smoking illegal drugs on company property

T

I have a pt student who works a few hrs every day after school. Two weeks ago he and his buddy was caught smoking an illegal substance on our property. Unfortunately, I was just notified about this incident by the ee that caught him.
I don't think he was on the clock at that time, however, he did come to work after that. How can I get rid of him?

Thanks.
-T

deniseE

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-05-04 AT 09:15AM (CST)[/font][br][br]Do you have a drug/alcohol policy??? If so, it probably states that such things cannot be consumed on company property, regardless of the "on the clock" status.

Additionally, this could fall under fitness for duty....but you'd probably have to have someone witness his inability to do the job. That doesn't seem to be the case here.

He's also PT....does he have some kind of contract with you???

You may just be able to let him go....I believe that Texas is an at-will state.

edit: and remind your management to clue you in much more quickly next time!!!!

Don D

>I have a pt student who works a few hrs every >day after school. How >can I get rid of him?

Unless he's related to the company president, tell him to hit the road.

marc

I would add an incident report to his file - including a brief statement from the person witnessing the smoking. Then you may want to get management together to discuss the tolerance level your company wants to have for these situations. Should the person witnessing have called the police? Should you now report the incident? What kind of message do you want your workforce to have about where your company stands on these issues?

In our shop, zero tolerance is the stance - we deal with too many broken families and the effects on the children to have any kind of sympathy or tolerance for the illegal drug use.

TN HR

Let me play devil's advocate here.

1) How does the supervisor know it was an illegal substance? Has he been trained on detecting such substances? Was it so blatant that the ee was smoking a Bob Marley type of bong? A Lucky Strike smoked to completion is not necessarily what it may appear to be.....This is a gray area at best.

2) Why did the supervisor wait to tell you about it after the fact? Are there not procedures in place to handle illegal activities in progress?

Gene

marc

I won't answer for T's situation, but I will say that I can easily recognize if a person is smoking marijuana. Their is a way to smoke it that would be harder for me to tell and that would involve a strong cigar with some of the tobacco removed and replaced with Mary Jane. In that situation, the odor of the cigar tobacco can be pungent enough to mask the other odor.

If it was a stronger substance, such a crack or others that require a special pipe, that is also obvious.

Your point is a good one Gene, and the supervisor's response is something I was also focusing on. There is some obvious training to do here as well as the underlying policy or lack thereof, to look at.

TN HR

Not to get off on a tangent here, but what you are referring to is a blunt. Named after the brand of cigars originally used for this purpose, Phillies Blunts.

I actually saw flavored and colored "blunts" for sale at a gas station not too long ago (pre Mary Jane blending), right next the scented rolling papers. How blatant, I thought!

deniseE

There was a convenience store located across from a local high school that was shut down recently for peddling such things....how sad is that???

Don D

The question, friends, was, 'How can I get rid of him?'

The advice has ranged from discussions of policies and interdiction programs to why were the police not called to why were you not notified right away to a sidebar about bongs, rolling papers, blunts and masked scents.

Although I may be the world's worst (best?) at taking rabbit trails, with this particular one, I tried to answer the man's question.

(Call the police? Would you call the police if you saw someone run a red light?) x:-)

T

I favor the "hit the road" solution. But thanks everyone for the input.

-T

marc

Comparing pot smoking or stronger illegal substances on our site to running a red light is off target. Among many other things, our site provides free family counseling and is an after school program for troubled teens. Adjacent buildings on our campus include temporary dormitory type housing for teens that have left their home (kicked out or run away) and a site for children that have been removed from the custody of parents or guardians and are awaiting foster home placement or other disposition from the family court system. So yes, I would call the police. We will not tolerate this kind of activity from our employees or other visitors to our campus. In these situations, a message is sent one way or the other - we choose the zero tolerance message.