The only thing standing between Vicki White and a new job as a bank teller was a plastic cup.
Like job candidates at many companies, she was required to undergo drug screening. But she has a condition called paruresis, which can make providing a urine sample difficult, if not impossible.
Paruresis (pronounced: par-YOU-ree-sis) is a type of social anxiety disorder that prevents a person from using the toilet in a public restroom.
To prepare for the test, White, 19, of Wentzville, Mo., guzzled water nonstop before showing up at a testing laboratory last month. Still, even after waiting almost two hours, she could not urinate.
Her friends and family sometimes had ribbed her about the problem. But now it was no laughing matter.
White called New Frontier Bank in O'Fallon, Mo., and asked for a second chance, but a manager told her the job offer had been rescinded, she said.
New Frontier Bank declined to answer questions about White's situation, referring questions instead to ADP TotalSource, a human resources and employee assistance company. ADP TotalSource did not respond to requests for an interview.
In an era of widespread drug testing - in workplaces, schools and elsewhere - the inability to urinate on demand is a serious matter.
White is one of about 17 million people nationwide who are unable to use the toilet in close proximity with others or when they are under time pressure, being observed or traveling on moving vehicles.
The condition is also called "shy bladder" and "bashful bladder."
Having a job offer rescinded without first being given an opportunity to be drug tested by an alternative method, such as with a hair or blood sample, is "simply outrageous," said Steven Soifer, staff director of the International Paruresis Association, based in Baltimore.
The group advocates for people who say they have been unfairly discriminated against in drug testing because of their condition.
Soifer, an associate professor of social work at University of Maryland, Baltimore, said he had been involved with hundreds of cases like White's since he started the group a decade ago.
"It's a very common situation - and that's just the cases we hear about," he said. "I can't tell you how prevalent this kind of discrimination is."
Soifer started the group after he realized at age 40 that he wasn't "the only person in the world with this problem."
