Weeding Out The Dishonest Employees

(I’m a janitorial worker at a national park, meaning one of my jobs is to pick up litter around parking areas and walkways. I’m picking up trash near a parking area while a coworker is circling the wooden walkway, when under the lower branches of a pine tree I find one of those ziploc-type bags with a valve that allows them to be vacuum sealed. As I pick it up, I notice it’s full of a sizable amount — I’d guess at least a dozen, maybe more — of what are very obviously marijuana buds. At the time this story happened and as of the time of this writing, marijuana was not legal in Canada. As such, I bring it to my coworker because she is carrying the radio that I would need to report the discovery.)

Coworker: *on seeing the bag* “Wow. Are you going to smoke all of that?”

Me: *assuming she’s joking* “No, I was thinking I’d just throw it in the dumpster.”

Coworker: “Can I have it, then?”

Me: “I, um…”

Coworker: *takes bag* “Thanks! I was just thinking I was going to need to replenish my stock.”

(She puts the bag in her backpack and we drive back to the staff room for lunch break. Over the journey, I manage to convince her to report it to our supervisor. When we arrive at the staff room, most of the other staff are back, but the supervisor hasn’t returned yet. Coworker tells the other staff about the bag and shows it to them in the meantime.)

Coworker #2: “Can I have some?”

Coworker #1: “Nah, [My Name] convinced me to turn it in to [Supervisor].”

Coworker #3: *half-jokingly* “Not cool, dude.”

(Coworkers #2 and #3, as well as several others, try to convince Coworker #1 not to report the find, unsuccessfully. When our supervisor returns she turns the bag over to him.)

Supervisor: “So you just found this on the ground?”

Coworker #1: “Well, [My Name] did. He convinced me to report it.”

Supervisor: *to Coworker* “Do you want it? You could just keep it.”

Me: “What?”

Supervisor: “Just, you know, don’t tell anyone. We could all lose our jobs over this.” *to me* “That goes for you, too.”

Coworker: *happily* “Okay!” *skips off with illegal drugs*

(It was at this point I just gave up on trying to get people to report and turn in the drugs, although apparently Coworker #1 eventually did turn them in to some higher-up or other. I, however, didn’t learn about that fact until two or three months later, when we were all commended for it during the annual performance reviews.)