I recently started a good job with a packaging company as a Product Auditor in the Quality Dept. I inspect boxes before they get sent to some company to have some wine, frozen burrito or cosmetic stuffed into it to be sold to the drooling masses at one of a million mini-malls...but I digress.
In order to be hired, I had to take a hair drug test, which reportedly is capable of sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong for up to 90 days. This company also does random "raids" of the parking lot by drug-sniffing dogs and their loyal Rethuglican-sniffing "masters"...otherwise known as cops.
Follow me below the fold for a brief hypothetical and some questions that will hopefully be answered in the comments. You people know everything...it's too cool. :)
How far can a company go in order to maintain it's "drug-free/zero-tolerance" policy, or some such shit? How many people use drugs like caffeine, taurine, ginseng, vicodin, codeine, ibuprofen, dextromorphin hydrobromide, ephedrine and alcohol every day just to get through another "9-5" that turns into "6-7ish"? If we drug-tested every employee in the United States right this very minute for ANYTHING that might alter their ability to not have ANY kind of work-place accident the unemployment rate would skyrocket immediately...ok, explanation time.
I've only been with this company barely four months and I've reached a comfort zone as far as my job responsibilities and the interaction I have with my co-workers on the graveyard shift. Things are cool...I like that.
There is, however, a pervasive feeling of "Don't bump your head, or scratch your finger too hard or 'They' might piss-test you." Most recent example: Great employee on the second shift is working in our sorting area and gets something blown, ricocheted or swept into her eye that subsequently irritates her to the point that she thinks she needs to see the doctor. She goes and gets treatment for what turns out to have been fairly serious if not taken care of but she also has to pee in a cup because it is a "recordable" injury, for insurance(CYA) purposes, of course. They find vicodin...she's worried. "I was prescribed it but I'm still waiting to hear from HR". WTF??? So I suppose that if she smoked a joint last weekend with friends...an occasional indulgence that she enjoys with like-minded people...that it would be considered her fault for putting her eye socket in the way of the particle because any good, patriotic, non-druggie, right-wing nutcase would be protected by his anti-hippy-librul-commie-faggot protective eyeware that would magically appear on his face, even though he wasn't required nor trained to wear said personal protective equipment in this particular situation. Anyways, she's sill working so I guess things are cool with that but, still...
Everytime they've brought the dogs to shit in the parking lot they've called people out...just to fuck with them and never find anything but, in one case, to subsequently fire a long-time employee for a stem found by the cops in a car he had borrowed that day to get to work. I guess he was guilty of partaking of the herb on occasion, after hours, and of having enough in his urine to label him a "druggie". Good, reliable, long-time employee terminated by the combination of Gestapo tactics and regressively-minded company policy that would actually think that it's fair to fire somebody who never presented any problem at the workplace and performed his job admirably and yet, in a moment of Ooops he exposes his "seedy, sinful dark side' to the Powers That Be and he's gone...in a moment's notice, because he did not tow the party line that is obviously followed closely by the senior management that includes an executive assistant who, I kid you not, proudly displays a life-size corrugated cut-out of our dear preznut himself...man, was I tempted to draw a moustache one night. Good thing I didn't...these people are seriously anal.
Ok...so, here's the question and answer-in-the-comments part. If, by chance, the Good German Shepard Dogs of the Fourth Reich decide one night that they smell something similar to a dead skunk on the upholstery or headliner of my vehicle and the two-legged creatures holding them at bay with gun, nightstick and leash are convincing enough to the "Powers That Be's Appointed Ass-Kissers For The Shitty NightShift" that are "compelled"(CYA) to order me to pee in a cup?...should I accept the inevitable consequences of being a regular partaker of The Creator's Herb or should I fight them for "Wrongful Termination" and would I have a case? Also, would I have a case if I were to suffer a "recordable injury"? I got nailed in the lip by a tossed box due to my inexperience in this particular factory and bled a little. A couple of people actually suggested I report it, etc., etc...blah, blah, blah. Are you kidding? Can you imagine getting fired from a good job because you accidently cut your lip?
Anyways, fellow Kossacks...I'm done for now. This was sort of a stream-of-consciousness-after-getting-off-off-the-graveyard-shift-typing-frenzy. Any suggestions and support would be appreciated. Any flames will be handled with tact, truth and bad language...: )
As Always...Peace ;-)>