I just don't understand how corporations can just shoot themselves in the foot like this, it honestly boggles the mind.
The corporation that signs my paycheck is technically a hospital. Said hospital (to absolutely NO ONE'S surprise) developed a bad case of medical staff strategically misplacing certain medications. Some genius decides the heads up play here is going to be a universal drug testing policy.
I am not medical staff. I don't even work in the hospital. My position is remote. Things need to have gone catastrophically sideways before I'm assisting at the hospital. That's happened precisely once, and even then I was just carrying stretchers in an emergency situation.
I got an email from HR, “You've been randomly selected for a drug screening! Please arrive at this time at this place so someone can watch you piss in a cup. Thanks so much for your understanding! Please note: There are NO exemptions from this test. If you must reschedule please call this number.” Said message was sent to me last Tuesday. Test was for Thursday.
Honestly? I understand the necessity. Like, I get it. Patients need their pain meds. They need to get a handle on the situation. But there are better ways to go about it.
So I forwarded the email I got from HR to my manager and said something along the lines of, “It's been lovely working with you, but there's no way in hell I'm getting a clean test.”
She replied with a four letter word not used in polite company.
Why am I going to fail? Because the drug test wasn't looking specifically for opiates. It was looking for everything.
I'm not doing anything illegal in my state, but the automated process is going to have kittens about my results. I'm on (prescribed) ADHD medication, I use marijuana edibles to counteract the insomnia from the ADHD meds, I've been drinking a butt load of water every day, and using a creatine supplement in the copious amounts of water I'm drinking. May or may not have opted to eat an everything bagel on the way in as well, just for giggles. If I'm going to fail it, might as well do it up right. (Occasionally poppy seeds will false positive a drug test for opiates. Or at least it used to, not sure if it still does.)
Any one of those things would throw the numbers off enough for a false positive or just a regular positive, which policy defines as grounds for termination regardless of local laws. Because reasons! Yay!
So I showed up at the right place at the right time. Waited in a long queue with lots of other jittery employees, and then it was my turn!
Wound up in a room with a man whose face said, “I have seen ENTIRELY too many dicks today.” And it was only 11am. We sat down in a hastily prepared space for this, just a room with a couple chairs, a table, and a rather smelly chemical toilet in the corner.
We sit down, he asks me for my name and department, confirms I am who I said I am and that I appeared as requested, and then he said the magic words. “Do you have any questions for me?”
I shook my head and said, “It was nice working here.” He quirked an eyebrow but didn't say much. And then we got to stand there uncomfortably for awhile, I've got a shy bladder and he needed to see the pee leave me and enter the cup. Bit of a coin flip for who was more uncomfortable about it, pretty sure it was him.
Eventually I produced enough of a sample to suit, he wrote my name on the cup, and I was free to go.
Turns out when you can process the samples in house? The turnaround time is pretty quick. I left that place at around 1130am Thursday, and 9am the next day? All of my accounts were disabled. Access revoked.
I had way too many meetings for a Friday and couldn't attend a single one.
That was awful, just. Awful. Texted my manager, “I think I'm fired. Can't access anything.”
This time the four letter word was in all caps.
Didn't hear much else from anyone on Friday, got a text message this morning from my manager that my access had been restored. Logged in to check my email, and there were a whole bunch of people I was supposed to be meeting being like, “Sooo you coming?”
The most recent emails though? Sent Saturday morning?
The first: The VP of HR has decided to explore opportunities elsewhere. (Bye Felicia)
The second: Any employees with drug tests still pending are no longer required to submit samples for testing, and any employees who had been tested previously and suspended have been re-instated. We appreciate your patience while we addressed this situation.
Apparently almost 30% of the employees tested failed and were immediately suspended pending termination. The ratio was a lot higher for the actual medical departments and IT staff. This had two effects: The first being the actual purpose of a hospital being a hospital was compromised by this idiotic policy and Friday turned out to be what is politely called a dumpster fire. The second being several IT people who were grossly under qualified for what they were being told to do wound up on the bad side of HIPPA because they didn't know any better.
Pretty sure a whole boatload of lawyers in my area just got gainfully employed for a loooong time over this. A couple were really bad.
I don't THINK anyone died, but I know for a fact that several time sensitive surgeries were postponed due to a lack of staff. Mostly because my boss was one of the doctors that would be you know, doing the surgeries, and he had a few get moved to a different slot because there wasn't a full (and qualified) OR team to be found.