjoy their nightcap joints immensely, the jobs they work hard at keeping. The tests could also be potential lifesavers.
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Truck drivers, construction workers, those working with heavy machinery and the like need to be alert at all times and this test seems to measure just that. In fact, a forklift operator who used one such test was found to not be concentrating at his usual level. When questioned why, the employers found that he had lost a close family member over the weekend and was yet so devastated by the news that he literally couldn’t think straight.
Naturally the person in question was sent home for a few days without penalization, but it raises some important inquiries into what constitutes impairment. Grief clearly does, as does a lack of sleep. Meaning that these tests could be good or bad news if you just had a night of tossing and turning. Too many incidents and you might lose your job for being tired, then again, if working with dangerous machinery, maybe it’s best that your tired self goes home…
