help. Xmas do... suspected of doing DRUGS!!!!!!

LilacPixie

I wonder about point i, Ue of drug substances/ The OP himself describes it as general drug usage that could be anything from Caffeine to paracetemol to heroin.
After all Caffeine is a psychoactive stimulant drug.
Does that mean technically everyone in your company could be disaplined and possibly dismissed for consuming coffee, tea, cola,energy drinks etc inside of work or out. If you have a headache you cannot take anything

The more I read about the OP's situation the more bizzare it gets. OP i would be asking for clarification on the use of drug substances. IMO until you have that particular point clarified you cannot form a proper defence.

stone7

LilacPixie wrote: »

I wonder about point i, Ue of drug substances/ The OP himself describes it as general drug usage that could be anything from Caffeine to paracetemol to heroin.
After all Caffeine is a psychoactive stimulant drug.
Does that mean technically everyone in your company could be disaplined and possibly dismissed for consuming coffee, tea, cola,energy drinks etc inside of work or out. If you have a headache you cannot take anything

The more I read about the OP's situation the more bizzare it gets. OP i would be asking for clarification on the use of drug substances. IMO until you have that particular point clarified you cannot form a proper defence.

The OPs situation only gets more bizarre when crackpots like you start suggesting things like him being on a drugs charge for drinking coffee.

The allegation is that he has dabbled in the use of illegal drugs, not coffee, cola, ibupfrofen or even chemotherapy. It may not actually say the word illegal, but only a fool would think anything else.

The OPs situation is as straightforward as can be. There's still quite a few unanswered questions. Noboby here wants to dig too deep because the OPs story of innocence is taken at face value. If the company do offer him the right of reply, they will want to know the answers to some difficult questions.

How could light hearted banter about dance clubs be interpretted as an offer to score drugs for the office girl? How did the conversation go?

Why were you sniffing in a cubicle that you've just dropped your ar5e in?

Why did you react in such a hostile manner when the line manager made an offer to get you help with any problems you may have?

I don't want to pry too deeply into your personal circumstances, OP, but why were you on anti-depressants in the first place. What is causing the stress in your life. Your employers may find this relevant as many drug users start as a means to escape the stresses of life. Playing the stress card could prove counter productive.

My personal view, and this is not an accusation, but merely based on what I've read by the OP is that he's a bit more of a lad than he wants us to believe. I think a drug test would show he's taken drugs in the past 6 months.

OP, for future reference, 3 things you never joke about:

p@ed0philia
Rape
Drug Dealing

Do yourself and your poor family a favour. Pull your socks up, pull yourself together and face up to your responsibilities as an employee. If that doesn't go the way you want, then face up to being a husband and father, get a new job, move on and forget every piece of useless advice you've been given over the past 30 odd pages. None of it will do you any good whatsoever.

DVardysShadow

stone7 wrote: »

The OPs situation only gets more bizarre when crackpots like you start suggesting things like him being on a drugs charge for drinking coffee.

The allegation is that he has dabbled in the use of illegal drugs, not coffee, cola, ibupfrofen or even chemotherapy. It may not actually say the word illegal, but only a fool would think anything else.

The OPs situation is as straightforward as can be. There's still quite a few unanswered questions. Noboby here wants to dig too deep because the OPs story of innocence is taken at face value. If the company do offer him the right of reply, they will want to know the answers to some difficult questions.

How could light hearted banter about dance clubs be interpretted as an offer to score drugs for the office girl? How did the conversation go?

Why were you sniffing in a cubicle that you've just dropped your ar5e in?

Why did you react in such a hostile manner when the line manager made an offer to get you help with any problems you may have?

I don't want to pry too deeply into your personal circumstances, OP, but why were you on anti-depressants in the first place. What is causing the stress in your life. Your employers may find this relevant as many drug users start as a means to escape the stresses of life. Playing the stress card could prove counter productive.

My personal view, and this is not an accusation, but merely based on what I've read by the OP is that he's a bit more of a lad than he wants us to believe. I think a drug test would show he's taken drugs in the past 6 months.

