
Ask HN: Is it normal for tech companies to test for drugs? - TPuc6c4wtK
I&#x27;m an engineer at a small-to-mid size Bay Area software company that recently began rolling out a drug testing policy.<p>The policy is to perform &quot;random drug testing on a regular basis&quot; as well as testing any employee &quot;reasonably suspected of using illicit substances&quot;.  The messaging we&#x27;re getting from senior management &amp; HR is that this is a normal thing for a company to do, and is part of becoming a mature company.  This strikes me as odd and not true, but I haven&#x27;t worked at that many tech companies.  Is this a normal policy in the industry? Is this a huge red flag?  I&#x27;d love to hear input from the HN community on this.
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kjksf
Completely false.

I've worked at 6 companies and that never happened.

Never heard of other companies doing it either.

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blorsh
No: hundreds of people, in New England, making computer boards with firmware

No: 550 people, in New England, with a bit of computer manufacturing

Yes: hundreds of people spun off from a larger company with thousands of
people, in the southeast, with a bit of computer manufacturing

Never, but they reserve the right: hundreds of people, owned by a huge defense
contractor, in the southeast, doing classified stuff

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logronoide
Never heard of that for engineers... I think it's not normal.

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Fzzr
I've never heard of such a thing for engineers, but I have heard of it for
production line workers. (eg. assembling servers and PCs)

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blorsh
I think this can become a matter of fairness or insurance demands. You have a
forklift operator, so everybody must get tested.

They are afraid you might do drugs, hop on the forklift, and drive like
Klaus...

Klaus with English subtitles:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oB6DN5dYWo)

Dubbed to English, as "Chad":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPpwLCvPAME](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPpwLCvPAME)

