Please Help! Was Just Terminated From My Job for “Drug Paraphernalia..”?
Question by valerie: Please help! Was just terminated from my job for “drug paraphernalia..”?
I’m 17, i share a locker at school with one of my friends. My friend brought a bunch of things to school to sell for ATL tickets… he left school early and asked if i could bring his bag from the locker to his house after i got off work. In the bag was a bunch of stupid things, and one of them was this little tobacco pipe his father gave him?
At work i threw my purse into one of the cabinets because i was running late, some of the stuff fell out of the bag and that pipe was one of them..
When i left my boss called me and asked me to come back in, he found the dumb thing and fired me. He then wrote me up for “drug paraphernalia” and had me sign a bunch of papers. he said to me “you’re lucky i don’t call the cops, this is a class 2 felony and you can be sent to jail.”
i seriously panicked so much, i was on the verge of tears i was SO SCARED, he told me to sign all the papers and leave.
what i’m worried about is now that i was written up for that and it was documented, it’s going to be on my records! I’m so upset! I wasn’t even thinking when i signed those papers i was so scared. Will they clear when i’m 18? And will it be hard for me to get a job? Is there any way i can clear all this up…??? It was an unused ancient pipe that was in a case for collection, it had nothing to do with drugs and now i’m going to have so much difficulty getting a job AHHH,.
some advice PLEASE?! sorry this was so long..
Also, i live in Arizona.. thanks so much you guys!
Best answer:
Answer by KMcG
First he lied to you having a pipe is not a felony. You should not have signed anything. But there is no way to undo what has been done, No it will not “come off your record”, you don’t have one. You just got fired from a job. Go back and request copies of everything he had you sign, also ask for a “pink” slip that will show why you were terminated. If you want that job back go talk to your boss’s boss. Take the pipe with you to show that it was not drug related. Otherwise just find another job and never mention that you worked at that other place. Since you are only 17, it will be easy to just leave that bit of information out, this way the new place will not call the old one and find out you were fired.
Answer by Hilary R
If he didn’t call the cops it shouldn’t be in your record and it would be sealed if it was. They wouldn’t send you to jail they would give you a fine. You don’t have to give permission to your next employer to talk to the last one in fact you don’t have to list them at all.
I think your boss got a little carried away thinking he was apart of a crime scene unit. Paraphernalia Would mean you were concealing illegal narcotics in an item to basically smuggle them. A tobacco pipe would not fit this category. Although depending on where you live it can be illegal for a minor to have possession of tobacco, I would consult a lawyer because your boss may have filed incorrect or misleading paperwork. Also, for future reference, never sign something before you have read it over and fully understand it.
You lost a job… that is all that happened. The papers you signed stay with the personnel file of this employer. They will only ever come to light and be read should you try and re-apply at this place or should you try and apply for unemployment.
There is no police record and you were not arrested.
Employers can not share such information with anybody other than a judge at an unemployment hearing. It is confidential. So all you have to worry about is that you will not be rehired at that place and that you will not get unemployment because they will use this as a valid reason to fire you.
He didn’t call the cops because he knows there would be no case. If the pipe was not in your locker and was not in your possession, there is no way to prove that it belonged to you or that you brought it into work. Besides that, the only “record” this information will be on is your work record with that company. You will not have any police record because the police were not called. Your boss cannot divulge that information to others because that would be against confidentiality laws and border on slander. I’m not sure that the papers you signed are even legal because you are a minor and you did not have your parents present at the time you signed (or an attorney for that matter). I think what the boss did was terrible, he used bullying tactics to fire you and to cover his own butt (and to keep you from filing for unemployment) he had you sign the papers.
Don’t use him as a reference obviously. But also don’t worry about this information being on any sort of “record,” because it won’t be. It will be kept in your personnel file at that job and that’s it.