This story happened a couple years ago, when I had a job delivering pizzas. Anyone who has worked at a fast-food restaurant, or perhaps a pizza shop, knows that drug-use and at-work-intoxication is pretty commonplace. I knew a hell of a lot of drivers that smoked Cannabis through their shifts. admittedly, I also got mildly stoned before and during work once in a while.
After I had moved, I transferred to a more suburban store for the same company which had a very different crowd than I was used to working with at the more urban store. After several days of noticing suspicious activity including characteristic smells and seeing multiple employees disperse from a huddle as soon as they saw me walking in, I decided to call them on it.
It was a very hot day outside (a little over 100deg-F), as most of the days that summer were. The A/C in my car was broken, and the A/C inside the shop didn't work well enough (with the pizza oven) to make it any cooler than it was outside. There were also forest fires perpetually burning in the mountains not far to the west, and the smoke was so thick and terrible that the sky turned red. I found I could usually stay cool, as long as I consumed several litres worth of water throughout the day. I wittingly remarked a few times that summer that it was the closest thing to "hell" that I had experienced, thus far.
By calling them on their in-store smoking, I was therefore obliged to smoke up with them to at least demonstrate that I wasn't going to narc anyone any time soon. So I joined them as they gathered behind the oven. The shift manager on duty removed the pipe and stash from a ledge, hidden behind the wall that came down from the ceiling to help isolate the oven. The stuff was pretty cheap/nasty, and so I didn't take much. It did provide a mild, pleasant stone.
My next couple of delivery runs were uneventful over a period of maybe 45 minutes. The temperature outside was miserable as the day got hotter. It was about the middle of the afternoon when munchies struck. I opened the box of pizza sitting up on the rack where bad-orders are normally placed for employees to eat to their heart's content. I took two slices, placed them on a paper towel, and left with my next delivery, despite the rather odd looks coming from the other employees. I didn't think anything of it as I was hungry and we were starting to get busier.
I ate the pizza pretty quickly. There wasn't anything to savor as I'd been almost living off the companies pizza for several months by now. I did happen to notice something strange about the flavor
a few times and attributed it to the presence of sausage (not my favorite topping), perhaps some that had slightly spoiled.
The afternoon continued on, though, I started to feel unusually hot and thirsty. My stomach also seemed to be in complete disagreement. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was. I started feeling dizzy and shaky by the time I came back for another delivery. I drank some more water, figuring I was dehydrated, and kept on moving along.
The feelings got worse, and I began to notice that things were starting to get to be a bit confusing. This is when I began to suspect that I had been some how dosed without my knowledge. I suspected that it had to do with the pipe I smoked about an hour and a half earlier. Perhaps the end that I put into my mouth was contaminated with LSD. At the same time, I thought it a bit unreasonable to think that anyone would intentionally dose me. My other suspicion was that I was simply experiencing symptoms of heat-exhaustion. Once I felt my body cramp up, and I almost vomited while the car was in motion, I realized it was time to stop.
I returned to the shop and mentioned something about not feeling very well. Oddly enough, my manager seemed almost relieved to hear that I wanted to go home, and promised that he would take care of getting me signed out as soon as he finished some orders. In the mean-time I glanced in the mirror and noticed definitely dilated pupils. Hmm, I thought.
When my manager returned, he was unusually quiet himself. He also seemed to be rather anxious and mildly confused himself. I didn't think much of it as I was concerned that I might be in need of medical attention and I wasn't sure how I was going to drive home, a 30 minute drive.
I told him that I needed to cool-off before I could drive home. I made my way to the tile floor inside the walk-in refrigerator. Lying down in there felt so incredibly good. It was just what I needed. A couple of minutes later, the same manager opened the door to retrieve something and gave me quite the look. I hopped up and decided I had cooled down enough to make the 30 minute drive home.
By this time, it had cooled off a bit outside and the sun was getting lower in the sky. Driving home wasn't particularly difficult, but I did feel like I was getting hotter and hotter throughout the trip home. Once I got home, I took a nice cool-bath which led to me feeling some what exhausted. I dragged my ass to bed and fell asleep very quickly.
