Playing a videogame can seem like a matter of life or death. But for the truck drivers at the R.F. White Co., it's at least a matter of livelihood. Each morning, they line up behind a computer. Their 15-second task: to keep a squirming green blip on the screen by twiddling a knob. The computer prints out the test results, which the drivers then exchange for the keys to their trucks - unless they fail the test. Those who score below average in four consecutive tries are rewarded with a day off - without pay. These drivers are, or so their employer insists, too drunk, drugged, stressed out, or exhausted to safely maneuver their rigs. Come back tomorrow, they are told.
According to an article in Baltimore's The Sun, almost nine out of ten large employers require workers to hand over urine samples for drug tests. A computer game to test alertness would do away with most of civil libertarians' objections to urine tests. (Being forced to submit the samples goes against principles about privacy and the right not to incriminate oneself.) Also, urine tests are useless for weeding out workers whose emotional state could hurt their performance. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union has referred employers with concerns about worker safety to companies like Performance Factors Inc. and Essex Corporation, who market the computer safety programs. These businesses are big on the idea that urine tests are inconvenient, invasive, and, well, yucky.
But there are legitimate concerns over the computer testing. It is possible to fool the system. A person's test performance is measured against a series of initial, individual tries, which become the average score for that employee. All the clever drug user needs to do is deliberately play a few bad games during that initial series. The computer tests also make it impossible to distinguish between someone who's been snorting coke and a parent who stayed up all night with a sick child. (But then again, would you want either one of them driving a big rig the following morning?) Time will tell which of the two systems is most likely to scare the piss out of drug abusers who pose a safety problem.
ELECTRIC WORD
Mandatory Videogame: Play or No Pay
