Unrecommendation of the Week!
Nick Leeson job reference: “Good with numbers. Trustworthy”
A very long time ago when I worked at a theatre I ruined someone’s chances of getting a job there. I did this because I felt they couldn’t be trusted. If someone gets a job on your recommendation and then they don’t work out, you are tainted. Think of the person who wrote Peter Sutcliffe’s reference for that long distance lorry driving job, or banker Nick Leeson’s reference for Barings Bank. Do you think they felt they could show their face at the company picnic that year?
On the night this person applied for the job in the theatre bar they came to see me whilst I was working in the tiny box office. We had known each other at school, but that was all. I opened my side door to chat to them and before I knew it they had barged their way in. The office was a tiny broom cupboard of a thing and really anymore than one person in it and it was a squish. Yet in squished this overly friendly person who proceeded to tell me excitedly and a little too close to my face that they had put me down as a referee. Without asking me. That night as my shift ended and I counted my takings I noticed that we were £20 down. I could never be sure, but it just seemed a little odd. My arithmetic isn’t Rain Man standard but I was never usually under.
Peter Sutcliffe’s reference: “Keeps himself to himself. “
When the time came for the boss to ask for my opinion on the chap, I told her I couldn’t recommend him, and that I didn’t really know him at all. For months afterwards I felt a little guilty but I knew I had done the right thing. You can’t take any chances in the vouching game. Recommend someone and it’s like you’ve become responsible for them.
George W Bush Reference: “Competent, literate, and intelligent. A peace loving man.”
Fast forward to my time as a lecturer and I would be in a position of being asked to refer students all over the place. I decided a personal rule on this was in order; students come in many flavours and not all of them palatable. If I couldn’t heartily recommend someone, perhaps if they had been a lazy or less than conscientious student, I would tell them that I couldn’t give them a good reference and since I didn’t agree with giving bad references that they should find someone else who could write about them more favourably . In amongst the hosts of great students I have been pleased to recommend for jobs, university places and work experience there were a few hurt and astonished faces along the years from those who couldn’t believe I couldn’t tell the world how wonderful they were . On the whole my policy served me well.
Until now.
Harold Shipman reference: “Great with the elderly. Lives and breathes the Hippocratic Oath”
A couple of weeks ago I decided that my days of recommending people for jobs were well and truly over. I vouched for a few former students for a job in my field. I am going on my experience of them from two years ago when I left my college lecturing post ,and felt fairly confident that they would be ideal candidates. What I did not expect was that, at interview, one of those people would turn up unwashed, dandruff bedecked, dirty finger-nailed, disheveled, reeking and in possession of a video showreel of work which included naked images of themselves.
I am now retired from the business of giving people a break.
Sir Fred Goodwin reference:”Selfless, generous and a man of the people”
Don’t ever miss a Misssive, subscribe! 