A few hours later, I woke up feeling much better. I smoked some Cannabis, got something to eat, and researched the symptoms of heat-exhaustion. Oddly enough, the symptoms seemed to match my case pretty well: cold and clammy skin, confusion, dilated pupils, nausea and vomiting, etc... At that point, I felt pretty comfortable writing it off as a case a heat-exhaustion. I also decided to save Cannabis smoking for the cooler days.
Over the weekend that followed, the manager that I worked under that night got fired. I was told that he apparently stole $250 from the store. Another week or two later, one of the female 16-year-old inside-store employees accidently slipped up and mentioned the night that I ate mushrooms. What this?? She explained to me that one night, one of the 16-year-old male employees brought some mushrooms to work with the intention of sharing them with the manager. They decided to eat them by baking them in a pizza. When they saw me eat the pizza, they had no idea what to do. They didn't know if I was familiar with mushrooms or if I would have approved, so instead they decided to just keep completely quiet about the whole thing.
Upon hearing this, I was pretty much half amused and half upset. It was in some ways relieving to know that I had indeed consumed psychedelic drugs (in low dosage at least) without my knowledge. It was disturbing to find out that several people were aware of it, and no one bothered to tell me. Apparently they felt that it would be "better" for me to unknowingly put myself in danger by driving while tripping than for them to get into trouble for having used mushrooms at work.
I confronted the kid who had actually brought the mushrooms that night. I told him that I did not know what was going on, and had it not been for my familiarity with psychedelics and experience operating under their influence, I probably would have checked myself into a hospital. He did at least apologize and explained pretty much everything. He said that he and the manager split the remainder of the pizza and got quite fucked up. They were so fucked up that they kept on making orders incorrectly and as a result, the majority of deliveries that night were either completely wrong, extremely late, or both. The manager dealt with this by "comping" or refunding about $250 worth of food. Is there a moral to the story?
Well, for one, there are better places to trip than at work. I was a bit surprised that I didn't consider the pizza I had eaten to be the culprit, and I suspected LSD as being the agent rather than mushrooms. I was even blaming the nausea on the reduced-price sushi that I bought from the grocery store earlier in the day. At the same time, I didn't really have a strong enough dose to experience any visuals. I also think that confusion disturbed my judgments a lot. At least I have some idea of what it's like to be dosed without warning or preparation. I just wish it might have occurred in cooler weather.
After I had moved, I transferred to a more suburban store for the same company which had a very different crowd than I was used to working with at the more urban store. After several days of noticing suspicious activity including characteristic smells and seeing multiple employees disperse from a huddle as soon as they saw me walking in, I decided to call them on it.
It was a very hot day outside (a little over 100deg-F), as most of the days that summer were. The A/C in my car was broken, and the A/C inside the shop didn't work well enough (with the pizza oven) to make it any cooler than it was outside. There were also forest fires perpetually burning in the mountains not far to the west, and the smoke was so thick and terrible that the sky turned red. I found I could usually stay cool, as long as I consumed several litres worth of water throughout the day. I wittingly remarked a few times that summer that it was the closest thing to "hell" that I had experienced, thus far.
By calling them on their in-store smoking, I was therefore obliged to smoke up with them to at least demonstrate that I wasn't going to narc anyone any time soon. So I joined them as they gathered behind the oven. The shift manager on duty removed the pipe and stash from a ledge, hidden behind the wall that came down from the ceiling to help isolate the oven. The stuff was pretty cheap/nasty, and so I didn't take much. It did provide a mild, pleasant stone.
My next couple of delivery runs were uneventful over a period of maybe 45 minutes. The temperature outside was miserable as the day got hotter. It was about the middle of the afternoon when munchies struck. I opened the box of pizza sitting up on the rack where bad-orders are normally placed for employees to eat to their heart's content. I took two slices, placed them on a paper towel, and left with my next delivery, despite the rather odd looks coming from the other employees. I didn't think anything of it as I was hungry and we were starting to get busier.
I ate the pizza pretty quickly. There wasn't anything to savor as I'd been almost living off the companies pizza for several months by now. I did happen to notice something strange about the flavor
a few times and attributed it to the presence of sausage (not my favorite topping), perhaps some that had slightly spoiled.
