We interrupt last week’s blog to bring you up-to-date on the CBD oil story I wrote about a few weeks ago. It’s going to be hard to believe what you’re going to read here.

If you will recall, our candidate got “temporarily” eliminated because he failed a drug test because he had been using CBD oil. He had barely failed the drug test our client’s company had him take and the people that gave the test called him and asked him what was going on. He explained that he had been using CBD oil for his joints. The testing lab told him that they had old equipment that couldn’t tell the difference between CBD oil (from hemp) and the THC that is a result of smoking marijuana.

So, our client was kind enough to convince their HR (Hiring Roadblock) department to let the candidate take the test again because, even the testing lab admitted that they didn’t think it was THC because the percentages of the positive test were so low. So, our anxious candidate goes down and takes it again. Same lab.

Three or four days after he took the test again the HR (Hiring Roadblock) department calls the hiring authority and the candidate and says that the tests were either mislabeled or he took the wrong one and they weren’t sure but he needed to go back to the lab and have a follicle test (hair) done. Of course, we’re asking what about the second urine sample that he gave. Well, HR (Hiring Roadblock) is insisting that they are not going to use the second urinalysis. He absolutely has to take a test using his hair.

So, the candidate drives down to the place where he gave the first urinalysis and he is told that the lab there doesn’t do follicle testing and he has to go to another one of their labs. Okay, so he drives all the way across town to another lab site only to be told that his hair was too short to have a follicle test done. So what now?

Both the hiring authority and his boss are anxious to get this guy hired so they start asking the HR (Hiring Roadblock) what they should do. Almost one week later the HR (Hiring Roadblock) department tells the two hiring authorities that they will go back and use the results of the second urinalysis. The HR (Hiring Roadblock) department tells the two hiring managers that they can’t do anything until they get results back from the lab. So everyone waits and waits and waits. Our poor candidate has now been going through this ordeal for almost a month and he needs to go to work. He’s getting frustrated almost to the point of telling them to shove it.

One week after the HR (Hiring Roadblock) department says they are still waiting for the results of the second test, our candidate goes online to the website of the lab where he took the tests, and sees a “check results here” tab, opens it up and finds that the results of his test were not only negative but they had been posted on the website four days earlier. The company’s HR (Hiring Roadblock) department  says they still hadn’t gotten the results of the test.

I couldn’t make this story up if I tried. So, I get the candidate to send me a picture of the lab report that he took off the lab’s website showing that his tests were all negative and I sent it to the HR (…you  know) department along with the two hiring authorities. One day later the HR (…you know) sends me an email and says “Your candidate can start tomorrow.”

So, the candidate started this week. So far so good. Moral to the story: don’t use CBD oil if you’re looking for a job… try to go to a modern drug testing lab…and make sure that lab not only communicates with you but with the people they have a contract with.

This situation turned out okay, but I wonder how many people have or could lose their job opportunity because they used CBD oil and the company they were applying to just wasn’t that open-minded. Think about it.