Somewhere in Atlanta, there's a Caterpillar plant. Somewhere in that plant, there's an office containing personal effects, but not too many. Maybe there's a picture of a red-faced fat kid smiling widely and holding a cat against its will. Behind the desk in that office is an ineffectual and short-sighted automaton that specializes in explaining subpar health insurance programs and emotionlessly firing people. I don't know whether it's a man or a woman, but that person just cost his or her employer quite a little bit of money, and I hope to hell they get axed for it.

My hatred for anyone with a job in the Human Resources department of any company is unrivalled and absolute. Maybe it's irrational, but there's something about a person whose trade is to formulate and follow procedure to the letter, regardless of circumstance, that just rubs me the wrong way. On top of that, they always seem to have this completely fake sympathetic look on their faces. Suffice it to say, I couldn't be more pleased about this person's miscalculation.

I realize now I've provided far too much lead up, so I'll just cut to the miscalculation. A line worker at Caterpillar's Atlanta plant named Tom Smith filed suit against the company after he was fired for being unable to urinate for one of the company's drug tests. In his suit, Smith claims that he suffers from paruresis, or shy bladder syndrome. Despite having had 40 ounces of water and being given three hours to provide a urine sample, Smith could not. He was subsequently suspended.

Smith was eventually able to provide a Caterpillar appointed doctor a urine sample, which came out clean. During the suspension, he also paid for an independant hair test -- a testing method generally considered better than urine tests because it can detect drug use over longer periods. It also came up clean. Nonetheless, despite that neither test showed signs of drug use, Smith was fired because urine tests are the only ones specified as acceptable by Caterpillar, and his urine was not provided in the allotted three hours.

Now Smith is suing the company under the American with Disabilities Act. His contention is that Caterpillar should allow disabled employees the choice of hair, blood, or urine drug tests. Because, I suppose, it's unlikely any employee will have hairlessness, bloodlessness, and paruresis. Unfortunately for him, paruresis is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a social phobia, not a disability. So, while I think Caterpillar is clearly at fault, what will be on trial is shy bladder syndrome and whether or not it's a disability.

Frankly, I don't really care for the idea of paruresis being defined as a disability. Pretty soon you have public places required to have private bathrooms -- a nice thought, but a costly reality. And I think it's pretty difficult to make the argument that shy bladder is the same type of thing as George Lane crawling up the stairs of a Tennessee courthouse.

What steams my clams, as they say, is Caterpillar's behavior as a company. The spirit of the drug testing rule is to prevent a tweaker from assembling your backhoe. No matter what Smith's problem, they should have recognized the direction this was headed when he paid for the hair test himself. They didn't, I suspect they'll eventually settle, and I hope they take the money out of that human resources person's ass.

Analogcabin @ 7:57 AM
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