How do you feel about people working while high or drunk?

[Fizzzzle]

I come from the restaurant/bar industry, where if you fired anyone any time they showed up intoxicated, you wouldn't have anyone left. So I might have a different experience than you.

 

I've pretty much always had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to workplace intoxication. If you don't make it my problem, then I won't make it yours. If smoking a joint or having a couple drinks before work boosts your mood/performance, then I don't give a shit. Do whatever you want. Lord knows I've been there.

 

One time I had to fire a guy because he didn't show up two days in a row. Later, I ran into him at a party and I asked him what the fuck happened because I was worried about him, and he simply said "I accidentally took too much acid." I told him YOU COULD HAVE JUST TOLD ME THAT." I would have said "it's okay, just don't do that again."

 

Or, better yet, if you can't show up to work because you're fucked up, just say "I'm sorry, I can't come into work today." Don't elaborate. We don't need your elaboration.

 

I have a feeling my experience working service industry for as long as I have probably means your experiences will be different, though.

[Bacon]

I hope USPS is sober during their business hours.

 

[Guest]

The particular job you’re doing makes a substantial difference. If any other human’s safety is on the line, you’re a bad person for showing up under the influence. If you will just potentially do a poor job, whatever, people are bad at jobs for all sorts of reasons and I don’t place drugs or booze on some special level in that regard.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

If I can tell that a person is visibly intoxicated, I would terminate them on the spot without the least bit of hesitancy.

 

I'm fairly lenient/tolerant about quite a number of things, but workplace intoxication is an area where I draw a hard line.

[Fizzzzle]

10 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

The particular job you’re doing makes a substantial difference. If any other human’s safety is on the line, you’re a bad person for showing up under the influence. If you will just potentially do a poor job, whatever, people are bad at jobs for all sorts of reasons and I don’t place drugs or booze on some special level in that regard.

You're a good example. You probably have employees who show up to work intoxicated all the time.  Do you think about it like "if I don't hear about it, then I don't want to, if I do hear about it then we have problems," or do you seek it out?

 

Or, alternatively, do you trust your managers to deal with it?

[Jason]

For a desk job I'd shrug my shoulders as long as it's not affecting their performance/they're still meeting their deadlines. The problem I can see with something like a restaurant kitchen is that even if the person being intoxicated isn't what causes someone to get injured, the mere fact that they were working while intoxicated could become a huge liability issue if something does wind up happening and they were involved in what happened. 

[Fizzzzle]

17 minutes ago, Bacon said:

I hope USPS is sober during their business hours.

 

At the very least the ones who are driving.

 

I could totally see how sorting mail would be a much more enjoyable job after an edible.

[best3444]

It's completely inexcusable no matter what the profession is. Even marijuana because you're impaired believe it or not. 

 

This is coming from a guy who drank a ton of alcohol during my career and smoked a ton of marijuana.

 

I never once showed up to work under the influence and never will. If you do, you should be fired on the spot. 

[Fizzzzle]

Just now, Jason said:

For a desk job I'd shrug my shoulders as long as it's not affecting their performance/they're still meeting their deadlines. The problem I can see with something like a restaurant kitchen is that even if the person being intoxicated isn't what causes someone to get injured, the mere fact that they were working while intoxicated could become a huge liability issue if something does wind up happening. 

That's what I mean about "not making it my problem." I've never worked in a single restaurant/bar where the staff was sober. And that's over a 15 year career across like 5 states and 2 countries.

[Fizzzzle]

Just now, best3444 said:

It's completely inexcusable no matter what the profession is. Even marijuana because you're impaired believe it or not. 

 

This is coming from a guy who drank a ton of alcohol during my career and smoked a ton of marijuana.

 

I never once showed up to work under the influence and never will. If you do, you should be fired on the spot. 

I think it's important to remember that being a cook, bartender, or server is an incredibly stressful job. If you do it long enough, you *will* get PTSD. If you haven't done it that long, it may sound like I'm being hyperbolic, but I'm not. It's very common to have nightmares and panic attacks. Ask anyone who's ever been a server or a cook for longer than a year if they have nightmares.

 

That's why I don't blame people for self medicating. Until medicare covers mental health, I don't blame them at all.

[best3444]

3 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

That's what I mean about "not making it my problem." I've never worked in a single restaurant/bar where the staff was sober. And that's over a 15 year career across like 5 states and 2 countries.

 

I worked in the restaurant business in my late teens early 20's. You are absolutely correct that the staff was always under the influence of something. Except for my innocent self. 

 

My boss was on cocaine throughout the day and the chef was drunk alllll day long. It was an awful experience for me and it's because I was sober and they weren't. Lol

[Fizzzzle]

12 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

I worked in the restaurant business in my late teens early 20's. You are absolutely correct that the staff was always under the influence of something. Except for my innocent self. 

 

My boss was on cocaine throughout the day and the chef was drunk alllll day long. It was an awful experience for me and it's because I was sober and they weren't. Lol

Read next reply

[best3444]

7 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

Read next reply

 

I read and understand everything you're saying. It's still inexcusable but it's the norm in that industry and most likely always will be. Doesn't make it right, though.

