Drug testing for meetings? Not on this visitor, buster
On what basis is it deemed necessary to have someone who is going to sit at a meeting table where the most they will wield is a cheap ballpoint pen to agree to be drug tested as part of admittance?
The other day I was at a large company’s administrative head office. I was there to represent a client at an employment disciplinary hearing. I had to sign in and as part of admittance to the meeting room I was asked to sign a form agreeing to be subject to random drug and alcohol testing. I refused.
The poor receptionist let me in – she shouldn’t have.
In future I will not go to this building to have meetings because it is not fair to get the receptionist into trouble if they let me past them without me agreeing in writing to pee into a pottle.
This happened a few weeks ago and I wanted to wait before I wrote this article to see if I had calmed down. I have not.
I remain amazed that apparently I was the first person to refuse to sign the form. After the meeting when I explained what had happened to the chief executive, he cheerfully informed me that I shouldn’t have been let in and that their board of directors agreed to random drug tests as did their auditors. (And I did make sure the reception staff didn’t get into trouble on that occasion)
The building that I was going into was an administrative building.
There were no moving vehicles that I could throw myself under if I was under the influence of something. There were no open pits, animals, electricity lines, water holes, fires, trees getting cut down, knives or drills.
On what possible basis would I, could I, pose a health and safety risk? What would the purpose be of drug testing me?
I simply do not understand on what basis it is deemed necessary to have someone who is going to sit at a meeting table where the most they will wield is a cheap ballpoint pen to agree to be drug tested as part of admittance.
And you may say why does it matter? It matters for two reasons:
People should not sign things that give away rights or impose obligations without considering the consequences.
I know that if I had signed the form and someone had asked me to submit to a drug test they would not have been able to hold me down to get the test. I know that all that would have happened is I would have been ejected from the building – but that is not the point.
When people sign things like restraints of trade, trial periods or bonding agreements, it is not an excuse to say: ‘‘I did not think they would hold me to it.’’
If you knowingly sign something like this then (apart from rare exceptions) you will be held to it.
So don’t sign things unless you are prepared for the consequences.
Mary-Jane Thomas is a partner at Preston Russell Law. She is always interested in ideas for articles. Email her at Mary-Jane.Thomas@prlaw.co.nz