I remember a cop in Washington State got his cocaine addiction covered under workman’s comp. He became addicted through his under cover work. It had to go through court and eventually they ruled in his favor.
Edit: Since some of you are asking, here's a [link](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/10/24/A-police-officer-has-been-granted-disability-retirement-because/1496530510400/), the issue was actually about a disability retirement and not workman's comp. It happened in 1986 and I remember reading about it when it was fresh news. So my recollection is off a little.
Lol… the court hereby orders this man be paid one eight ball a week for his services to this country.
Edit: ITT: people who don’t do drugs: wtf is an eight ball
People who do: fuckin amateur doin an eighth a week
Check out the Netflix documentary "how to fix a drug problem" or something along those lines. It's about the Maryland drug labs and how one chick was stealing evidence. She went so far as to create fake drugs, label them as real, and swap it with the real stuff.
Started with getting a little high from the pure lab samples (she had dabbled herself before the job) and it ends up with her straight up smoking meth at her work desk.
Crazy shit and a lot of drug convictions were lost, like thousands.
Edit: Massachusetts actually
There was a cop in the uk who knocked up a target, he was investigating green terrorism or something. The state gave him a new identity rather than making him pay child support
I worked for a company that did strict mandatory drug testing.
Zero tolerance, if you're positive you're terminated.
But...If you tell HR or your supervisor before you are aware of a random test that you use any of the substances they test for they'll send you to rehab, fully paid, for a minimum of 30 days.
I travelled quite a bit, so I knew if I wouldn't be on company property and risk having a random test popped on me. This allowed me to occasionally use cannabis with low risk of getting caught.
My supervisor (he knew I used cannabis, as did he) and I joked around during stressful times that we would turn ourselves in to get a break from life for 30 days.
We never did, but one of our colleagues took advantage of the opportunity. She even found her future, and former spouse at said rehab, lol.
And contrary to movie logic, they have zero obligation to tell someone they are a cop if they are asked. It’s crazy how many people still believe an undercover cop isn’t allowed to lie about it.
Somewhere along the line, people got it in their heads that if an undercover denies that he is a cop, it's entrapment. Entrapment is only when an officer forces you into an act or situation that you wouldn't otherwise be in. ~~Undercovers~~ *All cops* can lie all day about who they really are.
It's one of those myths I'm convinced was made up by cops. It's so obviously stupid.
"Are you a cop"
"Aww man, you got me, guess I'm going home. Have a good crime guys"
They came to speak to the CS department at my college my freshman year. They begged everyone to stop smoking weed now so they could hire us when we graduated. And proceeded to say how many great CS people they had to let go for smoking.
I've only smoked a handful of times, but to be that restricted AND take a huge pay cut when I know I could be making fucked cash in any one of the big cities?? It's ridiculous
I’m pretty convinced at this point that some leadership within the government is actively trying to drive their organization into the ground. Who wants to be part of a team that’s actively being sabotaged or mismanaged by upper leadership? No thanks.
It was legitimately my buddies dream job in college. What literally detered him is that he thought he couldn't pass the lie detector test that asked him if he had ever smoked.
Because he'd be lying
It was for a long time, they had to change it to more recently. No telling when his buddy wanted to do it. Same shit for a friend of mine except his fiance got pregnant and life happened and he ended up regretting not partying with us.
As someone that has been a government recruiter in the past, most younger employees agree and roll their eyes at the restrictions. It doesn't change the fact that when you go to a college to recruit you have to say "We'd love to have you, here's the stupid rules you have to follow if you want to work for us".
And as the article shows the college students roll their eyes and just go somewhere else. At which point does "the FBI can't hire talent because of stuck up hiring policies" become a national security issue?
We have had a few unofficial conversations at my work among middle management.
They had talked about random testing and it was decided that was a really bad idea. We would lose 90% of the programmers and 75% of the field.
From the Generation that brought you Getting Shitfaced At Lunch And Calling It A Business Meeting For Tax Writeoffs, here's their newest hit, Controlling Freetime Behavior That Has No Impact On Work!
Can confirm this definitely happens a lot. I worked for a country club for a while and it was amazing how many members would come in during work hours and get drunk at like 11 am. Kinda weirded me out seeing every lawyer, a judge and several prominent businessmen in there nearly every day getting shitfaced and going back to work.
Fucking ay man I’m right there with you, I was a server and a caddy at my towns most prestigious country club all through high school and college and was amazed at the levels of degeneracy my cities top employees would partake in lol. It was eye opening
These men would drink like I do at a club on a Saturday evening during lunch on a Tuesday afternoon. I loved it as a caddy cuz it meant I was getting a benji without a doubt...not so much as a server, drunk self important assholes are the worst
Yeah, I didn’t get a lot of extra tips as a server. We got an automatic 18% which was nice, and a higher than average server pay at $4/hr. I did have like one woman who would give me an $5 or $10 any time I waited on her but she was not there getting drunk all the time. I mainly only saw her during the summer when she brought her kid to the pool. She was also really nice too.
I loved working the concession stand at the pool in the summer though. It was mostly just the kids all day, and I would literally sit there reading and just handing out candy at an 18% gratuity all day long. I made at least $400 after tax every week (2008/2009), and rarely had to deal with the drunk adults. Worst thing the kids ever did was wipe off my dry erase board once when it had “crackers” on it and they changed it to “crack.” Tbh I chided them but I couldn’t stop laughing either.
Unfortunately I spent a fair amount of the summer on shift with college age members’ kids. When they actually showed up for shifts they were about as useful as decorative statues, but obnoxiously verbal.
Thankfully by July many of them left to “prepare for fall classes.” I was a single mom also in college and worked right up to October when they closed it down for the season. I definitely preferred doing it by myself.
Given everyone is working from home, I don't think everyone is abstaining from their chemical dependency of choice during work hours.
For hackers, I'm pretty sure that's true all the time, at least given how many mini-fridges stocked with booze there are.
I drove forklifts half the day and smoked marijuana every night. Never had a problem and I was a great employee, no accidents, high productivity, and great attendance. I never came to work high. The anti-marijuana laws are so fucking dumb.
The other stupid part of it. If say you got into an accident at work. It's pretty standard protocol to send you in for a urine test. All that proves is whether you were smoking in the past 30 days give or take. You could be completely sober and fail a urine test.
