The Bar Has Been Set Very High

Years ago, I worked in a meat processing factory. Although I was employed as one of the admin staff, I still had to go through the same company induction as everyone else. So, I turned up at 7:30 am on the day of induction and sat through all the usual guff one might expect in a company induction: Health and Safety, Terms and Conditions, and so on. Just before lunch break, one of the training team gave us a very detailed talk about the company’s drugs and alcohol policy. The short version: don’t drink or take drugs on the job, and if you must drink or take drugs on an evening or weekend, at least make sure you’re sober/clean by the time you arrive on site for shift. We were also told that the company does conduct random, voluntary, and for-cause drug tests.

During the spiel about the drug tests, I raised my hand and asked, “Ever caught anyone during these tests?”

The trainer started to chuckle. He told us that several years previously, he’d been standing in the exact same room, giving the exact same talk about drug testing. He’d dismissed the inductees for lunch and gone off to get his own lunch. A little while later, he’d gone off to use the toilet, and when he walked in, he found one of the inductees sitting in the cubicle, puffing away on a joint!

The inductee was swiftly fired, just a few hours into his induction, and without even having made it as far as the factory floor to meet his colleagues!

We all got a good laugh out of that story.