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Well, that sucks...

perkinkeperkinke Posts: 1,572 ✭✭✭
in General Discussion
I was just filling out a job app for a city in Florida and the very last question says "the city will not consider anyone for employment who has used tobacco products in the past year prior to application..." Has anyone else come across something like this? It's the first time I have seen this condition, though our health folks suggested it and happily the decision makers nixed that idea.

Comments

  • brianetz1brianetz1 Posts: 4,134 ✭✭✭
    won't they have a hard time proving that if you just smoke cigars?

    i know that several places will do an x-ray of your lungs but that won't show up with just being a cigar smoker
  • perkinkeperkinke Posts: 1,572 ✭✭✭
    Yeah, but getting fired for lying on an application is a great way to kill a career, especially since I'd be moving across country!

    But that's the technical reason my organization turned down the health folks, we don't do drug testing, but we're gonna test for nicotine? And what about existing employees who smoke/chew? Are we going to fire them? Bottom line though, are you as an organization going to pass on a good candidate over one factor that has nothing to do with job performance? Ah well, given what I have read about the state of governance in Florida I wasn't that excited about the opening anyway.
  • Gray4linesGray4lines Posts: 4,691 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wow... that sounds like flat out discrimination You are right... if you do not smoke on the job, and it does not affect your job performance, who the hell are they to say that you can or cannot do something on your own time!?
    LLA - Lancero Lovers of America
  • LiquidChaos66LiquidChaos66 Posts: 3,767 ✭✭✭✭
    Whats the position... cause honestly to me that's almost like saying if you have religious beliefs then you cant work for us... you cant not hire someone cause of their hobbies or personal interests.
    Life is like a blind fiver. You never know what you're gonna get.
  • twistedstemtwistedstem Posts: 3,912 ✭✭✭✭✭
    seems really intrusive in my opinion..
    no matter where you go, there you are.

  • perkinkeperkinke Posts: 1,572 ✭✭✭
    Yep, totally agree, the only thing I can think of is that it's an effort to reduce healthcare costs, but frankly I'm suspicious of the numbers health people quote for treatment and premium costs/savings due to tobacco use.
  • RhamlinRhamlin Posts: 9,022 ✭✭✭✭✭
    It's an insurance issue. They get cheaper rates that way. My company is trying to go that route but I don't think they will be very successful .
  • raisindotraisindot Posts: 1,294 ✭✭✭
    Can't you just answer "no" the question?

    How on Earth could they possibly test you to see if you had used these products? They can't possibly force a job applicant to get an X-ray, and I would think that if there's nothing in your medical record disclosing that you smoke or have smoke-related health issues that they could possibly prove that you're not telling the truth. Does tobacco even show in a blood or urine test?
  • Gray4linesGray4lines Posts: 4,691 ✭✭✭✭✭
    perkinke:
    Yep, totally agree, the only thing I can think of is that it's an effort to reduce healthcare costs, but frankly I'm suspicious of the numbers health people quote for treatment and premium costs/savings due to tobacco use.
    I am too.. all those studies are practically BS, especially when they are applied to occasional cigar and pipe smoking.

    Know what else increases insurance costs? Being fat, drinking too much, having a baby, getting sick.... why is it ok to punish one group? Im starting a company and so I get lower ins. rates I will screen for women/spouses who want to be or already are pregnant. I will not hire them. And whoever I hire cannot have had sex in the last year.

    Sound crazy? Youre ***!ng right it does.
    LLA - Lancero Lovers of America
  • dr_frankenstein56dr_frankenstein56 Posts: 1,612 ✭✭✭
    is a question like that even legal?
  • webmostwebmost Posts: 7,713 ✭✭✭✭✭
    perkinke:
    Ah well, given what I have read about the state of governance in Florida I wasn't that excited about the opening anyway.
    Not to mention the flying cockroaches ...

    “It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)
  • Amos_UmwhatAmos_Umwhat Posts: 8,806 ✭✭✭✭✭
    raisindot:
    Can't you just answer "no" the question?

    How on Earth could they possibly test you to see if you had used these products? They can't possibly force a job applicant to get an X-ray, and I would think that if there's nothing in your medical record disclosing that you smoke or have smoke-related health issues that they could possibly prove that you're not telling the truth. Does tobacco even show in a blood or urine test?
    Aside from actual nicotine testing, the cheap and easy way is to measure Carbon Monoxide levels in the bloodstream, this will catch cigarette smokers every time.

    As far as the legalities? This was all settled by the War on Drugs, when both Left and Right couldn't wait to give up the 4th & 5th Amendments. I don't think there is much political help out there, the Left hates tobacco, and the Right defends the industries "freedom" to tell their employees what they may or may not do in their free time, because conceivably 40 or 50 years from now health costs will be incurred.

    Did someone just think "that doesn't make any sense"?

    If not, we're doomed.
    WARNING:  The above post may contain thoughts or ideas known to the State of Caliphornia to cause seething rage, confusion, distemper, nausea, perspiration, sphincter release, or cranial implosion to persons who implicitly trust only one news source, or find themselves at either the left or right political extreme.  Proceed at your own risk.  

    "If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed.  If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." --  Mark Twain
  • perkinkeperkinke Posts: 1,572 ✭✭✭
    LiquidChaos66:
    Whats the position... cause honestly to me that's almost like saying if you have religious beliefs then you cant work for us... you cant not hire someone cause of their hobbies or personal interests.
    It was an Assistant City Manager position. And yeah, I could answer "no" and hope never to get caught, but being dismissed for "falsifying an application" is pretty much the kiss of death long before I'd have the chance to explain it to the next employer.

    Yeah, it is funny that it does cause both the left and right to agree for different reasons. But, if that is an indication of the way that organization operates, heavy handed and intrusive, then it's not likely I'd be successful there. It's been another of those areas that I just don't think money is an appropriate reason for limiting personal choice, even before I got back into cigars I argued against it. I argued against banning chewing tobacco on my agency's property because if the rationale is that banning smoking is needed to protect OTHER people from second hand smoke then banning chew does nothing to advance that position, it only affects the person doing it. But some of our public health folks are as fanatical as any cultist I've ever met and using logic is as useless as a jell-o hammer.
  • jlmartajlmarta Posts: 7,881 ✭✭✭✭✭
    webmost:
    perkinke:
    Ah well, given what I have read about the state of governance in Florida I wasn't that excited about the opening anyway.
    Not to mention the flying cockroaches ...



    But, remember, in Florida one doesn't call them cockroaches - one calls them "Palmetto Bugs". I lived there - I know all about Palmetto Bugs..... :-/)
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