OP, for future reference, 3 things you never joke about:

p@ed0philia
Rape
Drug Dealing

Do yourself and your poor family a favour. Pull your socks up, pull yourself together and face up to your responsibilities as an employee. If that doesn't go the way you want, then face up to being a husband and father, get a new job, move on and forget every piece of useless advice you've been given over the past 30 odd pages. None of it will do you any good whatsoever.

If you are right that

• the OP really does do drugs
• was snorting cocaine
• did seriously offer to provide drugs to the office junior
• went ballistic at a gentle and genuine offer to help from the sales manager
• had not been burgled twice in the weeks prior
• was not on antidepressants

then of course you have written a good post. But if you are wrong, then the 30 pages prior are more useful.

My own opinion is that if the OP's situation is really as bullet pointed above, then the situation would be so far divorced from the one that everyone has been writing about, that it would have been too obviously a waste of time to even seek the good advice which has been given that I doubt he would have bothered.

DirectDebacle

stone7 wrote: »

....get a new job, move on and forget every piece of useless advice you've been given over the past 30 odd pages. None of it will do you any good whatsoever.

One piece of 'useless advice,' as you put, it has been for the OP to get professional legal advice asap.

There does not seem to have been any indication of compromise from the company as yet. Early professional intervention on behalf of the OP could mean the difference of being dismissed as a drugs user and having to clear his name at tribunal or a redundancy/resignation package with a small 'goodwill' payment and a reference that will not jeopardise future employment prospects.

stone7

DirectDebacle wrote: »

One piece of 'useless advice,' as you put, it has been for the OP to get professional legal advice asap.

There is no consenus that the OP should seek legal advice or representation at this point. You think he should... many, many others think it's a complete waste of time and money until the hearing has come to it's conclusion. You are suggesting the OP pay for legal advice on a credit card, whilst facing the prospect of losing his job and having no means to pay it back. Classing that as 'useless advice' was being kind... that's downright dangerous advice.


DVardysShadow, my advice to the OP remains the same whether the bullet points are proven or not or whether you or I think he's 'guilty' or not. That advice is to face the hearing panel, get the decision and move on. It ain't doing him any good and his wife, child and homelife must be suffering. If they do sack him, and they will, offer to go quietly and without fuss in exchange for a decent reference. They might tell him to take a running jump and to make as much fuss as he likes, knowing full well, as I do, he hasn't got a leg to stand on, but that is about as much bargaining power the OP has.

poet123

The truth of the matter is that none of us know exactly what happned on that night, nor the circumstances surrounding or leading up to the incident. We can only take on face value what the OP tells us, however, we can also read between the lines and speculate. That does not mean any conclusion drawn from that is correct. My own feeling is that there is more to the story than we have seen here, but probably not as much as the Manager contends.

I think it is a clase of someone ( the OP)not being a people person at work and it coming back to bite him in the shape of a Manager he has riled/been dismissive of, and who is now seeking to exact his own form of retribution.

u264047

poet123 wrote: »

I think it is a clase of someone ( the OP)not being a people person at work and it coming back to bite him in the shape of a Manager he has riled/been dismissive of, and who is now seeking to exact his own form of retribution.

Yeah... I kind of agree with this, most people who don't really know me and only hear about me would see me as a somewhat caustic presence.

I blame most of my attitude at work on my workload and the constant demands that are placed on me. I have about 20 deadlines a day which are added to throughout.
I need to be somewhat dismissive as I don't have time to sit around all day and talk about how much colder it has been this year as opposed to the last few. Besides, small talk drives me crazy unless I can insert my own punchline and make it a little different. I can seem callous as well- however I only aim to amuse.

Some people are misanthropes and I bracket myself in this category -as a result of this, I don't have a lot of friends, and I associate with the ones I do have rarely. I don't find myself particularly interesting, and I guess my friends don't either. I am definitely not the life and soul of the party anyway, and do suffer a bit of social rejection because of it. I do not go out drinking, the works do the week before this is the first time I went "out drinking" since the work Christmas party the year before.