[Fizzzzle]

1 minute ago, best3444 said:

 

I read and understand everything you're saying. It's still inexcusable but it's the norm in that industry and most likely always will be. Doesn't make it right, though.

You're right. What would be right is expanding mental health care to people on Medicare

 

One time I worked at this spot where the kitchen turned into a brawl. Luckily no one was actually trying to kill each other but the 4 guys in there were so wound up that this small thing led to a brawl (it doesn't help that cooks are often in windowless boxes). They still beat the shit out of each other, though.

[Ominous]

If I'm the boss, a drunk / high employee is a liability. Shit goes wrong and "he knew" and now I'm likely losing my job too for doing nothing. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

The company I worked at had a zero tolerance policy for years - instant termination for even possession of alcohol on company property. 
 

Working while impaired is a big no-no in many jobs. 

[stepee]

If you aren’t hurting anyone and are able to do your job then you should get a medal not fired

[Brick]

I couldn't imagine doing any job while drunk or high. There's no way I could do it, even if I've worked some pretty boring/stressful jobs. 

[Biggie]

Wait…you mean some of you go to work straight?

[best3444]

24 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Wait…you mean some of you go to work straight?

 

Don't get me wrong. I'd die to take like 4 shots of whiskey before walking into my building each morning. 😄 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I doubt you want your nurse to be impaired on the job. 

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I doubt you want your nurse to be impaired on the job. 

 

Imagine how many more times they'd poke your arms trying to find that vein

 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

22 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Imagine how many more times they'd poke your arms trying to find that vein

 

Shit, sober ones do that. 

[Keyser_Soze]

9 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Shit, sober ones do that. 

 

I'm no stranger to the struggles of a sober nurse trying to do it.

[Fizzzzle]

4 hours ago, Ominous said:

If I'm the boss, a drunk / high employee is a liability. Shit goes wrong and "he knew" and now I'm likely losing my job too for doing nothing. 

That's why I've always been "don't ask, don't tell" in terms of intoxication when I've been in management positions. I don't want to fire you because you had a few before coming to work, but I also want plausible deniability in case you fuck up.

[Jason]

11 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Shit, sober ones do that. 

 

The worst is when I'm going in for a colonoscopy since I'm a hard stick to boot and then instead of being able to do my usual trick of guzzling water before a blood draw, I'm super dehydrated to boot.

 

I always go for the first appointment of the day though and one upside of that is the anesthesiologist can come do it since they're not with anyone else yet. Every anesthesiologist I've had has been able to get it in on the first try no problem.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Yeah, some people are just difficult sticks. I’m pretty good most of the time, but I run into patients who just have no good veins. Just part of the job. 

[Jason]

28 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Yeah, some people are just difficult sticks. I’m pretty good most of the time, but I run into patients who just have no good veins. Just part of the job. 

 

The other fun thing is that I know where my go-to good vein is, but a lot of the time the person doing the stick gets weird about barely if at all being able to feel it (in general not just for colonoscopies) despite clearly being able to see it, so sometimes they start trying to negotiate with me about wanting to try other spots first. And it's in my forearm, and some places have policies about not doing forearm draws because of fear of people turning around and suing them for the ensuing bruising. Doesn't come up for colonoscopies but can come up with blood draws. They want to either go in the crook of my arm, which doesn't work and is extremely painful because it's a lot of scar tissue from being hooked up to IVs for a month straight as a kid (and hoo boy, the intake for that hospital stay was fun, took them like five tries before my mom flipped out on them and made them give me a local anesthetic before the next attempt), or the back of my hand, which is also miserable.

 

I also just remembered one time where I had to get an MRI (had to fast, including no water) for several hours before the MRI) and then the whole thing was a waste because the place simply did not have someone capable of getting a stick in to do the dye. And a different time for an MRI they wound up going in my hand after several unsuccessful arm sticks and then my hand was sore all day.

[Remarkableriots]

I can only remember going into work drunk once. It was on St. Patrick's Day, when I hadn't planned on drinking much, that I went out for dinner with friends to an Irish pub. They had a contest for groups of 3 to drink a yard of Guinness the fastest, and my friend signed us up. I was definitely drunk after that, and my friend dropped me off at the convenience store that I worked at.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Yeah, some people are just difficult sticks. I’m pretty good most of the time, but I run into patients who just have no good veins. Just part of the job. 

 

Last time I went the Nurse was trying to find one for the IV but couldn't find the vein and my hands were cold so she super worried and got someone else to come in and they got it.

[Brick]

I'm a bartender and I've had guests offer to buy me a shot, which I would accept but my work doesn't allow it. Wouldn't take enough to get me wasted though if they did. 

[Fizzzzle]

1 hour ago, Brick said:

I'm a bartender and I've had guests offer to buy me a shot, which I would accept but my work doesn't allow it. Wouldn't take enough to get me wasted though if they did. 

I've had people offer me cocaine instead of a tip.

 

Time was I would take it.

[TheLeon]

I definitely could have done my Target job just fine drunk. 

[stepee]

12 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I'm no stranger to the struggles of a sober nurse trying to do it.

 

I was consistently referred to as a “tough stick” during my long hospital stay in 21

[TheLeon]

3 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

I was consistently referred to as a “tough stick” during my long hospital stay in 21

i’ll show you a tough stick