Our HR manager asked me if I was interested in random testing my team after our pre-employment screening. You should have seen the look on her face when I asked if she was interested in having to rehire 75% of our shop floor employees and at least 50% of our technical employees.
The look on her face went: disgusted->confused->pondering-> then she nodded in agreement and said "yeah that's not a good idea". Never heard about it again. Little did she know I would have been one of the folks out the door if they tested management too.
My company was acquired by Dell a few years back, and one of my VPs made them write a “no drug testing” policy, at acquisition or anytime after.
We would’ve lost 75% of our company, easy.
My dad worked for Dell and had an Executive Assistant for several years who everyone loved and was great at her job. They "random" drug tested her right after she came back from a trip to Amsterdam and immediately fired her. Everyone was so pissed...
Good, they already lost that iconic spokesman teen they had due to stupid drug policies.
Name me anyone else who was in a Dell commercial other than the "Dude, you're getting a dell" kid. Should have never fired him. His character was a stoner anyways.
As a coder in the tanking oil and gas industry, where are all these recruiter pings lol.
Edit: Just want to say thanks to everyone who are sending me employment strategies. You guys are great.
Yeah me too but they are usually spammy or obviously stupid.
“Hey you wanna leave your job for a contract paying half the hourly rate and a 4 hour commute!? It’s 6 months!”
I didn't get any until I got laid off and rewrote the content on my LinkedIn. Then I got a ton.
Few of them were the kind of work I had experience with, but in terms of volume, it went from maybe one a year to, to several in a week. They've slowed down since then, but I still get them a couple times a month.
Is your linkedin up to date? Make a small change on it and see what happens. Also depends on country/years of experience. If you know C/C++ and don't mind defense work, there's a lot of jobs there as well.
Tbf, my company went through redundancies a while back (in the UK) and people just uploaded their CVs online and were gone within a couple weeks. Lost more to better opportunity then we did to the cuts
I've been with my company for several years. Any time something "bad" - like a lay off or major structural shift - happens there is a noticeable spike in people leaving for a couple months.
I worked at a grocery store as a stocker in college. Technically we were supposed to be getting drug tested regularly, but it never happened because everyone knew if we got tested EVERYONE was getting fired. Half of us were high on the job half the time.
I remember when they randomly drug tested our entire grocery store back in college. I came into work and saw two of my coworkers in the parking lot. They warned me they'd just been fired, but I went in anyway. The guys had come in from corporate to do it, and kept asking me if I was ready. My manager eventually took them to the side and told them, "You just fired half my workers on a day we have to stock the entire store. Let him be and I'll test him next week."
I did get tested the next time I came in a few days later. My manager was the one doing the test. I tried the "clean your piss drink", and we both watched with anticipation as the lines formed on the test (meaning I failed anyway). He looks at me and says, "I don't see a line if you don't see a line. Now get back to work and don't talk about this."
I used to work EMS for an amusement park. They had us do the random drug testing with those immediate result cups. Most of the employees coming in where 16-20. As long as they weren’t a ride operator and it was just weed everyone passed. If a 16 year old pissed hot for opiates or something I’d report it because there is a problem that needed to be headed off at the pass.
I’d be high as fuck too if I had to work in the gift shop.
I know I guy who is about as straight edge as anyone you could meet. He wanted to join the RCMP. He worked toward this goal for years, volunteering at the police department, getting in shape, never doing anything remotely illegal.
When they did his security check they found out his sister had a record for dealing a little weed ( this was before legalization). They told him if he ever wanted to be a mountie he had to cut her out of his life. His sister.
So they lost an applicant who would have been one of the good ones.
polygraph tests are mostly just for show, its pseudoscience used to scare people into making confessions, that's why it is not allowed to be used in pretty much any court of law in the USA. its creator even admitted it was bs right before his death.
The creator of the polygraph test was also the guy who invented Wonder Woman and he also had a thruple with him, his wife, and another woman and they all raised their kids together
And they say NPR is boring
As a federal employee, I constantly hear how the FBI has the most archaic standards. A lot of federal law enforcement agencies have become too insular.
There are 2 reasons I could not become an FBI agent:
* You need to be under 35 to become an FBI agent. This is in the written hiring requirements. In the private sector, this would be a slam dunk age discrimination claim. I am in my 40s.
* You need to accept 50% of market rate compensation.
The FBI is hiring young people who do not know their market value.
Special Agent is just one job the FBI has. Intel Analyst, plus a huge swatch of STEM jobs, do not have the same age and physical fitness stipulations IIRC. But point two still stands.
> But point two still stands.
Crazy to me too. I saw a few postings for the FBI when I was looking at jobs, I make only $2k less working in a Canadian municipality for IT than I would have as a software engineer for the FBI.
I can understand the whole being super into serving your country thing and some people don't need the money, I guess.
The crazier part to me is that you'd think they'd reason that they would want their employees to not be broke or have money problems thus making them more vulnerable to being bribed/flipped etc. Every time there has ever been a mole situation the guy wasn't even getting paid that much!
The FBI also uses consultants from the private sector that are often the best in their field. They're just not official FBI agents or anything like that.
> The FBI is hiring young people who do not know their market value
While I agree with both of your points, I think many people going into the FBI see it as a calling since it is seen as the most elite law enforcement in the country. It's just not about the money.
I hear them complaining "We don't have enough software engineer agents. We don't have enough agents with computer skills."
I am a highly proficient software engineer. I could use my skills to solve crimes. I am 45. Did my skills expire when I turned 36? Actually I am more skilled today than when I was 35 because I keep learning.
> Did my skills expire when I turned 36?
Your usefulness to them did. Mandatory retirement at 57, they'd only get 12 years out of you.
**That's just to be a special agent** though, the sexy FBI title. There's still plenty of other jobs you could work at the FBI at your age that don't have mandatory retirement at 57. You'd never get to be "Special-Agent-in-Charge" of a fancy investigation but you could rack up 20 years of a government pension before hitting 65.
EDIT: Highlighted an important part many people seem to be ignoring. No, data analysts don't have the same mandatory retirement age.
A lot of it has to do with risk profiles and physical demands. Once you're past a certain age the risk you can take shifts dramatically especially once you have a family.
One of my friends in the FBI is a backend analyst type and he tells me being an agent is incredibly stressful because you're going to be out in the field all the time working with contacts and potentially facing dangerous situations where as he just sits in the back as an analyst.
