Drama with drug screens

My company, like many others, does pre-employment drug screens. I'm very fortunate that in my nearly 3 years there, I've never had a candidate test positive. My coworker has not been so fortunate. She's gotten to break the news to several candidates that their job offers are being rescinded. Candidates typically respond in one of three ways.

1. They own it
They ask what substance, and after they are told, they accept their fate.

2. They blame others
One candidate had a positive test for marijuana. She said she hadn't personally used it, but she'd been at a party the weekend before her drug test where others had. Yeah, not buying that. Sadly for her, her poor life choice cost her not one job but two. She lost the job we'd offered her, of course, but she'd been working at our company as a temp before the offer. She was apparently walked out the door the day we got her drug test results.

3. They make up crazy stuff
My favorite is the guy who blamed a poppy seed muffin for his positive marijuana test. He even said his doctor told him that could cause it. This guy either needs to stop lying, he needs a new doctor, or both. Some of you already see where this is going. For those of you who don't, poppy seeds can indeed cause a positive drug screen, but not for marijuana. It's a totally different plant. If the test was positive for opioids, it might be a bit more plausible. My coworker knew that, but she still had to contact a doctor at our occupational health provider so that we could officially rule out this story. He, obviously, told us we were correct. He even managed to not laugh, which was impressive I thought.

Drug screens- yet another reason that HR is seldom boring

Putting our problems in perspective

My family is currently dealing with a situation that has us very stressed. We had a meeting scheduled for Wednesday of this week to discuss the issues at hand. Obviously this had been on my mind quite a lot on Tuesday. However, Tuesday night our problem was put in perspective for me. I was having dinner with my friend, and he mentioned that on Wednesday he was having a removal of and biopsy on a spot on his liver that is likely cancerous. Wow. It hit me that while what we are dealing with as a family is very important to us, it could be so much worse.

After the meeting on Wednesday I called my mom to give her a debrief of the meeting. I then told her of the perspective my friend's situation gave me. She said she had a similar thing happen to her on Wednesday. A friend of the family is potentially facing a very grave health issue. Life sometimes has  way of putting our difficulties in perspective for us.