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Using Adderall In the Office To Get Ahead
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Times reports on the changing usage of psychostimulants like Adderall. They were once only prescribed to help children with attention deficit disorders focus on their school work, but then college students found those drugs could increase their ability to study. Now a growing number of workers use them to help compete. What will happen as these drugs are more widely used in the workplace? According to Anjan Chatterjee, the use of neurotechnologies to enhance healthy people's brain function could easily become widespread. "If anything, we worship workplace productivity by any means. Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world. Why not add drugs to energize, focus and limit that annoying waste of time — sleep?" Julian Savulescu says that what defines human beings is their extraordinary cognitive power and their ability to enhance that power through reading, writing, computing and now smart drugs. "Eighty-five percent of Americans use caffeine. Nicotine and sugar are also cognitive enhancers," says Savulescu.
But cognitive neurologist Martha Farah says regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of "normal" productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters' advantage is only fleeting)."
But cognitive neurologist Martha Farah says regular use on the job is an invitation to dependence. "I also worry about the effect of drug-fueled productivity on people other than the users," says Farah. "It is not hard to imagine a supervisor telling employees that this is the standard they should aspire to in their work, however they manage to do it (hint, hint). The eventual result will be a ratcheting up of "normal" productivity, where everyone uses (and the early adopters' advantage is only fleeting)."
Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacations than most others in the developed world.
We shoot each other more often as well.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
If there are few to no negative side effects, what does it matter if people lean on these drugs to work?
I've not used them myself, but I don't care if others do.
I would call chemical dependence, i.e. addiction, to be a pretty negative side effect. Wouldn't you?
That's even ignoring the people, like one person in the article, who used these pills to cut down on sleep to about 3 hours per night for weeks on end and these magic pills do nothing to replace sleep. Getting in a car accident with one of these zombies sounds pretty negative to me too.
Would you like some more negative effects? It's not exactly hard to find on Google.
The future of supervisors recommending their subordinates take medication such as adderall is already here. I've witnessed it myself at an ad and marketing agency in the northeast. A marketing director was pulled aside by a VP and president of the agency to say they've noticed a slight slowdown in her performance over the past year. They said it's okay, it "happens as we get older" and recommended she speak with one of several friendly doctors they recommend her for medication to give her a more youthful edge.
After that I understood the insanity behind the eyes of that VP, and how they could go from 7am to 2am for a week without crashing like others.
Here's the response I gave when coworkers at the office ask if I drink coffee:
> They don't pay me enough to take performance enhancing drugs.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
They can't, which is why it won't happen. People at the top are there because they're very good at hamstringing competition. So the only legal performance enhancers will be those that are either inefficient, like coffee, or too expensive for you to afford.
And if people are willing to risk their lives and freedom to get an illegal drug that just makes them high, what makes you think laws will prevent them from getting a drug that makes them more money?
If there is a drug that will make you more productive to your employer, it will be embraced and encouraged.
If there's a drug that gives you pleasure, but doesn't bring a similar boost to a company's bottom line, it will get you sent to jail.
Let's not pretend that adderall in the workplace isn't just more capitalist social engineering. They'll exploit you any way they can.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In this case, the concern, which I think is fairly small but I can't deny that weirder things have happened, is that what's considered a normal, "meets expectations," level of productivity could be based on results obtained through the use of these grey-market or black-market drugs. This takes an already high-strung workforce and puts unreasonable expectations on them, such that more people may abuse these drugs and suffer the negative ramifications of them, who wouldn't otherwise be inclined to try them in the first place.
I struggle enough with caffeine and the negative effects of trying to keep intake manageable that I can't imagine how bad an addictive substance with much worse withdrawal symptoms would be.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yeah, and table salt (NaCl) and cyanide (NaCN) are just two kinds of sodium salts. That doesn't mean they affect the body the same way, though!
