After a stressful couple of days at work, I'm feeling pretty bad, and I'd like to just see this in black and white. Maybe just for myself. I may hit the delete button after I finish typing, because at this point, I have no idea what is going to come out of my figertips. 

Let's start with a little background. I am a manager at a small business. I have about 34 employees on the books. As a matter of company policy, we drug test randomly. New employees are not tested prior to employment because we are well aware that they have been "studying" (not doing drugs) in anticipation of a pre-hire test. Instead, they are placed on a short list and their number will be pulled at random some 40  to 60 days after their hire date. 

So, around the first of October, I hired this girl (early 30's, so not exactly a girl). She was smart. She was personable. She had experience in the industry. She would be a really good fit in our company, and I was looking forward to, hopefully, her long-term employment because it's hard to train people and good ones are hard to find. She was married and between them they had a couple of kids that didn't live with them. She talked a good talk about how she and her hubby were so happy together...blah, blah, blah.

Long story short: She started dating (no...having sex with) another employee. Husband finds out on Christmas Eve. Divorce papers in the works not long after New Year's.  She moves in with employee (who's nearly 30 years old and living with his parents.).  Then, suddenly, the girl starts acting all spaced out, loopy, slurred speech. Not like alcohol or marijuana, but somekind of drag you down one minute and cause you to talk your head off the next kind of high. She hadn't been drug tested at this point because we had hired quite a few other employees around the same time and her number had slipped through the cracks, but I made sure she got back on the short list so she would get her turn to take the whiz quiz.

Well, a little over a week ago, her number did come up. She wasn't just a little dirty. She had been rolling in the MUD. Opiates, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, methadone, and marijuana. No supporting prescriptions were presented to the medical review office to support the positive result. 

I FEEL LIKE CRAP! I keep telling myself that it's not my fault. She CHOSE to do drugs. She CHOSE to cheat on her husband. She KNEW the risk. My other employee, who was crying his eyes out today, is devastated because he says, and I actually believe him, that he didn't know about her drug habits. AGAIN, I FEEL LIKE CRAP! Yes, he shouldn't have been messing around with a married woman, but that doesn't make me FEEL any better. This isn't the first time I've had to fire employees for doing drugs, but this is the first time that the aftermath is still working with me and asking me to pass the Kleenex, and it SUCKS!  

Thanks for letting me get all that off my chest. Believe it or not, this is the abbreviated version.