>It's just plain stupid.

I don't see how. It's usually just a sweeping policy for liability or legal reasons and that's it.

"just a sweeping policy"

The USDS is suppose to be addressing the idiotic "seeping policies" that allow bureaucratic thinking to drive away those interested in working to use technology to improve performance.

That they didn't bother to fix this obviously silly bureaucratic rule that disrespects people is an very valid piece of data that you will find many less blatantly disrespectful bureaucratic rules stymying your attempt to do your work.

It might be they did a decent job fixing the many many problems with how much of government IT has been done but just failed on this one very visible and thus any marketer would tell you very important to address issue. But I doubt it. Most likely if they failed to even deal with this, the situation is pretty bad in many other ways.

USDS has done some nice things, according to stories I have read, but it seems it is just this appendage to the bureaucracy that is given some leeway due to powerful allies in the bureaucracy. This has always been the case in government and lots of good IT stuff has been done by those given power to avoid the normal IT processes by powerful allies.

But the other success isn't about an improved system it is about typical power politics in a bureaucracy. Things like sticking to bad policy that is driven by command and control thinking treating workers like drones such as polygraphs or drug testing for office workers is a sign that even the core thinking around the management system is extremely poor. In that case the management system will constantly be imposing idiotic rules on you that can be ignore only due to a powerful ally preventing enforcement (or just the incompetence of the bureaucracy to enforce the rules it set in place).

I'd easily pass a drug test, and whatever technical interviews. And there's not a chance in hell I'd piss in a cup for any employer.

It's demeaning, and I simply will not do it.

I think this is one of those east coast vs west coast business mindsets. West coast businesses for the most part don't even think about drug testing while east coast ones can't imagine why you wouldn't drug test.

I have never been drug tested. I've worked since 1990 on the East Coast. It's never even been mentioned to me, except the one time that I looked into the FBI and discovered that they can't afford me.

I've never been drug tested for a job in this industry since moving to the East Coast

The stupid part is that drug tests would reject a large percentage of really good programmers, and they are neither abundant nor cheap. That's a big cost for such a vague benefit.

Even better: at some of these employers, being treated therapeutically by a doctor with a DEA scheduled medicine forces you to take the urine test, fail it, and then inevitably listen to someone from HR ask you questions about your health history in order to ascertain if you really need to be taking the medicine. It's intrusive, infantilizing, and just not worth it when there are so many better employers out there.

>Even better: at some of these employers, being treated therapeutically by a doctor with a DEA scheduled medicine forces you to take the urine test, fail it, and then inevitably listen to someone from HR ask you questions about your health history in order to ascertain if you really need to be taking the medicine.

Don't grasp at straws, anyone with a brain would bring proof of prescription (or put their doctor's number down!) to the test and that gets sent along with the results.

I doubt people without a brain would get much out of drugs.

So now it's my urine and substantial pieces of my health history, including a pretty good drug-directed guess of what the actual underlying health condition is. Hope it's not an expensive one to insure. Oh, I'll write the doctor's number down too. I'll just fill out the HIPAA authorization form granting my potential employer access to my medical history. Good thing the practice's name doesn't include "behavioral health" anywhere in it.

Why bother with this nonsense when there are so many better employment options?

>I'll just fill out the HIPAA authorization form granting my potential employer access to my medical history

If I saw an auth form for any medical records release I would nope the fuck out too. That doesn't sound typical or correct. I have only seen releases for the results of the test which yes, if come back positive and you have proof of legal use will indicate you've been getting treatment based on someone's guess. However, it should stop there. If someone from HR starts asking medical questions about why you are getting treatment, that sounds like it's crossing a serious line and I'd be looking into whether that's legal or not. That sounds like a company that is hiring some shitty people, never mind whether they are good or not because they have a drug testing policy.

>Why bother with this nonsense when there are so many better employment options?

You want to work in a specific industry

The issue is that virtually all practices will refuse to disclose any medical information to third parties without explicit written authorization.

I'm certain a lot of this behavior is illegal, but people who don't know or choose to ignore the law are everywhere, and litigation is expensive and time-consuming. I just want to build stuff, so I take these sorts of policies as a warning sign and look elsewhere.

I am generally against drug tests but I'd deal with one for USDS because I believe in the mission. Also let's say you're a recreational marijuana user, all you'd have to do is stop smoking for a month or so to pass a single test.

Premise: it is good, to the point of being legally enforced, to keep an individual's medical history private, except when necessary for medical treatment.

Conflict: an employer demands bodily fluids, revealing medications one is taking.

In most cases, the demand for the private medical history is unnecessary, stupid, and illegal.

It all comes down to insurance, liability and money.