There are certain questions guaranteed to start a fight in a machine shop.
What's the best control?
Who's responsible for the crash?
Metric or imperial?
And apparently...
"Would you hire a machinist who smokes weed after work?"
That's exactly what Wyatt Collins asked the MACHINIST group.
"Mom and pop tool and die shop owners, how do you look at a machinist that smokes mary jane off the clock?"
Simple question.
Nearly 1,200 comments later...
...turns out nobody can agree on a damn thing.
Team "Mind Your Own Damn Business"
The biggest group had a pretty simple opinion:
If the parts are good, the machinist shows up on time, and nobody's getting hurt...
...who gives a shit?
One comment summed it up perfectly:
"Judge the machinist by his capabilities and his finished product."
Another said:
"Does he show up and do his job? If yes... who cares?"
And this one got a lot of agreement:
"What you do on your own time is your business. I don't claim ownership of you. But be straight when you punch that clock because I do own the time you're getting paid for."
For a lot of machinists, weed wasn't really the issue.
Performance was.
If the tolerances are holding...
The spindle is still turning...
The scrap bin isn't overflowing...
Nobody cares what you did on Friday night.
"I'd Rather Hire a Stoner Than a Drunk."
This might've been the biggest surprise in the thread.
A shocking number of people said they'd rather work beside someone who smokes weed after work than someone who closes down the bar every night.
Comments like:
"Take a stoner over a drunk any day of the week."
"People who come in hungover are more dangerous than the guy who smoked after work."
"Alcohol caused way more problems in my career than weed ever did."
There were dozens of stories about coworkers who showed up still half-drunk...
...and just as many stories about guys who allegedly smoked every evening and somehow produced flawless work for decades.
Whether that's correlation, coincidence, or complete bullshit...
...we'll let you decide.
Then Came the Shop Owners...
This is where the conversation shifted.
A lot of owners said they honestly didn't care what someone did after work...
Until lawyers, insurance companies, OSHA, and workers' comp got involved.
That was the recurring theme.
Not morality.
Liability.
One owner summed it up:
"If you're here, you are sober. If it starts affecting your work, changes need to be made."
Another wrote:
"What you do after work is your business. But if you get hurt and fail the drug test, now it's my problem too."
Several owners pointed out that even if someone wasn't impaired, a positive THC test after an accident could create major headaches depending on insurance requirements, state laws, company policy, or the type of work being performed.
Especially shops doing aerospace, defense, FAA work, or government contracts.
That was probably the one thing almost everyone agreed on:
Nobody wants someone running a machine while they're actually high.
And Then... Facebook Did Facebook Things
Of course, it wouldn't be a MACHINIST thread without completely going off the rails.
A few personal favorites:
"Our drug test is simple... whoever has the best weed wins."
"How the hell do you think we hold ±.0005 all day?"
"The secret to being stoned is never let them see you not stoned."
And possibly the funniest observation of the entire thread:
"Ask one question about weed and suddenly everyone's a lawyer, insurance adjuster, doctor, neuroscientist, and HR manager."
(Okay... that last one wasn't actually posted. But after reading 1,100 comments, it definitely felt true.)
So... What's the Verdict?
Like most things in machining...
It depends.
Some shops won't hire anyone who can't pass a drug test.
Some shops quietly look the other way.
Some shops have federal contracts and don't have a choice.
And some commenters swore half the trade has been running on caffeine, nicotine, and "the devil's lettuce" since the Reagan administration.
One thing was clear, though.
Almost nobody judged a machinist by what they claimed to do after work.
They judged them by something much simpler.
Can you make good parts?
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