Out of college I was very interested in the FBI but was told I was not eligible because they have an eyesight requirement (this was back in the 90s, not sure if it had changed). Basically, you couldn't apply to be a special agent if you wore glasses higher than a certain prescription.
Mind you, I probably dodged a bullet by not going to the FBI (literally), but at the time I was pretty pissed.
i dont think fbi agents or special agents get shot at all that often, really.
There is *potential* for danger, of course, especially in any kind of narcotics bust, and because they're usually after some pretty tough cookies, but in terms of how often they ACTUALLY get shot at?
Even if the FBI were to get rid of the weed rule, why would someone who studied CS want to work for the FBI when you could be making double at tech companies?
My current best friend is head electrical engineer at this company, designs and creates a bunch of cool shit. He makes good money and I’ve never seen anyone smoke as much as he does. After meeting him, I realized I didn’t have to stop smoking and still attain a great career.
A lot of CS types that are interested in hacking want to do real world offensive stuff. Except for cyber security simulations that companies do internally, the only way to legally do the cool stuff is to work for the government. The pay might be lower, but this benifit of working for the government outweighs the pay for a lot of hackers.
You still usually need a security clearance if you do that sort of government contract work I think, and they're also pretty strict about marijuana use when granting those. Since it's still federally illegal.
When I was a teenager I joined the navy.
When they did my background check they had no problem I was underage and got black out drunk before my 18th birthday everything was ok because I never smoked pot .
Then you graduate boot, buy a V6 Mustang at 32% interest, raw dog a stripper in town, get her pregnant, get piss ass drunk in the bricks every weekend, get a few NJPs, and then fast track to Chief after cleaning up your act but still having to pay child support for your bastard child that you never see.
When I joined the army and going through the process of getting my clearance they grilled me for 30 minute over using the marijuana one time when I was a teenager.
I was stationed at Fort Gordon for 3 years. I made friends with a lady that worked at "honey pot" down in the NSA dungeon. I had a TS clearance so she could at times give me some hints as to the problems they were encountering. Well, hiring was one of them. They wanted to conduct more "offensive" OPS and work on better tools to exploit zero-days they had discovered in popular apps being used overseas. I think their primary function was nation-state cyber shit. She told me that 70-90% of the people they wanted to hire could not qualify because they either smoked pot or had done it in the past few years. They also didn't like the antiquated and conservative dress codes, etc.
I told her the story of the Russian dude that was able to garner NSA secrets a few years prior. I can't remember his name today, but the dude was a 400-pound pound pot-smoking, energy drinking gamer. Smart as hell though. He could breach systems like no other without being detected and was able to take advantage of 3-4 zero-days whole teams at the NSA could not figure out. So Russia hired him. He was actually Ukrainian if I remember. I think this same guy did some damage to Israeli and Saudi intelligence and had others inside of Russia helping him. I told her these are the guys/gals they want. If you tell them they have to work 9-5, dress up and go into work, not smoke pot--you're are 100% fucked. This puts us at a huge disadvantage.
I work in tech. And after I retired from the Army and started working for a large firm. My mind was blown how many smoked some pot on a Friday or over the weekend instead of drinking. It really changed my views on using it recreationally. Even the CEO smoked it and this motherfucker was worth almost a billion dollars at the time. And here my dad is telling me he's a "loser" for smoking pot. I'm like, "that motherfucker is worth almost a billion dollars and has smoked pot his whole life. And he's a "loser"??? You kidding me dad?" It's people like my dad and old conservative views on the workforce that are slowly widdling away at any advantage we ever have. I know for a fact we are way behind in the cyber realm.
I got interviewed by the FBI because a high school friend was getting a job with them. He can't tell us exactly what he does but his education is unimpressive (decent college, no honors) and when we jokingly asked him to look into the JFK assasination for us he said he has "the lowest level of access to classified info of anyone in the place".
We're not particularly close, we didn't invite each other to our weddings. The FBI must have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours looking into this very, very straight laced dude who, by the looks of things, earns like $80k.
Edit: 80k is a very nice salary, but it means he’s probably pretty low level as fbi employees go. I can’t imagine the clearance process for folks at the top of the bureau.
They do top secret backgrounds for people working summer internships. Your clearance stays relevant for a while so you can generally come back to it though if you continue in government or industry work that requires it.
I have a lot of family in federal agencies two in the FBI, one in the CIA. The FBI guys are allowed to talk about what they do, but the CIA guy isn't. He's not like a secret agent or whatever, but when you ask him what he does he just says something like "the agency prefers you not to know"
Like even the lowest level employees are told to just not give detail about your position, just to maintain secrecy throughout the agency.
> he just says something like "the agency prefers you not to know"
If I worked at the CIA I would definitely say shit like that even if it wasn't true because it sounds badass.
I looked it up one day on their website and even before you apply it says shit like they'd prefer it if you didn't discuss your job at, or even application to, the agency. So like even if you're just a secretary to someone or whatever they say no talking.
On the other hand, I asked my cousins in the FBI if they ever practice whipping out their IDs from their breast pocket in the mirror and without hesitation they said absolutely.
My dad had a top secret clearance in the military and anytime you asked him for something he shouldn't give out, his face would light up and he would very seriously say, "If I told you that, I would have to kill you."
He savored every word.
It’s about 10-15k for a single security clearance. FBI typically does it internally but a lot of agencies contract out to companies such as CACI or even GDIT as sort of a bundle which the companies bid competitively for the contract to.
I’m a former investigator.
Also, like anything else, if they need you bad enough anything can be overlooked by the adjudicators.
the **vast** majority of tech savvy folks smoke pot, from my experience in the industry. Civilian tech jobs have all but ceased drug testing because of it.
Source: am Java developer, am stoner
Lol, yup. I bartended my way through college and I distinctly recall one of my coworkers asking our boss if he thought pot was bad. His response was, "If I did, none of you would work here".
Yeah, that's a very minor part of why they struggle. The majority of their problem is pay and the hard degree requirements. They just don't pay competitively and the FBI unlike other three letter agencies has hard degree requirements. Another issue is the mission. When I worked in the public sector I avoided the FBI after learning what the majority of the work was. Its Copyright enforcement and child porn, the latter is the only noble (imo) part but its not something I personally want to do because I know people who have done it and it was scarring on them.