Stone7, I find your posts humourous... I am in no way "a bit of a lad" I have never considered myself one, and have nothing in common with the ones who do genuinely fit into that social category.
English people generally find those kinds of people likeable, as we tend to be more tribal than other nations and don't like people who are different.
Also, I do not take drugs, nobody on here knows who I am- so I have no reason to lie. This board is a panacea to my plight, if I was guilty, I would not be nearly as distressed as I am.

robredz

u264047 wrote: »

Yeah... I kind of agree with this, most people who don't really know me and only hear about me would see me as a somewhat caustic presence.

I blame most of my attitude at work on my workload and the constant demands that are placed on me. I have about 20 deadlines a day which are added to throughout.
I need to be somewhat dismissive as I don't have time to sit around all day and talk about how much colder it has been this year as opposed to the last few. Besides, small talk drives me crazy unless I can insert my own punchline and make it a little different. I can seem callous as well- however I only aim to amuse.

Some people are misanthropes and I bracket myself in this category -as a result of this, I don't have a lot of friends, and I associate with the ones I do have rarely. I don't find myself particularly interesting, and I guess my friends don't either. I am definitely not the life and soul of the party anyway, and do suffer a bit of social rejection because of it. I do not go out drinking, the works do the week before this is the first time I went "out drinking" since the work Christmas party the year before.

Stone7, I find your posts humourous... I am in no way "a bit of a lad" I have never considered myself one, and have nothing in common with the ones who do genuinely fit into that social category.
English people generally find those kinds of people likeable, as we tend to be more tribal than other nations and don't like people who are different.
Also, I do not take drugs, nobody on here knows who I am- so I have no reason to lie. This board is a panacea to my plight, if I was guilty, I would not be nearly as distressed as I am.

It seems Op is a slightly cold fish who doesn't mix a great deal, gets on with the job, and as a result doesn't do "office politics", (office tittle tattle, and a***licking, brown nosing, and other machinations to try to gain advantage over fellow workers) which to some become more important than the job in hand. He's obviously upset a manager who takes office politics so seriously he wants rid of OP, so has possibly engineered the whole thing. Anihilator may say such things are far fetched, such bullying tactics are sadly commonplace, I have seen similar things going on in various establishments myself. We can only take OP's word at face value, and try to help according to the facts presented.

rupee99

Stone7 is entitled to an opinion, and can make any conclusion he wishes. There are many people here who do the same and have little interest in due process, they think that because a, b, c and d have happened before and it has previously resulted in a dismissal it is inevitable that it will happen again in the OP's case. He does this without knowing who the OP's employer is, whether it is a UK company or a subsidiary of a foreign one, the company's previous record in disciplinary matters, its size, or even, apart from the generic word engineer (as the OP describes himself) what industry/profession it is involved with.

People can speculate; the information they have is solely as given to them by the OP. They can comment on procedural and evidential matters, again with the caveat they are receiving the raw information from someone intimately involved, with an obvious vested interest and under considerable emotional stress.

No-one however can come to a RELIABLE conclusion one way or the other and to suggest the OP resign and give up his livelihood, however "well intentioned," is just crass and arrogant.

DVardysShadow

rupee99 wrote: »

Stone7 is entitled to an opinion, and can make any conclusion he wishes. There are many people here who do the same and have little interest in due process, they think that because a, b, c and d have happened before and it has previously resulted in a dismissal it is inevitable that it will happen again in the OP's case. He does this without knowing who the OP's employer is, whether it is a UK company or a subsidiary of a foreign one, the company's previous record in disciplinary matters, its size, or even, apart from the generic word engineer (as the OP describes himself) what industry/profession it is involved with.

People can speculate; the information they have is solely as given to them by the OP. They can comment on procedural and evidential matters, again with the caveat they are receiving the raw information from someone intimately involved, with an obvious vested interest and under considerable emotional stress.

No-one however can come to a RELIABLE conclusion one way or the other and to suggest the OP resign and give up his livelihood, however "well intentioned," is just crass and arrogant.

That is the thing. I accept the OP is genuine. If he is misleading us in any way, then the advice will mislead him in turn. So it doesn't make sense to spin a different story.