Employee fired for drug overdose on night shift

morjana submitted 511 days ago

Way back in the dim reaches of time (okay, 1973), I worked as the day shift manager for a telephone answering service, that was physically located in the mid-town area of an large CA city. We had problems (even then) with the homeless, and local gangs, trying to break into the office building itself, so we had installed an iron gate to our back door, and one to the front of the business.

We had hired a young woman, who was down on her luck, and in addition, had just had a baby out of wedlock. She didn't have any family or friends, and couldn't afford to pay for child care. We allowed her to work the graveyard shift, and to bring her child in with her to work.

After about three weeks (right after her first paycheck), we started to receive complaints from customers about the graveyard service. Phone lines not being answered. The owner of the business asked me to come in very early one day, to see if I could ascertain what the problem might be.

So...I showed up about 5:30 am (an hour and a half early), and knocked on the back door (at the alley entrance). No answer. I really pounded on that door. I moved my car up along side the building, and climbed up on the hood of the car to look into the window, and couldn't see anyone inside.

(My boss, in his infinite wisdom, had not provided additional keys to the iron gates.)

I went to a nearby pay telephone (this was years before cell phones were widely available), and called the office. No answer. I then called my boss to let him know I was calling the police. I called the police, who arrived, and they in turn ended up asking for the fire department, who had to break down the iron gate AND the back door.

We found the young woman, who had overdosed on drugs in the women's bathroom, with her baby beside her in the baby carrier. She survived the overdose, however, the State took the child from her for felony child endangerment.

She was 19 years old.