The predicament.

Just about to drop Mr. Greasy’s sample into the baggie with his paperwork, I freeze. “Excuse me?”

“How do I know that’s my piss?”

Sigh.

Pulling the sample bottle back out of the bag, I point to Mr. Greasy’s initials and explain: “You initialed here stating that this was your sample.”

“But you coulda switched it with someone else’s.”

“Sir, you watched as I poured your urine into this bottle and sealed it with the sticker. That’s when I asked you to initial the side of the bottle.”

“I wasn’t lookin’. I was over there.”

Alright, let’s play games. I love games. I always win.

I collect as much calm as possible, and mutter, “Okay. I will discard this sample and we will do another, more secure collection.”

Mr. Greasy tries to object as I pitch his bottle of urine into the garbage can.

“Yo, what didja do that for!?”

“There is doubt as to whether it was actually your sample. I can’t in good faith send it to the lab to be tested. We’re going to have to do it again.”

“Dude, no, it’s cool, I trust you.”

“Sorry, nothing I can do at this point. If there’s any doubt at all about whose urine it is, I can’t send it up and risk some kind of problem.”

“God damn it, man. So I gotta drink more water and sit there another hour?”

“If that’s what it takes, yes. Please have a seat in the lobby.”

And thus was Mr. Greasy defeated.

Make no mistake, this was not a simple honest case of someone having doubts about their drug test collection. This was a punk kid who knew a guy who knew a guy who snuck a positive sample through by claiming his urine had been switched.

Let’s rewind a bit look at how this could have went down, shall we?
“How do I know that’s my piss?”

Sigh.

Pulling the sample bottle back out of the bag, I point to Mr. Greasy’s initials and explain: “You initialed here stating that this was your sample.”

“But you coulda switched it with someone else’s.”

“Sir, I couldn’t have done that. This is definately your urine.”

“Well, dude, if you say so.”

A few days pass, and Mr. Greasy’s sample comes back positive for THC. One of our data girls gives him a call, goes through the whole spiel, and then…

“Well, I told the guy when I was there that I thought he switched my piss. So that wasn’t mine.”

The seeds of doubt thus sewn, we’d have no choice but to offer the guy a retest. Which of course was his original intention, anyway. Because like I said, he knew a guy who knew a guy who got away with it.

This is one of the red flag things I have to be on the lookout for when doing collections. I actually find myself wishing sometimes that people would have a little more imagination when they cheat. Sneaked-in sample? Ho hum. Guy scribbles all over the wrong places on the forms? Been there, done that. Lady insists on using her own personal “hand sanitizer” instead of our soap and water to wash her hands? Give me a break. It’s like everyone reads the same “1001 Ways to Cheat on a Drug Test” handbook.

Mr. Greasy drank about nine cups of water and sheepishly did a second collection in about an hour. When I said “secure” I meant “secure”. I gave him stump-dumb instructions along the lines of “I will now pour the sample into this bottle. Please watch as I do so. Now please watch as I affix this sticker over the top of the bottle…” I then read the form to him and underlined the exact portion for him to sign. He was not happy that I left him without any wiggle room.

I wonder if Mr. Greasy had gotten away with it, and passed his test, and got hired on at the car dealership he was applying at, if he would be as attentive to his job as I am to mine. Maybe he’s the type who gets high on his personal time and doesn’t let it affect his job at all. Or maybe he’s the type who would have snuck off to the break room every chance he got to toke up.

Maybe he’s not a user at all, and just thought it would be fun to see what happens when he indirectly accuses the drug test collector of switching his sample. Or maybe, just maybe, he honestly couldn’t tell whether or not I had made a switch. Maybe he had a legitimate gripe.

Somehow, I doubt it. I’ve been doing this so long now I can spot ’em a mile away.

We’re two people down in the office today, and on top of that I’m hopped up on DayQuil. Whatever Mr. Greasy’s deal was, I was in no kind of mood to put up with it.