Besides, dosage matters (a lot!), and the dosage of Adderall used medicinally is way, way lower than the typical recreational dosage of meth, according to Wikipedia.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"Your son is fairly secure in his position as a full partner, but the firm's newest hires are scary. Most of them simply don't sleep, ever; they're at the office for days at a time without rest, and when they do take "time off", they're out skydiving, or rock-climbing, or just partying. Partners have always had the power in law firms -- but how long can they maintain power when their underlings are so much smarter and more ambitious?"
Senior technical person here, >20 years experience. Top performer, creative, award winner, generating new work,etc.
Annual performance review time... Supervisor says. "You're doing great. Your raise is at the top of the range we're allowed to give. You got a bonus. But, there's a bunch of scary smart fresh-outs coming in. They don't sleep, they're incredibly productive, they're cheap (50% of my pay), they aren't married, they don't have kids. What are you going to do to differentiate yourself?"
While I think people should be allowed to alter their consciousness using the substance of their choice, it is important to recognize that different addictions are not equivalent in their effects on individuals, people close to them, or society at large. An addiction to caffeine or chocolate doesn't result in the sort of disruptions to families and communities that addiction to alcohol and opiates does. Alcoholism almost always results in people hurting those around them. An addiction to chocolate, not so much.
Would you WANT, truly WANT, to work at a place like that? I wouldn't. If the rest of my office used Adderal or another drug to get ahead, I want to GET OUT. Not only will the place eventually bomb, but dependance is a bitch. I will find, or create, a job where that isn't tolerated. And it's not hard - yes there are plenty of places that "won't care, (wink) (wink)," but there will be plenty where professionalism is still King and it simply would not be tolerated at all, not even under the table.
. Define sqrt(x) as something really evil like (x / rand()), and bury it deep. Watch your coworkers go nuts.
Adderall is just taking it to the next level.
Maybe. Maybe not. There are no controlled studies that show any productivity benefit to a normal person taking Adderall. Many people "feel" that they benefit, but many people also feel that homeopathy cures their illnesses. TFA seems to make the assumption that these drugs actually work, when there is no scientific evidence that they do.
Let's travel back to 1965 when these drugs were legal. A nurse I know mentioned how Adderall was freely available at the nurses station, and after a period of experimentation (I believe she made mention of working a 60 hour week), most everyone dialed it the fuck down, and its use was mostly relegated to having a case of the Mondays, with a few burnouts here and there. This was also when three martini lunches were in vogue. Can you risk not having a few drinks with your business partners? Would you really call that performance enhancing?
Fact is our drug war has been the response to already going down this road before, and in case the evidence from Portugal isn't clear, most people tend to reduce there drug use across the board when they are legal.
The other side to performance enhancing drugs is that they tend to increase your ability to do physical labor, but otherwise they make you sloppy. 100 billable hours isn't much good if only 25 of them are useful, and you don't see meth heads rising to the top of industry or otherwise courted for employment.
The biggest factor in their use now is that they are illegal, and only a select few can pull the right strings to get them, which gives them a temporary advantage.
But if they are freely available? Most people still won't touch them, and are capable enough that even a slight increase in other's performance (at best, they will land you 5-10 more points on a standardized test) is indistinguishable from natural variation. Especial in the case of speed, there has been enough scaremongering (speed kills) regarding that is laughable. Drugs are a fun tangent, but eventually real, clear-headed work needs to be done.
So, one day the team leader says "Hey, spiritplumber, you look tired."
"Yeah, the work is exciting but I'm having a bit of a hard time keeping up."
"I know what you should do."
"Thanks, but I only need one Monday off to catch up on sleep."
"No, nothing like that. Go to this one doctor and he'll give you a prescription no questions asked."
"For what?"
"Oh, you know, allergy medication. It's probably why you've been under the weather." (Winks, I miss it because I'm derp).
"What's it called? I have" (herbal remedy) "for allergies."
"ProCentra. Tell him you work here."