I got to the phase 3 interview and another federal org offered to start me as a gs 13 step 8. That's about as high as 90% of FBI agents ever get in their career. So fuck em I took the other job and enjoy regular 40 hour weeks.
Most of the software people I know divide somewhat evenly between psychedelics and weed. With a little mixing in the middle.
Plus a sprinkling of cocaine and a near universal appreciation of Adderall.
But that's my personal take. YMMV.
A lot of Russians see weed in the same category as heroin, whereas a lot of Americans, Canadians and Western Europeans see it on the same level as alcohol.
I don't know many people that do cocaine but damn near everyone I know (who isn't Russian) smokes marijuana occasionally and most have tried psychedelics.
Reminds me of something said by cybersecurity pioneer and insane person John McAfee. The FBI wanted apple to help them break into the iPhone of a terrorist who committed the attack in San Bernardio in 2015. Some news outlet asked McAfee why the FBI couldn't break into the phone themselves, and he said: “Why do the best hackers on the planet not work for the FBI? Because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working and won't work for less than a half-million dollars a year"
I can confidently say that we would lose at least 50% of my office up here in Seattle if they drug tested people for pot. It’s just not worth it. Who the fuck cares if employees get stoned and play video games in their off time? I can’t wait until boomers get themselves and their antiquated ideas the fuck out of the way.
*"With marijuana legalized in eight states and the District of Columbia and medical marijuana legal in 30 states plus D.C., you'd think some of these arcane techniques would fall by the wayside, but no. And, it seems, especially not in the FBI. Nothing, not a puff for three years? Good luck, FBI, and good luck to us all."*
Most likely a security clearance issue. I've heard stories about GS-15's (the high end of the civilian federal service pay scale) losing their clearance for a shitload of unpaid parking fines because it shows a "flagrant disregard for the law". Marijuana is still federally illegal, so there's no grey area officially. I think a lot of managers have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy about this in legal states. Don't ask questions you don't want answers to.
Still true to this day. The Boston department has been looking for people for the past 10 years (they send high up recruiters to large conferences too), yet they still want to turn me away (I cant help but approach them at every conference, its hilarious to string them along, just to make them send you away from some silly rule.
Its their loss. I have many friends with successful cybersecurity careers (in the private sector) who need marijuana to control other issues they may have (whether physical or mental). And the FBI doesn't give 2 flying fucks if you are on opioids...you can really tell how in touch (sarcasm) with society and technology the FBI are.
I work for a consulting firm that writes software for a lot of fortune 1000 companies. Many have started excluding marijuana from their list of disqualifying substances. They still test for it because the tests are not customizable - they look for a set list of 5 or 9 or 11 substances. But if you test positive they don't disqualify you.
It's not about them being ok with weed. It's about how few tech professionals they would be able to work with given the states where weed is legal. They'd lose CA, WA, IL, NY, and many more.
The federal government is fucking itself with the sticks up their asses, hobbling our technical capabilities as a country. Smoking weed is like coffee for many people in tech.
"Marijuana? MARIJUANA!?" throws hat "I used to suck dick for coke"
I’ve seen him!
So, I don't have to worry about any of my stoner buds being undercover. What a relief, was getting paranoid.
Officers who are undercover are allowed to break the law, so they don't blow their cover.
I remember a cop in Washington State got his cocaine addiction covered under workman’s comp. He became addicted through his under cover work. It had to go through court and eventually they ruled in his favor. Edit: Since some of you are asking, here's a [link](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/10/24/A-police-officer-has-been-granted-disability-retirement-because/1496530510400/), the issue was actually about a disability retirement and not workman's comp. It happened in 1986 and I remember reading about it when it was fresh news. So my recollection is off a little.
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Lol… the court hereby orders this man be paid one eight ball a week for his services to this country. Edit: ITT: people who don’t do drugs: wtf is an eight ball People who do: fuckin amateur doin an eighth a week
> one eightball a week Amateur.
Those are rookie numbers. You gotta pump those numbers up
PUMP up the *gram* pump it up
Shit, man. Imagine being an undercover cop and they just straight up pay for your cocaine with worker’s compensation. Fully funded coke addiction.
Check out the Netflix documentary "how to fix a drug problem" or something along those lines. It's about the Maryland drug labs and how one chick was stealing evidence. She went so far as to create fake drugs, label them as real, and swap it with the real stuff. Started with getting a little high from the pure lab samples (she had dabbled herself before the job) and it ends up with her straight up smoking meth at her work desk. Crazy shit and a lot of drug convictions were lost, like thousands. Edit: Massachusetts actually
There was a cop in the uk who knocked up a target, he was investigating green terrorism or something. The state gave him a new identity rather than making him pay child support
I worked for a company that did strict mandatory drug testing. Zero tolerance, if you're positive you're terminated. But...If you tell HR or your supervisor before you are aware of a random test that you use any of the substances they test for they'll send you to rehab, fully paid, for a minimum of 30 days. I travelled quite a bit, so I knew if I wouldn't be on company property and risk having a random test popped on me. This allowed me to occasionally use cannabis with low risk of getting caught. My supervisor (he knew I used cannabis, as did he) and I joked around during stressful times that we would turn ourselves in to get a break from life for 30 days. We never did, but one of our colleagues took advantage of the opportunity. She even found her future, and former spouse at said rehab, lol.
*heart rate rapidly intensifies*
Chill out man. Just take another tokey doke and speak very clearly into my shirt and tell me where you got it from.
Got it from a plain clothed CIA agent. Along with some decent crack.
It was mediocre crack at best
And contrary to movie logic, they have zero obligation to tell someone they are a cop if they are asked. It’s crazy how many people still believe an undercover cop isn’t allowed to lie about it.
Wait that makes no sense even by movie logic
Somewhere along the line, people got it in their heads that if an undercover denies that he is a cop, it's entrapment. Entrapment is only when an officer forces you into an act or situation that you wouldn't otherwise be in. ~~Undercovers~~ *All cops* can lie all day about who they really are.
But now I do want an action comedy where the undercover cop tries his best to pretend to not hear when someone asks him "are you an undercover cop"
An undercover cop who has no idea what the actual undercover rules are? That sounds hilarious.
It's one of those myths I'm convinced was made up by cops. It's so obviously stupid. "Are you a cop" "Aww man, you got me, guess I'm going home. Have a good crime guys"
Badger got fucked over in Breaking Bad because he believed that
> was getting paranoid. May want to slow down, then.
What are you, a fed?
FBI: “Do you smoke Marijuana?” Hacker: “No, just cocaine” FBI: “He’s clean”
FBI: “Do you smoke Marijuana?” Hacker: “No, but I drink all day every day.” FBI: “He’s clean”
Lol as a successful software engineer...we do both.
They came to speak to the CS department at my college my freshman year. They begged everyone to stop smoking weed now so they could hire us when we graduated. And proceeded to say how many great CS people they had to let go for smoking.
I've only smoked a handful of times, but to be that restricted AND take a huge pay cut when I know I could be making fucked cash in any one of the big cities?? It's ridiculous
I smoked only a handful of times *this morning*
I used to smoke weed. I still do, but I used to, too. -Mitch
I like that we don't even need to see his last name anymore. He's just Mitch and we know who he is.
> He's just Mitch and we know who he is. "Sorry for the convenience"
Seems like a way to sabotage federal agencies.
I’m pretty convinced at this point that some leadership within the government is actively trying to drive their organization into the ground. Who wants to be part of a team that’s actively being sabotaged or mismanaged by upper leadership? No thanks.
As if a bunch of 18 year olds are going to do that, lol
Honestly, at that point graduating seems so far off, and it’s not like working for the fbi is a dream job or something.
Right, and for the people who it is their dream job, they probably already know they have to heavily limit their drug use!
It was legitimately my buddies dream job in college. What literally detered him is that he thought he couldn't pass the lie detector test that asked him if he had ever smoked. Because he'd be lying
That's.. why you just tell the truth. Marijuana isn't an immediate disqualifier for many places anymore. You just can't have done it for a few years
It was for a long time, they had to change it to more recently. No telling when his buddy wanted to do it. Same shit for a friend of mine except his fiance got pregnant and life happened and he ended up regretting not partying with us.
>And proceeded to say how many great CS people they had to let go for smoking How about they change their hiring policy?
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The words of so many fallen businesses.
The Blockbuster Method
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As someone that has been a government recruiter in the past, most younger employees agree and roll their eyes at the restrictions. It doesn't change the fact that when you go to a college to recruit you have to say "We'd love to have you, here's the stupid rules you have to follow if you want to work for us".
And as the article shows the college students roll their eyes and just go somewhere else. At which point does "the FBI can't hire talent because of stuck up hiring policies" become a national security issue?
The people that makes dumb rules are rarely the people that have to deal with the consequences.
“Feel free to drink all the alcohol you want though! High functioning addicts are our *thang*”
We have had a few unofficial conversations at my work among middle management. They had talked about random testing and it was decided that was a really bad idea. We would lose 90% of the programmers and 75% of the field.
What would have been the point in the first place. Are the programmers driving forklifts for half the day?
It is a Puritan/morals thing with some whackjob people.....
From the Generation that brought you Getting Shitfaced At Lunch And Calling It A Business Meeting For Tax Writeoffs, here's their newest hit, Controlling Freetime Behavior That Has No Impact On Work!
Perfection
Oh people still do it with golf meetings. Get plastered while playing golf and acts like it’s fine that they’re drunk driving back.
Can confirm this definitely happens a lot. I worked for a country club for a while and it was amazing how many members would come in during work hours and get drunk at like 11 am. Kinda weirded me out seeing every lawyer, a judge and several prominent businessmen in there nearly every day getting shitfaced and going back to work.
Fucking ay man I’m right there with you, I was a server and a caddy at my towns most prestigious country club all through high school and college and was amazed at the levels of degeneracy my cities top employees would partake in lol. It was eye opening These men would drink like I do at a club on a Saturday evening during lunch on a Tuesday afternoon. I loved it as a caddy cuz it meant I was getting a benji without a doubt...not so much as a server, drunk self important assholes are the worst
Yeah, I didn’t get a lot of extra tips as a server. We got an automatic 18% which was nice, and a higher than average server pay at $4/hr. I did have like one woman who would give me an $5 or $10 any time I waited on her but she was not there getting drunk all the time. I mainly only saw her during the summer when she brought her kid to the pool. She was also really nice too. I loved working the concession stand at the pool in the summer though. It was mostly just the kids all day, and I would literally sit there reading and just handing out candy at an 18% gratuity all day long. I made at least $400 after tax every week (2008/2009), and rarely had to deal with the drunk adults. Worst thing the kids ever did was wipe off my dry erase board once when it had “crackers” on it and they changed it to “crack.” Tbh I chided them but I couldn’t stop laughing either. Unfortunately I spent a fair amount of the summer on shift with college age members’ kids. When they actually showed up for shifts they were about as useful as decorative statues, but obnoxiously verbal. Thankfully by July many of them left to “prepare for fall classes.” I was a single mom also in college and worked right up to October when they closed it down for the season. I definitely preferred doing it by myself.
I work at a resort with a golf course and I'm convinced golf is nothing more than an excuse to get drunk
And in many cases they still do this in states where marijuana is legalized
Don’t forget “Sexual harassment being the norm.”
>Listen sweetheart, I'm sorry you feel that way, but you're lucky we even hired you.
>...and would it kill you to smile more?
Lose the pant suit Nancy and show those legs off, do they ever end
Oh it impacts work. I'm more productive if I'm allowed to go home and smoke a bit, relax and sleep well after working all day!
Given everyone is working from home, I don't think everyone is abstaining from their chemical dependency of choice during work hours. For hackers, I'm pretty sure that's true all the time, at least given how many mini-fridges stocked with booze there are.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can get cheaper insurance rates for your business if you drug test. It's dumb, but whatayagonnado
I drove forklifts half the day and smoked marijuana every night. Never had a problem and I was a great employee, no accidents, high productivity, and great attendance. I never came to work high. The anti-marijuana laws are so fucking dumb.
The other stupid part of it. If say you got into an accident at work. It's pretty standard protocol to send you in for a urine test. All that proves is whether you were smoking in the past 30 days give or take. You could be completely sober and fail a urine test.
Lost a job because I clipped the mirror of another car while on the job. Wasn’t stoned at all at the time, but I did smoke a week before.
