Not sure if this belongs here or in IMHO but I’ll give it a shot. I work at a 24/7 plant. We are in startup mode and have been working quite a bit lately. Rumors about my supervisor’s work history abound. The common one is that he’s a drunk and was fired from his last job for drinking on the job.
I have noticed him smelling boozy before (just figured he was hungover). He has poor balance and trips a lot (but so do I). A month and a half ago when we were working days he got to go for a ride with our boss to a testing facility to get an alcohol test because he stunk so bad. Results must’ve came back negative because he came back to work that day.
Friday night around 7 pm he got to do it again. I assume he went to the hospital since the testing facility is only open business hours. He never returned. I’m told the test results had to be sent off to a third party and he is on standby until Monday.
To me, this means he got a “not-negative” test result and he’s done. Do you guys agree?
Now, rumor mills absolutely suck but last night I heard something new that didn’t make any sense. Someone said he actually PASSED the test but “they” wanted to recheck it.
Does this make sense to anyone? Has anyone heard of passing a drug/alcohol test but having to have it re-validated by a third party? I figured once a person passes a test that is it. Unless the fact that he went to the hospital as opposed to the testing facility makes a difference.
I know I’ll find out tomorrow night when I come back to work but that’s too far out.
It depends on the state and company policy. To the best of my understanding, companies have wide latitude in most states to conduct drug and alcohol screening as they see fit and long as the policy is stated clearly and applied equally.
I work in an industrial facility with random drug and alcohol screening but it is only routinely used for people that operate heavy equipment like forklifts and high lifts. It is truly random though. Sometimes people can go years between screenings and then get hit twice during the same week when the computer spits out their number twice in rapid succession. They can also be screened at any time if there is reasonable suspicion that they are under the influence of something. That program is run by company nurses.
I can be tested too in although I work through a consulting company so the procedure is different. I would have to go to a 3rd party testing lab if it ever came up but, the only time that ever happened was when I was first hired but could again at any time at least in theory if they wanted to piss me off.
All of that is legal and routine at least in some industries but companies have widely different policies sometimes influenced by state laws. Some companies use it as a GOTCHA! to fire people on the spot while others genuinely want to help valuable employees with substance abuse problems get the help they need. The main thing that they can’t do is to single people out and use testing as a harassment tool. You can’t test Bob every other week while leaving everyone else alone (it is Betty in Accounts Receivable that is the real booze-hound). As long as the policy is stated upfront and fairly applied, it is generally allowed.
I’ve both run the tests and had them run on me. Usually in an employment situation there’s a quick and dirty screen with fairly low accuracy, but cheap to run. Those picked up by the screen would be selected for a more expensive accurate GC/MS (gas chromotography/mass spectroscopy) test. That might very well be done off-site. That’s the test I used to run.
As an employee if we were randomly selected for a drug screen we could drive home afterwards, but if it was for cause the company provided transportation. That was to mitigate liability, nobody wanted to have some civil litigator ask the question; “So you suspected the employee was impaired, yet you put him back in his car and allowed him to drive home?” if an impaired employee crashed into a station wagon full of nuns. Employees tested for cause were automatically suspended until the test came back, if it was negative they were paid for the time off.