COCAINE USER HIDES BEHIND TONIC WATER EXCUSE AND WINS

COCAINE USER HIDES BEHIND TONIC WATER EXCUSE AND WINS!

This unemployment insurance case will probably make you angry when you read it. At a time in the history of the United States when people are arguing about whether there should be additional extensions of unemployment insurance benefits, cases like this one make the situation ever more confusing—are the right people getting unemployment insurance benefits in the first place?

In this particular Illinois Department of Employment Security unemployment insurance benefits case, a claimant was a temporary employee originally. For purposes of this article, let’s identify the Claimant as Mary and the Company as Smith Company.

Mary worked for Smith Company as a temporary employee. Mary knew that if she were ever invited to join the Company as a permanent employee, she would be required to have a drug test per company policy. This Company decided to invite Mary to join Smith Company as a permanent employee and they scheduled Mary for a drug test. Mary took the drug test, and she tested positive for cocaine. Mary denied ever using cocaine. She argued to Smith Company that the test results were a “false positive” because of some interaction with tonic water!

Smith Company didn’t buy Mary’s tonic water excuse, and they did not hire Mary as a permanent employee. In fact, they terminated her employment relationship with Smith Company. Mary filed for unemployment insurance benefits. Smith Company protested (claiming that Mary was discharged for misconduct connected with the work under Section 602A of the Illinois Unemployment Insurance Act).

At the unemployment insurance hearing, the Hearing Officer found that the drug test was performed by a reliable and independent laboratory. However, there was nothing in the Hearing record to support this finding by the Hearing Officer that the lab was reliable and independent. The Company produced no evidence or witnesses at the Hearing that the lab was reliable and independent, and that the test results were therefore valid.

However, the Hearing Officer still found for Smith Company and denied unemployment insurance benefits to Mary. Mary appealed that Hearing decision to the IDES Board of Review.

The IDES Board of Review reversed the decision of the Hearing Officer and found that Mary was not guilty of misconduct under Section 602A of the Act. The Board of Review found that Smith Company did not meet its legal burden of proof at the IDES hearing because Smith Company failed to have medical personnel available during the hearing to testify about the drug test, the test results, and other aspects about the lab and the validity of the test. So Mary’s silly tonic water defense was victorious!

Of course, Smith Company could have appealed further to Circuit Court and beyond if necessary, but in view of Smith Company’s clear failure to have the necessary witnesses at the hearing, appealing through the Illinois court system did not seem a prudent decision from a financial perspective.

Smith Company did not know that they should have had witnesses from the lab at the IDES hearing. Now they know.

If your Company is claiming misconduct because an employee failed a drug test, be sure you have the necessary witnesses and evidence to present at the unemployment insurance benefits hearing. Witnesses can testify by phone.

By

Nancy E. Joerg, Esq.

Senior Attorney and Shareholder

Wessels Sherman Joerg Liszka Laverty Seneczko P.C.

St. Charles, Illinois

(630) 377-1554

najoerg@wesselssherman.com

www.wesselssherman.com

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Bank intern busted by Facebook

I saw this article and had to laugh, this will follow him for sometime in his career. Not only are employers looking at their current employees the are looking before you get hired. They are searching on your name, and email address from your resume, to see what they can find.

What you have on your “social network” might effect your career.

Dennis

Your Privacy Is An Illusion By Owen Thomas

Kevin Colvin, busted by Facebook

Who says Facebook is the province of the young? Increasingly, the 30something bosses of naive recent college grads are proving adept at turning the social network against its earliest adopters. Kevin Colvin, an intern at Anglo Irish Bank's North American arm, was busted when he told his manager, Paul Davis, that he'd miss work due to what colleagues took to be a "family emergency". Davis turned up the photo above, freshly posted to Facebook from the Halloween party Colvin apparently missed work to attend, and attached it to his reply, copying the rest of the office as he did it. The email thread is now spreading around the net. After the jump, the entire exchange, and the incriminating photo.

Self Discrimination via Voice Mail

“Hello me, the wife, the kids and the dog are not home now, please leave a message and we will call you back”.

Seems harmless, other then the fact is that I know your married, have children. If their voices were on the voice mail, I can guess their ages approximately.

I also know you like dogs, or at least have one.

If it happens to be your voice on the recorder, I know how you communicate. Do you use slang? Do you have an accent? Are you upbeat? Are you funny?

Or have you taken your job search seriously and designated a separate phone line or voicemail for finding new work.

Simple actions makes the big difference

I was having lunch with one of my hiring managers yesterday. He works at a IT consulting company. We are talking about candidates and the funny things we have seen them do.

It reminds me of America’s Funniest Videos. Have you ever watched it? You see people just do some extremely stupid things and wonder why. You think that they might learn from someone else but every week you see different people doing similar things.

Our lunch started with the thought that maybe this is only happening in a select instances. I thought because I have a contract staffing firm, maybe it’s the type of people I get. As I was listening to his outrageous stories, I discovered that it is happening everywhere. The stories are the same just different names and different actions.

We were both curious what has caused what we referred to as an entitlement attitude. The fact that people expect the job to be handed to them instead of earned. Some candidates feel they do not have to impress, that they do not have to show up on time, that they do not have to dress properly. Some candidates ask, “So what do you have for me”, instead of “What I can provide your company”.

We agreed it is the very simple things that makes the big difference. How they sit in the chair when interviewing. How they greet someone. How they answer the question. Do they use full sentences or do they just respond yes or no. In some cases we might just get a yea, out of them!

From the hiring manager’s point of view, the way you come in on the interview is the highest presentation you will have. And that during your work it will only be that good or worse as time goes on.

So, if you impress poorly we assume that you will work poorly. In addition, it does seem a bit disrespectful to not even try to impress your future employer. If anything, it is a disservice to yourself not to be your best!

I hope that you are a person that wants to learn from someone else.

Dennis