[jackric]

I have a solution to prevent this, which doesn't prejudice Mike for having a bit of weed 2 weeks ago camping. Also it will filter out those unfit to work from legal medication, or tiredness.

Make workers do a 30 second ability test before going on shift. Design the test to measure reaction speed, short term memory, etc.

[follow up thought] - Test must be immune to practice/muscle memory. Don't want a drunk passing the test through familiarity, then performing shit on the job.

[Natsu]

To start with, drug tests normally only happen:

A) when getting hired B) if you show up to work intoxicated C) after any serious accident

So other than at hiring, which the person can anticipate the timing of, the drug tests are effectively only done after failing such a test to begin with. The average factory doesn't care about hiring people with a record, either, so long as it's not too serious or likely to impact work.

Your test is one of those things that sounds like a good idea until you realize that the people who are needed for some big customer's order are too tired, but still able to work and you don't have anyone to replace them. Rolling the dice on that kind of stuff enough times until a failure happens is what gets factory floors in trouble.

That poor guy just wanted to get home to see his family for Christmas and busted ass to get one more dumpster of trash dumped even if it meant messing with the dumpster while the forklift was on too much of an incline. I don't truly know what he was thinking, but we can make an educated guess that he'd probably done that kind of thing before and doing things the right way took more time and effort than his poor, tired body had left in him at that point.

You don't appear to be aware of all the bad incentives that aren't going anywhere and are advocating something that will cause more people in more factories to roll more dice that will have more injuries. and hoping that the same tired, overworked, short-handed people will make a fuss over these rules instead of rolling the dice as they have so many times before if you just try to warn them or give them tests which they could skip to save 5 minutes they could've been working and then go home that much earlier.

Most of the ways to fix these problems require more staff and/or resources, shorter and more stable shifts, etc. all of which costs more money. Then those labor costs make them less competitive with factories in places like China where they may be trying to compete with literal slave labor in a race to the bottom. The factories already do look at incidents, as well as close calls, but there's only so much you can do when your grand ideas are paired with awful execution thereof.

The best ideas come when you understand their job and help them do things in a better, safer and, ideally, easier way.

[laurent92]

Serious question: Can we design a test for “getthereitis”? Most often, people would pass the test, but then misjudge and, in the case of Christmas, hurry up to “get there” (hence the name) and underestimate a risk. Ability is 10/10 but judgement is 2/10, and it is hard to verify that their mindset is calm.

[jackric]

Sounds difficult to test for. Thinking about a Pilot I think there would be data points you could measure on the job that predict likelihood of making a bad judgement. For example heart rate variability, cortisol levels, skin moisture.

I think the better solution is to abstract out the judgement into a formula that the pilot must follow, so not courting "gethereitis"

[Natsu]

If you're comparing factories to pilots, be aware that factories have a much lower standard of execution for grand ideas.

At least pilots mostly actually do their paperwork and checklists, even if they sometimes fall prey to things like neglecting to land their helicopter when they end up in IFR conditions while, say, transporting Kobe to a game.

[robin21]

I think the point of the tests is like vaccination. It’s about reducing risk. And it errs on the side of caution. A test won’t catch every instance of drug use, but will catch a drug usage behavior pattern. You want people who are trustworthy to never do it because you can’t test everyone all the time. It’s more about personal responsibility.

A pre-shift only needs to fail once and you have a co-workers recklessness injuring another worker.

I wonder what unions think of drug tests? As a union member I might prefer that my coworkers were tested to be honest if I worked closely with them around heavy machinery.