I don’t think that’s quite the sequence of events. I think it went more like this:
There was drug testing.
Someone was “dirty.”
Skunk employee got transferred.
Someone else, we don’t know who, leaked the existence of the dirty test to the contractor.
Contractor chose not to renew with agency.
As a result of 5, TruCelt’s job evaporated, along with that of everyone in her division.
We do not actually know for an absolute fact that skunk employee was the one who produced the dirty test, and therefore, we don’t know that it was the reason for the transfer, but apparently TruCelt thinks it’s a reasonable assumption.
At the time skunk employee was transferred, no one knew, nor anticipated that the contract would not be renewed. The people at fault are whoever leaked the information about the test, and whoever had the dirty test in the first place (whether or not it was skunk employee).
If TruCelt really thought there might be a user in the division, given what happened when the contractor found out, TruCelt was right to try to find the user before the truth came out before it came out in some more spectacular way, like the employee getting into a traffic accident where someone was seriously injured, and found to be high at the time, or getting arrested in some way that got her picture all over the news.
I don’t think pot should be illegal either, but as long as it is, there are people who need to play be the rules. If you want to break the law, don’t work for a government contractor, for cripes’ sake, especially if it puts other people’s jobs at risk.
It doesn’t matter whether someone leaked it or not, it is totally messed up if it ends up that the employee that caused the stink in the first place is the only one not axed.
They didn’t get axed. They were no longer necessary because they were contract employees, and the contract was not renewed. I was once hired by a school system to work in a high school with two hard-of-hearing students, one of whom used sign language, and one of whom had a lot of hearing, but was an ESL student (my college degree is in English), and I was an interpreter when that was needed, a note-taker when that was needed, and a resource teacher when that was needed. When they graduated, I lost the job. It had nothing to do with performance, and I wasn’t “axed.” The school could hire me back, if they ever needed my skill set again.
The “skunk” employee was probably transferred because of the dirty test, but maybe not-- or maybe something unknown to TruCelt happened-- she lives with a cancer patient who uses pot, and so she suspects that she was the impetus for the testing, but hers wasn’t the dirty test-- it was someone else entirely, who was axed; “skunk,” meanwhile, requested a transfer to a less sensitive department. We don’t actually know what happened.
Also, probably, in theory, TruCelt could be asked back to the company if they ever need her again.
Could it be that “skunk” employee was, in fact, clean, then finding out who/why the drug screening was called on her, asked to be transferred?
Just saying, I’d be sort of indignant if accusations were made behind my back based off of such circumstantial evidence, and wouldn’t want to work with such passive-aggressive duds who think me a pothead (in playing devil’s advocate).
Anyhow, I’m really am sorry for you losing your job, TruCelt. I’ve been there. It totally sucks in almost every way you can count. Hope you’ll get back on your feet soon.
You think this can be remedied by a snap of the fingers? You think s lot of companies prefer being at the mercy of a single client? It’s like telling s poor person he needs to get a job with better pay.
In addition, I believe TruCelt is DC metro area (as are we) and I’ve got over 25 years experience working in the Federal contracting environment.
The working environment has changed a LOT in the past 25 years. Contracting firms are cutting overhead. They are no longer keeping people “on the bench” for any length of time if the contract ends, unless they have a VERY strong feeling that they have other business coming, and soon, that will use that person.
They are cutting administrative people especially.
So: if a firm loses a major contract, there’s a pretty damn good bet they’ll lay off a significant percentage of the employees affected. Even the bigger companies that might have thousands of people on a lot of projects (I work for one such), losing a major contract will result in some pink slips.
As far as the one positive drug test and the contract being terminated, I’d be hesitant to say that cost the company the contract - because if it WAS that person, she was moved to another project not related to the agency. Unless the agency had a policy explicitly stating that employees had to be fired completely versus just removed from their project, this would be surprising.
If anything, it’s conceivable that they were just using it as an excuse to do something they were considering anyway - but I really doubt there’s a connection beyond coincidence (at least I hope so).
Of course I never underestimate contracting-officer idiocy. I’ve been around long enough to see quite a bit of that!! I had a job change just last year as a result of something nuts with a contract renewal.