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Comment by fsk | Hacker News Reader

Michael O Church once lost a job due to a "back-channel reference check", so that explains why he's so hostile to them.

Also, in the USA, there are rules limiting what you can say about a former employee. By giving a negative back-channel reference, you and your employer might be susceptible to a lawsuit. However, actually suing a former employer for something like that is probably a bad idea, because (1) it'd be hard to prove it (2) it would make you even less employable when other people find out about the lawsuit.

If I ever am in a position to do hiring, I probably wouldn't do it, because I'd trust my judgement more than someone else's.

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> Also, in the USA, there are rules limiting what you can say about a former employee.

You can't defame former employees but you can say true things about them. State laws, generally speaking, do not prohibit you from saying (true) stuff about former employees, in fact some have clauses protecting you from defamation lawsuits. At the most basic level it's a 1st amendment right, the Constitution doesn't have a secret section on employment law.

Many employers have a policy of only giving job title and dates of employment, to prevent any possible lawsuit. However, if you say it with sufficient disgust in your voice, it'll be obvious that you're giving a negative reference.

Even if what you are saying is true, that still doesn't mean it can't lead to a lawsuit.

Anything can lead to a lawsuit.

Michael O Church once lost a job due to a "back-channel reference check", so that explains why he's so hostile to them.

To tell the whole story... "you should see the other guy." :)

I did eventually get my revenge. Six months later when I had the money, I hired a PI to figure out who gave the bad back-channel reference (it wasn't even someone I worked under) and found out that he was sleeping with one of his subordinates. Had the news dropped at his work, to his wife, and at his kids' school on the same afternoon. God works through people.

By giving a negative back-channel reference, you and your employer might be susceptible to a lawsuit. However, actually suing a former employer for something like that is probably a bad idea, because (1) it'd be hard to prove it (2) it would make you even less employable when other people find out about the lawsuit.

A termination lawsuit makes you less employable. I don't know that the same holds over a bad reference, because pretty much anyone would sue someone who damaged their careers in such a lasting and petty way. Getting fired is something that happens to everyone and while most of us aren't fired in an illegal way or for illegal reasons, most people will be fired in an unjust way at least once in a 40-year career, so the prevailing attitude (right or wrong) is that a successful, competent person will just dust himself off and find another job. Bad reference issues are much less common and most people (the rhetorical "reasonable man") would agree that you have to do something permanent and brutal about that.

Wrongful T lawsuits are dangerous to your career because (a) every company or manager will have to fire someone, given enough time, so it's far from clear that your opponent did anything wrong (b) they bring a lot of dirty laundry (on you and the company) into the public, and if there's no dirt on you, they make something up, and (c) your odds of winning aren't good unless you can easily prove discrimination.

When you sue over a bad reference, you're suing an individual (not "an employer") and you're also suing over something that would lead pretty much anyone to lawyer up, so the air about you isn't "he got let go and sued his company" but "someone tried to fuck up his reputation and he fought back".

Michael, while I usually enjoy your rants, getting revenge like this is insane, and admitting to it on a public forum attached to your real name is a whole 'nother level of crazy. No personal offense intended, but I would never ever in a million years hire or associate personally with somebody who did what you did.

All I can say is that I hope you're never in a position where you have to do "insane" things to protect your own life or career. It's an experience that I wouldn't wish on another person.

Thanks, I hope I'm never put in the position that I would have to do such things to protect my life and career, either.

Admittedly, I don't know much about what actually happened in your situation, but does hiring a PI and going after someone 6 months after the fact protect your life or career? How, exactly? You say you had money (presumably through employment) at this point. Why not just move on and forget about that episode of your life?

That's the sort of vindictiveness that would make me afraid to associate with a person.

The PI didn't actually cost that much. I helped out someone he cared about. That's another story.

The person was able to hurt me because he, through a certain station, had the credibility that made what he might say about other people (such as me) matter. His opinions would be taken seriously. After taking a hit, I fixed the problem. It wasn't about vengeance. It was about doing just enough to fix the problem, then moving on. He didn't lose his job per se but I made him enough of a laughingstock that no one would take his word over anyone else's, thus making me safe from him.

After being attacked, it's not unreasonable to think that such defenses are needed in order to protect the future.

I wouldn't do that sort of thing after a "things didn't work out" situation, even if things ended badly or I got fired. I'm an adult; I'll move on. Likewise, I wouldn't retaliate against someone just for saying that I was a jerk or that he didn't like me. (Plenty of people say that I'm a jerk. That's fine.) There has to be a lot more, like fraudulent negative claims about past work performance... something that sounds objective and can be damaging... before I'm ready to fuck up someone's life. People have the right not to like me and to say that they don't; what they don't have the right to do is to deliberately damage my reputation with fraudulent or inaccurate claims.

This was a case where someone deliberately tried to damage me after I had moved far away from him. There was an act of war, and I fought back with force, and I won. I don't believe in starting fights but I do believe in ending them.

But how were you certain that this person gave the bad reference, since it was back channel after all? Hell, how did you even knkw a bad reference was given? How did that effect you? The logistics of this story make me more skeptical than audaciousness of it.

I had the luxury of other people talking too much. If not for that, I wouldn't have known.

Hell, how did you even knkw a bad reference was given?

I was able to find out what was said. Again, if all someone had said was "I don't like him", that wouldn't have been an issue. This person made negative, fraudulent claims about me and my past work performance in front of enough people that it was impossible for him to hide his tracks.

People who do bad things are usually awful at keeping secrets. There are exceptions, of course, but generally the traits that incline a person toward malice and petty conspiracy are not traits that make a person good at keeping secrets.

> There are exceptions, of course, but generally the traits that incline a person toward malice and petty conspiracy are not traits that make a person good at keeping secrets.

If there was ever a time for "show, don't tell"...

How would you even know that you've lost a job due to a back-channel reference check? Several times, I thought an interview went really well, and then they never got back to me. They don't give a reason.

How would you even know that you've lost a job due to a back-channel reference check?

Word gets around, and people doing things that are inappropriate tends to get around faster. Obviously, you're not guaranteed to know about it every time that this happens. Sometimes you find out, sometimes you won't. It's when you do find out that you can try to do something about it (not that there's any change of getting the job back, but in terms of revenge on the people who got involved in your business).

Several times, I thought an interview went really well, and then they never got back to me. They don't give a reason.

Of course. That's typical, and usually the reason doesn't matter. It's rarely something scandalous that merits anything other but "eh, guess that didn't happen". Most of the time, getting turned down for a job is just a regular lack-of-chemistry thing not worth getting bent out of shape over.

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