Half Price Books drug testing needed Dallas Texas

You would be correct about their hiring practices. Trust me, I worked at the Half Price on Northwest Highway and learned the politics quickly. The rule is if you are bilingual they don't want you there because they are threatened by you. Most of the employees had to take a job at half price books because they couldn't find a job anywhere else because of the demand for bilinguals in the job market today. So this job is their little safe haven where they can get away and not have to worry about that. One of the co-workers there is Hispanic and he told me he had to apply several times in order to even get a interview and God forbid you put that you are spanish speaking on the application, they will deny you right on spot. They have hired one other Hispanic, but they made sure they didn't speak spanish because that is a threat to them.

Secondly, nepotism and favoritism runs rampant at Half Price Books. You can be the hardest worker there, but if you don't fit in with the clique or you are not related to anyone there, they won't keep you for long. They let their long time employees get away with everything. They are lazy, they won't answer the phones like they are supposed to, they are rude to customers and some leave early before their shift is up. But yet if your not one of the favorites or part of the "clique", you will be micro-managed and eventually let go for someone that fits in. By "clique" they have several, they are the trailerpark group; the hippies that look as if they just slept on the street; the skateboarders; the druggies; grunge/goth; and lets not forget all the lesbians that are up in management. If you fit in one of these cliques you are protected in your job, if you are not, then you are out. They decided they didn't want me permanent because I was none of things, just a little to conservative for them. For a liberal, hippy place they are the most segregated and divisive against who they hire than any corporate place I ever worked for. Even Whole Food Market, Pie Five and other places are more racially diverse than Half Price.

HPB in the Dallas area has major problems overall.   There is quite a bit of drug use going on, but the favoritism, repeated violations of their own policies, and the seeming helplessness of the company in reguards to (admittedly rare) instances of violence or similar shady goings on have brought quite a bit of quiet shame to the company and quite a bit of local turnover. 

There was a TWC hearing recently where someone in the coporate office accidently revealed under oath (TWC hearings are legal hearings) that they not only fired two individulas within a 5 day period who were slated to be witnesses that week at a veteran employee's in-house greivance hearing, but they also let loose that Half Price Books apparently violated the veteran employee's HIPPA rights.  Specifically, the company asked questions of the employee's doctor that he wasn't legally allowed to answer;  then the company failed to act on the Dr.'s instructions because he didn't answer their questions. This lead to the employee going to the emergency room while on duty with Half Price Books.  This is all on audio and a matter of record.

The employee doesn't file a case because she quit and just wants it all to be over, saying something about how the universe evens things out.  Sure it does - if one acts.  Despite her understandable lack of persuing this, the events still occured and were admitted to.  Nothing happend because in this specific TWC case the event(s) were not thoght to be ultimately relevent. In other words, that's a whole other case on its own!

When the favoritism reaches the federal law level, affects the running of the store, and endangers employees' well-being, there's a lot more darkness going on. The drugs, that's just a part of larger problems.

The only people that whine about drug tests are people that do drugs. Here's a solution; quit breaking the law and get sober. You talk about the "rights of druggies"... well, what about my rights as a non-druggie? Other people shouldn't have to worry about some stoner drifting off and hitting them with a forklift or a crazed junkie killing everyone and stealing cash from the register when they can't get their fix. It goes without saying that a drug-free workplace will have a better chance of prospering without these losers. Ask yourself, wouldn't you want assurance that your doctor wasn't high on marijuana if you were getting surgery? Wouldn't you want to know that the pilot of your plane wasn't jacked up on cocaine?

Come on.... let's get real here.

I had the same feeling when I shopped at several of the Austin Half-Price Books stores. They must have been high to offer me those rip-off prices that they did.

Bet you didn't know that it is store policy for those employees to not be allowed to sit down for their entire shift. No wonder they are such snots.

And I guess you have to be high to put up with the **** that everybody dishes out to you on a regular basis there --from the public, other employees and I bet it gets really bad when one of the Lords or Ladies of Nepotism has a relative or friend who needs a job and they decide your job  is the one that their crony needs to have.

Benefits? What benefits? I have yet to hear any of the people who worked at the Half-Price Books bazaar talk about benefits but they sure do complain and smoke a loot of dope at the dumpsters. This is Austin and people are supposed to smoke weed here.

That this happens in Dallas is surprising to me. Town has changed since I have been gone.

The cop is being paid to bust shoplifters, throw out and/ or arrest people who make a disturbance in the business and as a deterrent to robbery. They are renting his badge, uniform, gun and radio ability to get fast response and they are renting his car -- they are not renting his law enforcement or narcotics busting expertise. If the cop hassled the wrong people, he or she does not get their great off-duty pay, And just might get blackballed for future, lucrative off-duty jobs, Besides, it is not worth it to bust a petty drug user because it is just a Class C misdemeanor  nowadays and most cops I know let it slide...It is a victimless crime.

drop-outs and beatnicks and non-conformist and students have to have a job too.

I haven't gone to a Half-Price books for nearly two years or more because I got tired of them yentzing me --taking my books and whatever else I had and not giving me any money at all because I had "Donated" them.

Let them dope it up and steal them out of business for all I care.

I am always glad to hear of a company that does not engage in the violation of privacy rights known as drug testing. Drug testing by its very nature is designed to catch users of a harmless plant while heroin coke and meth users remain undetected by most tests. Drug testing should only be for cause and not random. Maybe a few people are willing to sacrifice their rights but I am not. Kudos to this company for refusing to engage in fascist testing policies!