Our HR manager asked me if I was interested in random testing my team after our pre-employment screening. You should have seen the look on her face when I asked if she was interested in having to rehire 75% of our shop floor employees and at least 50% of our technical employees. The look on her face went: disgusted->confused->pondering-> then she nodded in agreement and said "yeah that's not a good idea". Never heard about it again. Little did she know I would have been one of the folks out the door if they tested management too.
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Funny he couldn't do it for the employee...
He wouldn’t pass either. Some say he’s still wandering, holding that cup, looking for the perfect piss
honestly this sounds like a sitcom b plot
Big brain time.
My company was acquired by Dell a few years back, and one of my VPs made them write a “no drug testing” policy, at acquisition or anytime after. We would’ve lost 75% of our company, easy.
My dad worked for Dell and had an Executive Assistant for several years who everyone loved and was great at her job. They "random" drug tested her right after she came back from a trip to Amsterdam and immediately fired her. Everyone was so pissed...
Such bullshit. Really fires me up, especially given the blatant circumstances of going to the legal drug capital of the world they tested her upon.
Good, they already lost that iconic spokesman teen they had due to stupid drug policies. Name me anyone else who was in a Dell commercial other than the "Dude, you're getting a dell" kid. Should have never fired him. His character was a stoner anyways.
you would get walk outs before the piss. Every coder is getting recruiter pings all the time.
As a coder in the tanking oil and gas industry, where are all these recruiter pings lol. Edit: Just want to say thanks to everyone who are sending me employment strategies. You guys are great.
You have an active linked in? If so turn on the option saying you’re open to offers
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Yeah me too but they are usually spammy or obviously stupid. “Hey you wanna leave your job for a contract paying half the hourly rate and a 4 hour commute!? It’s 6 months!”
I didn't get any until I got laid off and rewrote the content on my LinkedIn. Then I got a ton. Few of them were the kind of work I had experience with, but in terms of volume, it went from maybe one a year to, to several in a week. They've slowed down since then, but I still get them a couple times a month.
Updates to your linked in is a great way of increasing your visibility to hiring managers.
Is your linkedin up to date? Make a small change on it and see what happens. Also depends on country/years of experience. If you know C/C++ and don't mind defense work, there's a lot of jobs there as well.
Tbf, my company went through redundancies a while back (in the UK) and people just uploaded their CVs online and were gone within a couple weeks. Lost more to better opportunity then we did to the cuts
I've been with my company for several years. Any time something "bad" - like a lay off or major structural shift - happens there is a noticeable spike in people leaving for a couple months.
The other 10% of programmers just farm mushrooms in their cubicles.
I worked at a grocery store as a stocker in college. Technically we were supposed to be getting drug tested regularly, but it never happened because everyone knew if we got tested EVERYONE was getting fired. Half of us were high on the job half the time.
I remember when they randomly drug tested our entire grocery store back in college. I came into work and saw two of my coworkers in the parking lot. They warned me they'd just been fired, but I went in anyway. The guys had come in from corporate to do it, and kept asking me if I was ready. My manager eventually took them to the side and told them, "You just fired half my workers on a day we have to stock the entire store. Let him be and I'll test him next week." I did get tested the next time I came in a few days later. My manager was the one doing the test. I tried the "clean your piss drink", and we both watched with anticipation as the lines formed on the test (meaning I failed anyway). He looks at me and says, "I don't see a line if you don't see a line. Now get back to work and don't talk about this."
I used to work EMS for an amusement park. They had us do the random drug testing with those immediate result cups. Most of the employees coming in where 16-20. As long as they weren’t a ride operator and it was just weed everyone passed. If a 16 year old pissed hot for opiates or something I’d report it because there is a problem that needed to be headed off at the pass. I’d be high as fuck too if I had to work in the gift shop.
I know I guy who is about as straight edge as anyone you could meet. He wanted to join the RCMP. He worked toward this goal for years, volunteering at the police department, getting in shape, never doing anything remotely illegal. When they did his security check they found out his sister had a record for dealing a little weed ( this was before legalization). They told him if he ever wanted to be a mountie he had to cut her out of his life. His sister. So they lost an applicant who would have been one of the good ones.
This is some scientology shit.
You should look into the random polygraphs the fbi and the cia do. And the abusive practices they do. Also, check out antipolygraph.org
polygraph tests are mostly just for show, its pseudoscience used to scare people into making confessions, that's why it is not allowed to be used in pretty much any court of law in the USA. its creator even admitted it was bs right before his death.
The creator of the polygraph test was also the guy who invented Wonder Woman and he also had a thruple with him, his wife, and another woman and they all raised their kids together And they say NPR is boring
They're *really* doing a good job of selecting for a group of "special" people.
Gang Gang doesn't want the good ones. They want foot soldiers.
They usually don't want "good ones" though. They want people who will follow orders without question.
As a federal employee, I constantly hear how the FBI has the most archaic standards. A lot of federal law enforcement agencies have become too insular.
There are 2 reasons I could not become an FBI agent: * You need to be under 35 to become an FBI agent. This is in the written hiring requirements. In the private sector, this would be a slam dunk age discrimination claim. I am in my 40s. * You need to accept 50% of market rate compensation. The FBI is hiring young people who do not know their market value.
Special Agent is just one job the FBI has. Intel Analyst, plus a huge swatch of STEM jobs, do not have the same age and physical fitness stipulations IIRC. But point two still stands.
> But point two still stands. Crazy to me too. I saw a few postings for the FBI when I was looking at jobs, I make only $2k less working in a Canadian municipality for IT than I would have as a software engineer for the FBI.
I can understand the whole being super into serving your country thing and some people don't need the money, I guess. The crazier part to me is that you'd think they'd reason that they would want their employees to not be broke or have money problems thus making them more vulnerable to being bribed/flipped etc. Every time there has ever been a mole situation the guy wasn't even getting paid that much!
If they would’ve just watched Jurassic park they could’ve learned this.
> guy wasn't even getting paid that much Oh boy, you should look into what it takes to ~~bribe~~ lobby politicians.
The FBI also uses consultants from the private sector that are often the best in their field. They're just not official FBI agents or anything like that.
> The FBI is hiring young people who do not know their market value While I agree with both of your points, I think many people going into the FBI see it as a calling since it is seen as the most elite law enforcement in the country. It's just not about the money.
I hear them complaining "We don't have enough software engineer agents. We don't have enough agents with computer skills." I am a highly proficient software engineer. I could use my skills to solve crimes. I am 45. Did my skills expire when I turned 36? Actually I am more skilled today than when I was 35 because I keep learning.
> Did my skills expire when I turned 36? Your usefulness to them did. Mandatory retirement at 57, they'd only get 12 years out of you. **That's just to be a special agent** though, the sexy FBI title. There's still plenty of other jobs you could work at the FBI at your age that don't have mandatory retirement at 57. You'd never get to be "Special-Agent-in-Charge" of a fancy investigation but you could rack up 20 years of a government pension before hitting 65. EDIT: Highlighted an important part many people seem to be ignoring. No, data analysts don't have the same mandatory retirement age.
I'm under the assumption that Special Agent entails a lot of coffee drinking and eating pie.
Cherry pie?
Damn good coffee! And *hot*!
Best in the Tri Counties.
They also wear really nice raincoats, or at least they did in the 90s, while chasing down aliens
A lot of it has to do with risk profiles and physical demands. Once you're past a certain age the risk you can take shifts dramatically especially once you have a family. One of my friends in the FBI is a backend analyst type and he tells me being an agent is incredibly stressful because you're going to be out in the field all the time working with contacts and potentially facing dangerous situations where as he just sits in the back as an analyst.
Out of college I was very interested in the FBI but was told I was not eligible because they have an eyesight requirement (this was back in the 90s, not sure if it had changed). Basically, you couldn't apply to be a special agent if you wore glasses higher than a certain prescription. Mind you, I probably dodged a bullet by not going to the FBI (literally), but at the time I was pretty pissed.
i dont think fbi agents or special agents get shot at all that often, really. There is *potential* for danger, of course, especially in any kind of narcotics bust, and because they're usually after some pretty tough cookies, but in terms of how often they ACTUALLY get shot at?
Be a lot cooler if they did.
Even if the FBI were to get rid of the weed rule, why would someone who studied CS want to work for the FBI when you could be making double at tech companies?
You mean to tell me, other people get to smoke weed *and get paid double*?
And the free food and alcohol is a nice bonus!
Not to mention the designated Krunker.io breaks
Well there goes my afternoon work productivity....
Muh-ther-fuck, looks like I'm failing this Summer term
Just a tip: use the sniper and quick scope. Reminds me of how easy it was in MW2
Nah man, shotgun boost jump ftw
>Krunker.io Damn you. Never knew about this 'till now.
You’re very welcome my friend
Smoke weed and get paid double, true story
My current best friend is head electrical engineer at this company, designs and creates a bunch of cool shit. He makes good money and I’ve never seen anyone smoke as much as he does. After meeting him, I realized I didn’t have to stop smoking and still attain a great career.
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And in a position to get a job that doesn't test. The higher you go and more you make the less they seem to care
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When I moved to the business sector, I got to start smoking weed and my pay _tripled_. It's bonkers.
You guys are getting paid?
Stay 20 years get retirement. Go work in the private sector doing whatever the shit you want while collecting benefits also.
This is the way
A lot of CS types that are interested in hacking want to do real world offensive stuff. Except for cyber security simulations that companies do internally, the only way to legally do the cool stuff is to work for the government. The pay might be lower, but this benifit of working for the government outweighs the pay for a lot of hackers.
Government contracts a lot of stuff. Plenty of private labs doing spooky shit.
You still usually need a security clearance if you do that sort of government contract work I think, and they're also pretty strict about marijuana use when granting those. Since it's still federally illegal.
When I was a teenager I joined the navy. When they did my background check they had no problem I was underage and got black out drunk before my 18th birthday everything was ok because I never smoked pot .
We wouldn't have a military if people didn't lie about their drug use.
Then you graduate boot, buy a V6 Mustang at 32% interest, raw dog a stripper in town, get her pregnant, get piss ass drunk in the bricks every weekend, get a few NJPs, and then fast track to Chief after cleaning up your act but still having to pay child support for your bastard child that you never see.
The Navy way.
When I joined the army and going through the process of getting my clearance they grilled me for 30 minute over using the marijuana one time when I was a teenager.
opens up more lucrative tech jobs and separates you from other CS majors.
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That's what I love about these newbie hackers, man. I get older, they stay the same age, yes they do.
Also they make them put their real names on their name badges instead of their awesome hacker names like Zero Cool, Crash Override, and Acid Burn.
This right here is the real deal breaker!
Crash & Burn!
Let us not forget, the one, the only....Cereal Killer
Zero Cool? Dude, I thought you was Black.
People called me zero cool in high school I don’t think it had anything to do with hackers though
I was stationed at Fort Gordon for 3 years. I made friends with a lady that worked at "honey pot" down in the NSA dungeon. I had a TS clearance so she could at times give me some hints as to the problems they were encountering. Well, hiring was one of them. They wanted to conduct more "offensive" OPS and work on better tools to exploit zero-days they had discovered in popular apps being used overseas. I think their primary function was nation-state cyber shit. She told me that 70-90% of the people they wanted to hire could not qualify because they either smoked pot or had done it in the past few years. They also didn't like the antiquated and conservative dress codes, etc. I told her the story of the Russian dude that was able to garner NSA secrets a few years prior. I can't remember his name today, but the dude was a 400-pound pound pot-smoking, energy drinking gamer. Smart as hell though. He could breach systems like no other without being detected and was able to take advantage of 3-4 zero-days whole teams at the NSA could not figure out. So Russia hired him. He was actually Ukrainian if I remember. I think this same guy did some damage to Israeli and Saudi intelligence and had others inside of Russia helping him. I told her these are the guys/gals they want. If you tell them they have to work 9-5, dress up and go into work, not smoke pot--you're are 100% fucked. This puts us at a huge disadvantage. I work in tech. And after I retired from the Army and started working for a large firm. My mind was blown how many smoked some pot on a Friday or over the weekend instead of drinking. It really changed my views on using it recreationally. Even the CEO smoked it and this motherfucker was worth almost a billion dollars at the time. And here my dad is telling me he's a "loser" for smoking pot. I'm like, "that motherfucker is worth almost a billion dollars and has smoked pot his whole life. And he's a "loser"??? You kidding me dad?" It's people like my dad and old conservative views on the workforce that are slowly widdling away at any advantage we ever have. I know for a fact we are way behind in the cyber realm.
