Flying high
The Villain: The workplaces that encourage drug use
Drugs at work, eh? Bad, very bad. Surely there isn’t a workplace in the world that would tolerate its employees embarking on recreational pharmaceuticals on the job?
Well, not necessarily.
According to Stateside reports, employees at some tech start-ups on the US west coast (I know, right – where else?) have started to take ‘microdoses’ of LSD in order to help with their work – all with the blessing of their bosses.
It transpires that a growing number of young workers are ingesting tiny amounts of LSD every few days, which apparently gives them greater clarity of thought, helps them to address technical problems and enables them to ‘think outside the box’. Yeah, I bet it does.
The amount of the hallucinogen taken is described as ‘sub-perceptual’ – barely enough for the individual to know they’ve taken anything at all. So while they work, the drug has its effects in the background, allowing them to get on with the job with a whole new way of approaching the daily challenges it throws at them.
It’s reportedly popular with programmers, who, let’s face it, are probably just glad of anything to escape the monotony of what they have to do every day.
There haven’t yet been any reports of how this benefits the firms involved in the long term, but if it’s happening among west coast tech start-ups, you can bet it’s only a matter of time before every man and his window cleaning firm follows suit.
Now, the Villain doesn’t know much about drugs. My only experience was a run-in with a Moroccan jazz cigarette that was once handed round my dorm at school, and it left me feeling quite queasy. Never again, thank you.
And before I’d heard this story the only drug use I would have tolerated at my businesses would have been anything that stopped people from needing bathroom breaks – imagine the increase in productivity!
But this got me thinking – how could we harness this new development to get the best out of our folks? Could we encourage call-centre staff to increase their chattiness with cocaine? Warehouse staff could pack a truck in record time with some help from amphetamines? Maybe Joan the receptionist could finally put a smile on her face with some ecstasy?
There are countless possibilities.
Hell, if I can just find something that’ll make them think they enjoy their work, I’ll pump the water coolers full of the stuff.
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