Lecherous reference
My last boss is a creepy horndog who did many miscellaneous very sexually harassing things - I will not elaborate here. This is a tiny, one location company, and he is the owner - there is no HR department. I worked for this guy for 5 years - I did a great job, and he's been a really good reference for me - he has always agreed that I've been a wonderful employee. The trouble is, I just called him to ask if he'd provide a reference and he gave me the impression that yes, he would, but that I "owe him" something now - I don't want to go into details in case he reads these things, but what am I going to do in the future if I ever need a reference? This time, I'm hoping I'll get this job so that I can stay there for a good long time & wipe out all history of this boss, and I know the company will call him within the next few days, but chances are I'll need his reference again. If he gives me a bad reference just because I flatly refuse to give him what he wants (of course!!), do I have any recourse anywhere, considering that it's a small business and he has no superiors or HR department to oversee him? What do I do? It's 5 years of my working life - I learned a lot in that position and it has helped me to make a long sought-after career change due to the different responsibilities I had there. It's a very, very important job in my history. Okay, just throwing things out here: The Better Business Bureau? Or will that only apply if you were a customer and had bad business dealings? The Unemployment Office may have a department for situations such as this. The State' s Attorney General? If worse comes to catastrophe would the interviewer who contacted this pervert be willing to tell you what he said? If he did, could you file a slander claim against him? The Division or Board of Licenses in charge of how employers conduct themselves? Perhaps googling ask.com and putting in the question of what can you do? Never mind ask.com. I just went there and came up with 100 + pages of other websites that have something to do with this subject. I can' t keep them all straight. You only have recourse if he actually does give a bad reference, if you can prove that what he said was a lie and if you can prove that you lost a job you would have otherwise gotten (and thus suffered monitory damages) because of it. That' s a lot of steps to prove and a lot of ifs. I wouldn' t worry about it at this point. Right now he' s still got a dream that he might get somewhere with you (even though he won' t). Chances are he' ll provide a good reference this time and you can move past this guy. In the future, use someone else as a reference. | |
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