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Re: THINK before you give a bad reference
Ex-manager sues Best Buy over e-mail
By Sam Wood
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
"If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all," a cartoon character once said.
He might have added: Especially in an e-mail.
Stung by a scathing job reference, a South Jersey man filed a federal lawsuit last week, claiming that Best Buy, his former employer, blackballed him.
Michael Oliveri, 47, said it was impossible to find a new job after he was fired in August 2006 from Best Buy, the electronics megamart.
In his suit, Oliveri said he became suspicious after job offers at Circuit City and Target were abruptly terminated.
So Oliveri, of Columbus, Burlington County, hatched a plan.
He created an e-mail account using the name of a Target employee. Then Oliveri sent a note to his former company asking for a "candidate reference."
According to Oliveri's lawsuit, the district human resources manager, Ann McCafferty, allegedly responded:
"I will give you the skinny on him but you can't say you got any info from Best Buy or we can be sued. Just don't hire him and say you went with a better candidate.
"He was hired as GM and demoted after 12 months or so because he sucked. He is desperate for a job because supposedly his wife left him because he has no job. I would not touch him.
"Again, do not forward this e-mail to anybody or say where you heard the info from because we were not allowed to give this info out, but I would hate you to get stuck with this guy!"
Needless to say, Oliveri did not get the job.
New Jersey law prohibits interference with a prospective employment relationship. Oliveri is seeking a minimum of $100,000 in damages, said his lawyer, Katherine D. Hartman of Moorestown.
McCafferty was subsequently promoted and now works at Best Buy corporate headquarters in Minnesota.
The company's legal team is reviewing the case, a spokeswoman said.
"There's not a lot we can say other than we're investigating it," said company spokeswoman Dawn Bryant.
Oliveri was hired in 2004 as general manager of the Best Buy's Wilmington store and later worked at the Plymouth Meeting branch.
The suit was filed Jan. 22 in U.S. District Court in Camden.
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_up … email.html
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This HR lady should be fired.
Re: THINK before you give a bad reference
That's crazy. From what I heard, most larger companies nowadays only verify dates of employement (They worked from this date to this date). And don't even get into whether they were a good or bad employee. Sounds like alot of BB HR reps try to take matters into their own hands.
- DoubleTalkingJive
- Rep: 74
Re: THINK before you give a bad reference
That's really messed up. Although if he truly was a really bad employee I can see the Best Buys take on this.
Re: THINK before you give a bad reference
That's a really unprofessional email. If she said he was not a good worker or anything like that it would've been fine, but she had to make it personal. Not good. And she gets promoted because of it? How does that make sense? She should've been demoted.
Meanwhile, are prospective employers allowed to contact past employers without the employee's position? Here, the ethical thing to do would be to ask for references and people would provide names and contacts of people who would give them a good reference. Prospective employers also ask if it's appropriate to contact past employers. I mean, if the guy was fired from Best Buy and listed them on his resume, you'd think he'd expect the other companies to contact Best Buy to see what he was like as a worker. The logical thing would be to remove Best Buy from your resume altogether.
Re: THINK before you give a bad reference
Meanwhile, are prospective employers allowed to contact past employers without the employee's position? Here, the ethical thing to do would be to ask for references and people would provide names and contacts of people who would give them a good reference. Prospective employers also ask if it's appropriate to contact past employers. I mean, if the guy was fired from Best Buy and listed them on his resume, you'd think he'd expect the other companies to contact Best Buy to see what he was like as a worker. The logical thing would be to remove Best Buy from your resume altogether.
I assume you meant "permission" as the final word, and yes they are. As long as it's a FORMER job (which this was). Normally, if the employee is still working there, they ask on the application "Are you willing to allow us to contact your current employee?" and it's usually ok to put "No" Most companies will understand. As for removing BB from the resume, that can be hard. If he worked there for years it would have a gap in work experience unaccounted for, and most people (at least I am) are under the impression companies usually just verify length of employee, not make it personal, like this lady did. Again, from what I know, most HR is told to just say "They worked from this date, to this date."
Re: THINK before you give a bad reference
Backslash wrote:Meanwhile, are prospective employers allowed to contact past employers without the employee's position? Here, the ethical thing to do would be to ask for references and people would provide names and contacts of people who would give them a good reference. Prospective employers also ask if it's appropriate to contact past employers. I mean, if the guy was fired from Best Buy and listed them on his resume, you'd think he'd expect the other companies to contact Best Buy to see what he was like as a worker. The logical thing would be to remove Best Buy from your resume altogether.
I assume you meant "permission" as the final word,
Correct... I shouldn't type first thing in the morning (before I get out of bed).
Yeah, HR is usually contacted to verify employment, but as far as I know, they aren't contacted as referees unless they are specifically listed. It's possible that the HR lady volunteered the information, but I'd be curious to find out if the other companies are drilling for this information. Meanwhile, it's not even HR's responsibility to provide references. That would be a direct supervisor's job.
Re: THINK before you give a bad reference
Meanwhile, it's not even HR's responsibility to provide references. That would be a direct supervisor's job.
That should be a direct supervisors job, until you get a renegade HR rep like this one who decides to take matters into her own hands.
