Feeling Peevish

I do quarterly performance reporting for a friend who formed a business that allows financial companies to outsource such annoying and voluminous work. The client I write for is T. Rowe Price, which decided it wants all of its freelance writers to fill out a bunch of forms (I’ve been sent seven attachments that I haven’t opened) and take a urine test. I took the urine test yesterday (weds) and today (thurs) I wrote the following e-mail to my friend explaining how the urine test went:

So I get a box in the mail and an e-mail saying I must schedule an appt w/in 5 days.
When I do so, I’m told to bring the box and my passport.
I go into the city yesterday for my 5pm appointment to an office building where I meet Chris when I get out of the elevator. He points to the bathroom on the left then turns right, takes me down a hall, through a door with a keypunch access code, down another hall, into a board room. A very fancy board room with Inspirational Quotes on the wall.
Chris tells me to open the box. Using my car keys, I cut through the reinforced packing tape. I pull out another box, a plastic beaker, two plastic sealed cylinders, a big printed plastic bag, a small printed plastic bag, and lots of forms.
Chris is sweating.
He starts reading the forms. He tells me they don’t make it easy for him. He gives me the big beaker and tells me to return to the bathroom he pointed out when I got off the elevator. I go to the bathroom, do the deed, and then walk past people waiting for the elevator, cup of pee in hand, down the hall, punch the code in, twice, open the door, and walk back down the hallway to the nice boardroom, where I put my pee on the table.
Chris is sweating even more. He pours my pee into two cylinders that he has had great difficulty opening. He puts labels on them. Has me fill out forms. He puts the cylinders in the smaller bag and hands it to me. He tells me to put it in the smaller cardboard box. Which I then put in the bigger bag. Because I’m a power pee-er, there’s pee left in the beaker. He tells me to return to the bathroom to empty it. I do so, walking past more people by the elevator. I return to the boardroom, having washed my hands repeatedly, and Chris tells me I now need to take the DHL-labeled bag to DHL. I’m a bit incredulous and do this thing where I try to manage my audible irritation. He says he’s just the administrator, but I handle the rest. I ask him where I’m to take it. He has no idea. I started to leave with my cylinders-in-a-bag-in-a-box-in-a-bag and he tells me I’m also to take the large cardboard box and packing material that brought all of these goodies into my life. Me: incredulous. “It’s not my job to get rid of anything” he tells me. Neither one of us wants anything to do with this process, which isn’t helping matters.
I’m parked a 15-minute walk away in East Belfast. I gather up the big box and the smaller bagged box and call David. The nearest DHL office is in North Belfast and closes in 20 minutes. I won’t make it. Which means a trip back into town tomorrow. I walk the 15 minutes back to my car and work mightily to shift my mood.
Before I go to my book club meeting, I have a pizza and a G&T in a pub. My mood lightens. My fellow book club members and I debate how we would have responded had we been conscripts into the German army during WW2. Today I forget that there’s a box of pee in my car. David has sent an e-mail saying I can call DHL to collect my pee. Which is preferable to an hour-long round trip into the port district of Belfast (it isn’t terribly far but traffic here sucks).

So DHL will be along this afternoon at some point. I can only imagine what this is costing T Rowe. I assume they are paying for all this malarkey? And Quest is making sure the price has a U.S. premium health care profit margin. Those plastic cylinders and beaker and printed plastic bags aren’t cheap. My pee will travel to Lenexa for testing. Heaven knows they couldn’t manage that here in the UK. Just b/c we hosted the Olympics, doesn’t mean we can be trusted to test urine.

Anyway, the pee is sitting here on my desk. The DHL appointment guy asked me if it would be OK if it were delivered by noon on Monday. Having already had to disclose what was in the package, I told him I don’t really care when it’s delivered. Like Chris, I’ve done my part and will, yet again, wash my hands of it.

9-8