The afternoon continued on, though, I started to feel unusually hot and thirsty. My stomach also seemed to be in complete disagreement. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was. I started feeling dizzy and shaky by the time I came back for another delivery. I drank some more water, figuring I was dehydrated, and kept on moving along.
The feelings got worse, and I began to notice that things were starting to get to be a bit confusing. This is when I began to suspect that I had been some how dosed without my knowledge. I suspected that it had to do with the pipe I smoked about an hour and a half earlier. Perhaps the end that I put into my mouth was contaminated with LSD. At the same time, I thought it a bit unreasonable to think that anyone would intentionally dose me. My other suspicion was that I was simply experiencing symptoms of heat-exhaustion. Once I felt my body cramp up, and I almost vomited while the car was in motion, I realized it was time to stop.
I returned to the shop and mentioned something about not feeling very well. Oddly enough, my manager seemed almost relieved to hear that I wanted to go home, and promised that he would take care of getting me signed out as soon as he finished some orders. In the mean-time I glanced in the mirror and noticed definitely dilated pupils. Hmm, I thought.
When my manager returned, he was unusually quiet himself. He also seemed to be rather anxious and mildly confused himself. I didn't think much of it as I was concerned that I might be in need of medical attention and I wasn't sure how I was going to drive home, a 30 minute drive.
I told him that I needed to cool-off before I could drive home. I made my way to the tile floor inside the walk-in refrigerator. Lying down in there felt so incredibly good. It was just what I needed. A couple of minutes later, the same manager opened the door to retrieve something and gave me quite the look. I hopped up and decided I had cooled down enough to make the 30 minute drive home.
By this time, it had cooled off a bit outside and the sun was getting lower in the sky. Driving home wasn't particularly difficult, but I did feel like I was getting hotter and hotter throughout the trip home. Once I got home, I took a nice cool-bath which led to me feeling some what exhausted. I dragged my ass to bed and fell asleep very quickly.
A few hours later, I woke up feeling much better. I smoked some Cannabis, got something to eat, and researched the symptoms of heat-exhaustion. Oddly enough, the symptoms seemed to match my case pretty well: cold and clammy skin, confusion, dilated pupils, nausea and vomiting, etc... At that point, I felt pretty comfortable writing it off as a case a heat-exhaustion. I also decided to save Cannabis smoking for the cooler days.
Over the weekend that followed, the manager that I worked under that night got fired. I was told that he apparently stole $250 from the store. Another week or two later, one of the female 16-year-old inside-store employees accidently slipped up and mentioned the night that I ate mushrooms. What this?? She explained to me that one night, one of the 16-year-old male employees brought some mushrooms to work with the intention of sharing them with the manager. They decided to eat them by baking them in a pizza. When they saw me eat the pizza, they had no idea what to do. They didn't know if I was familiar with mushrooms or if I would have approved, so instead they decided to just keep completely quiet about the whole thing.
Upon hearing this, I was pretty much half amused and half upset. It was in some ways relieving to know that I had indeed consumed psychedelic drugs (in low dosage at least) without my knowledge. It was disturbing to find out that several people were aware of it, and no one bothered to tell me. Apparently they felt that it would be "better" for me to unknowingly put myself in danger by driving while tripping than for them to get into trouble for having used mushrooms at work.
I confronted the kid who had actually brought the mushrooms that night. I told him that I did not know what was going on, and had it not been for my familiarity with psychedelics and experience operating under their influence, I probably would have checked myself into a hospital. He did at least apologize and explained pretty much everything. He said that he and the manager split the remainder of the pizza and got quite fucked up. They were so fucked up that they kept on making orders incorrectly and as a result, the majority of deliveries that night were either completely wrong, extremely late, or both. The manager dealt with this by "comping" or refunding about $250 worth of food. Is there a moral to the story?
Well, for one, there are better places to trip than at work. I was a bit surprised that I didn't consider the pizza I had eaten to be the culprit, and I suspected LSD as being the agent rather than mushrooms. I was even blaming the nausea on the reduced-price sushi that I bought from the grocery store earlier in the day. At the same time, I didn't really have a strong enough dose to experience any visuals. I also think that confusion disturbed my judgments a lot. At least I have some idea of what it's like to be dosed without warning or preparation. I just wish it might have occurred in cooler weather.