So I go home, talk to my girlfriend who's a chem engie, and ask her what the hell that stuff is, so she tells me it's amphetamine. The next day, I explain to my team leader what my family does to people who get any of us into drugs, and quit. My father disapproves of the decision because he says I should also have punched the guy out after quitting.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
First of all, I take dexamphetamine for work - and for a reason. I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I really couldn't handle any job without the prescription drug; even with it my productivity is highly spastic in nature.
I don't like the drug. I very rarely take it on my free time, it clamps down spontaneous creativity and makes life altogether more about performing it, less about enjoying it. Never mind that I often enough walk around the flat forgetting halfway where I was going, at least by taking the drug at work I can afford a flat to do it in.
Now I'm afraid that a bunch of morons who value money more than life are going to get hooked on amphetamines, get bad press and inadvertently make it either more difficult or impossible it to obtain legally, even with a perfectly valid reason and over a decade's history of using it responsibly.
Western society, after a century of propaganda, is a far cry from being ready to understand and treat drugs responsibly. This is not helping.
Although I haven'y read the Brian Herbert written prequels...
Don't, seriously, don't. you'll never forgive yourself. I read one and am still trying to forget. Read some star wars fan fiction or something instead, which will be of similar or higher quality, free, and have the advantage that you won't feel like you're dancing with Brian on his father's grave while burning copies of the original books.
I do not think people who rely on medication like Adderall or antidepressants should be allowed to drive.
Wow, I found myself so annoyed by your post I wanted to reply with "Fuck you!" However that's hardly constructive, even if it is in character. (Yeah, I'm trying to evolve.)
Anyway: some of us are productive, helpful, compassionate and useful members of society, but only when we take our medication on a regular basis. Typically we're not proud of that fact but it beats the alternative.
If it helps you feel better: when some of us identified by this generalisation fail to take our medication - for whatever reason - we suffer a special kind of agony that cannot be described or explained adequately to someone who does not need medication to function normally. Consider it a significant punishment, if that eases your conscience. In my own experience I've found it can take weeks to fully return to normal.
Would you feel as coldly towards a person suffering diabetes? A person who needs daily finger-prick blood testing and may even require insulin injections?
We didn't get to choose our brains or our bodies, just like you didn't get to choose yours.
Besides, if I had a choice I'd naturally rather be a unicorn, just like every other sane person out there.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Adderrall is speed. It works for a brief period, but the cost even for brief use is high. And, whether they call it "meth" or prescription drugs it's addictive as hell. I did a gig in an area and industry where this sort of prescription drug abuse is rampant. It was so bad we had a hard time finding people that could even pass a dope test. But the dope tests apparently can be beaten because half the folks that made it to the job were on adderrall. Probably they had a prescription.
One guy just did it a couple of times--he got the job done by working about 30 hours straight. I didn't know he was high, but figured it out later. After his 30 hour work binge he was out "with the flu" for a day. When he got back after his day off, he still looked like he'd had the crap beaten out of him. This guy was a project leader and took it on himself to 'get it done no matter what'. Last I heard, he figured out that 'no matter what' was way too high a price and wasn't using. Boss agreed wholeheartedly--he'd rather explain failure to deliver than abuse his people. Good boss. When the abuse got too bad he walked us all off the job--you don't treat human beings that way and we were very lucky to have a boss that stood up for us.
Another guy was a more experienced user, and looked like he could maintain. Unfortunately he had the attention span of a gnat. I was ordered by the boss to finish up some of the guys work and as I went through the job I could see where he'd started on one task, then just abandoned it before it was done and jumped into the next task. The whole job was like that. It was easier to scrap it and do it myself than to try to figure out what was done and not.
A third guy just had no focus left at all. Also an experienced user. I'd give him a job to do, come back in a couple hours and he's gotten nothing done. I'd demonstrate the job again and return again; the only part that was completed was what I'd shown him. This guy was so burnt as to be inert. I suspect he was on a little more than just adderrall as he acted a little different.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick