There has been a lot of bickering and animosity at my job over the past 12 months. It has gotten so bad that someone peed on another coworkers chair. I know, unbelieveable. :rolleyes: (By the way, we are all grown women!) Anyway, my supervisor made us all submit to a DNA swab test. I did it without thinking, I wish now I would have said no but I was thinking at the time then I would be blamed. My question is: Can you get a good enough sample from an office chair or the floor to prove who did this stupid, childish thing? Just curious. Thanks.
Urine won’t contain much DNA. And any sample would be contaminated by the DNA of whoever sits in that chair or nearby – all that shed hair and skin has more DNA that the few cells that shed from the bladder. I’d guess that whatever cheapass mail-order test your boss is doing would just return a match with whichever person normally sits in the chair.
I concur.
Thanks for the quick reply. I guess they were just trying to get someone to confess and no one did. It was a terrible day today. We all used to be so close.
That’d be my guess, too. It’s the same reason that polygraphs can be useful for the police, even though the only lie they can actually detect is lying about whether you’re having an orgasm. As long as people think they work, they can prompt confessions.
Yeah, urine can have epithelial cells containing DNA in it, but a chair surface is likely to be pretty filthy with skin flakes from the chairs’ normal occupant already.
Unless there’s an employee named Poppy…
When I read this, I thought the chair-peeing was just an example of the tension and wondered what the DNA tests were for. Then I read responses.
The DNA tests were to find the pee-er? :smack:
:dubious: :smack:
You must live in a very strange country if things have turned to that. Can you get a visa to come instead to America, the Land of the Free™ ?
If bigdfrombigd’s location is accurate, that strange country would be Texas.
Yeah, I’m thinking that the boss is hardly executive material, if that’s the way he deals with the problem.
I think I know who did it. But it’s only speculation. I am so paranoid-I feel like I am suspected. Yeah, my boss does not have great managerial skills. We used to be close but over the past year there has been a particular coworker who has come between us. There have been multiple occasions of her lying about me and others. I know that a DNA test will vindicate me but the way things have been at work I feel like this instance has just put me over the edge. I used to look forward to going to work but not anymore. How can people be so hateful and nasty. I am so sad and just don’t understand.
Hmm… If the boss did the sampling without being careful enough, there’s a small but non-trivial chance that the samples are contaminated with the boss’s DNA. In my imagination, that leads to the hilarious situation where the boss opens the results up in front of everyone, and suddenly has to defend herself. Of course, in reality it would probably just cause more paranoia and acrimony.
Also, I think it’s technically possible to distinguish between the urine-DNA (it’d be soaked deeper into the cushion) and the seat-owner-DNA (which is probably just on the surface). So what your boss wants is possible, but only if done carefully by people who know what they’re doing. And those people wouldn’t bother unless this urinator of yours is also a serial killer.
Good luck dealing with this insanity however it turns out.
How much does it cost to have DNA tests done? Is your company going to actually spend thousands of dollars to NOT actually catch who did this?
As said, their not going to get an accurate DNA sample from the urine stained chair…most likely if there is any DNA on that chair it will be the person who sits in it regularly.
Let us know who you work for, so we can avoid that company.
There are mail-order companies that do basic tests for cheap. Google leads me to companies that do paternity testing for $80. The technology isn’t really expensive; a single test might use a few dollars’ worth of consumable reagents on equipment costing a few thousand. It’s not very labor intensive either – one of these fly-by-night companies could do a lot of business with a single technician at $20 an hour.
Of course, you get what you pay for… So either the boss is a dumbass and spent $500 on the cheapest tests possible, which won’t give any result worth a damn, or she’s a dumbass and she’s spending many thousands on a proper investigation.
…which in this case most likely also won’t give any result worth a damn.
My guess is that the boss will casually leave the unopened results envelope on his/her desk, in the hope that the perp will betray him/herself by trying to steal it at some carefully-neglected moment.
Contamination is a real problem. Also note that in legal situations (usually paternity) the chain of evidence is key. A set of sticks handled by someone who (a) is not trained (b) may not be impartial and © is not a lab accredited to do legally reliable tests (procedures, etc.) will give a result, but good luck using that for any legal action. Ofc ourse, Texas I assume you can fire anyone at will, so why the boss is being so stupid is weird; just fire whoever you suspect and let everyone else worry that they might be next. If you ned a legal reason to fire, these tests won’t do it.
Not to mention, they won’t be reliable. IIRC several episodes where Law and Order (get all my best legal/CSI info from there) tested urine found at the scene, and never once suggested the possibility it included DNA. Urine is generally sterile unless you have a UTI. The tiny number of bladder cells that might make their way into it are unlikely to be sufficient for a test. The cross contamination issue is worse. Next time, now that the boss has DNA data, the perp can frame someone else by collecting the dead skin cells from in their keyboard and planting them, I suppose.
I find this:
well down the page Health & DNA - while some other sites suggest they CAN get DNA from urine. Others say mainly that would be fragments that pas the kidneys