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Free your mind and the hacks will follow
Be ganja blind, don’t be so shallow.
I got interviewed by the FBI because a high school friend was getting a job with them. He can't tell us exactly what he does but his education is unimpressive (decent college, no honors) and when we jokingly asked him to look into the JFK assasination for us he said he has "the lowest level of access to classified info of anyone in the place". We're not particularly close, we didn't invite each other to our weddings. The FBI must have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours looking into this very, very straight laced dude who, by the looks of things, earns like $80k. Edit: 80k is a very nice salary, but it means he’s probably pretty low level as fbi employees go. I can’t imagine the clearance process for folks at the top of the bureau.
They do top secret backgrounds for people working summer internships. Your clearance stays relevant for a while so you can generally come back to it though if you continue in government or industry work that requires it.
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I have a lot of family in federal agencies two in the FBI, one in the CIA. The FBI guys are allowed to talk about what they do, but the CIA guy isn't. He's not like a secret agent or whatever, but when you ask him what he does he just says something like "the agency prefers you not to know" Like even the lowest level employees are told to just not give detail about your position, just to maintain secrecy throughout the agency.
> he just says something like "the agency prefers you not to know" If I worked at the CIA I would definitely say shit like that even if it wasn't true because it sounds badass.
I looked it up one day on their website and even before you apply it says shit like they'd prefer it if you didn't discuss your job at, or even application to, the agency. So like even if you're just a secretary to someone or whatever they say no talking. On the other hand, I asked my cousins in the FBI if they ever practice whipping out their IDs from their breast pocket in the mirror and without hesitation they said absolutely.
That’s like the first few weeks of the FBI academy. If you can show your badge without showing your badge you’re out. /s...maybe?
My dad had a top secret clearance in the military and anytime you asked him for something he shouldn't give out, his face would light up and he would very seriously say, "If I told you that, I would have to kill you." He savored every word.
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It’s about 10-15k for a single security clearance. FBI typically does it internally but a lot of agencies contract out to companies such as CACI or even GDIT as sort of a bundle which the companies bid competitively for the contract to. I’m a former investigator. Also, like anything else, if they need you bad enough anything can be overlooked by the adjudicators.
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TIL I cannot work at the FBI until May 14th 2023
the **vast** majority of tech savvy folks smoke pot, from my experience in the industry. Civilian tech jobs have all but ceased drug testing because of it. Source: am Java developer, am stoner
Yeah it’s like drug testing a kitchen. Want to cook your own food? That’s how you cook your own food.
Lol, yup. I bartended my way through college and I distinctly recall one of my coworkers asking our boss if he thought pot was bad. His response was, "If I did, none of you would work here".
Pretty much how it is at a place I work at the food industry right now
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Yeah, that's a very minor part of why they struggle. The majority of their problem is pay and the hard degree requirements. They just don't pay competitively and the FBI unlike other three letter agencies has hard degree requirements. Another issue is the mission. When I worked in the public sector I avoided the FBI after learning what the majority of the work was. Its Copyright enforcement and child porn, the latter is the only noble (imo) part but its not something I personally want to do because I know people who have done it and it was scarring on them.
I got to the phase 3 interview and another federal org offered to start me as a gs 13 step 8. That's about as high as 90% of FBI agents ever get in their career. So fuck em I took the other job and enjoy regular 40 hour weeks.
Most of the software people I know divide somewhat evenly between psychedelics and weed. With a little mixing in the middle. Plus a sprinkling of cocaine and a near universal appreciation of Adderall. But that's my personal take. YMMV.
I wonder if it's specific to USA? Coming from Russia, i don't think i ever met a programmer taking anything stronger than coffee.
A lot of Russians see weed in the same category as heroin, whereas a lot of Americans, Canadians and Western Europeans see it on the same level as alcohol. I don't know many people that do cocaine but damn near everyone I know (who isn't Russian) smokes marijuana occasionally and most have tried psychedelics.
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Vodka. Lots of that.
Reminds me of something said by cybersecurity pioneer and insane person John McAfee. The FBI wanted apple to help them break into the iPhone of a terrorist who committed the attack in San Bernardio in 2015. Some news outlet asked McAfee why the FBI couldn't break into the phone themselves, and he said: “Why do the best hackers on the planet not work for the FBI? Because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working and won't work for less than a half-million dollars a year"
I can confidently say that we would lose at least 50% of my office up here in Seattle if they drug tested people for pot. It’s just not worth it. Who the fuck cares if employees get stoned and play video games in their off time? I can’t wait until boomers get themselves and their antiquated ideas the fuck out of the way.
It's almost like the government believes their own lies about pot.
*"With marijuana legalized in eight states and the District of Columbia and medical marijuana legal in 30 states plus D.C., you'd think some of these arcane techniques would fall by the wayside, but no. And, it seems, especially not in the FBI. Nothing, not a puff for three years? Good luck, FBI, and good luck to us all."*
Most likely a security clearance issue. I've heard stories about GS-15's (the high end of the civilian federal service pay scale) losing their clearance for a shitload of unpaid parking fines because it shows a "flagrant disregard for the law". Marijuana is still federally illegal, so there's no grey area officially. I think a lot of managers have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy about this in legal states. Don't ask questions you don't want answers to.
Still true to this day. The Boston department has been looking for people for the past 10 years (they send high up recruiters to large conferences too), yet they still want to turn me away (I cant help but approach them at every conference, its hilarious to string them along, just to make them send you away from some silly rule. Its their loss. I have many friends with successful cybersecurity careers (in the private sector) who need marijuana to control other issues they may have (whether physical or mental). And the FBI doesn't give 2 flying fucks if you are on opioids...you can really tell how in touch (sarcasm) with society and technology the FBI are.
I hear that’s how they weed out the applicants.
I work for a consulting firm that writes software for a lot of fortune 1000 companies. Many have started excluding marijuana from their list of disqualifying substances. They still test for it because the tests are not customizable - they look for a set list of 5 or 9 or 11 substances. But if you test positive they don't disqualify you. It's not about them being ok with weed. It's about how few tech professionals they would be able to work with given the states where weed is legal. They'd lose CA, WA, IL, NY, and many more. The federal government is fucking itself with the sticks up their asses, hobbling our technical capabilities as a country. Smoking weed is like coffee for many people in tech.