Update on my wife's work situation

[chrissyk]

I asked DW about this. She said that she knew this person prior to him working for her because he worked in 2 other stores in her mall. Both of these companies have since gone into bankruptcy and are gone. Even then she said that while he was always obsessed with himself and had an ego the size of Montana, this behavior recently is under a year old and thinks it's either due to substance abuse, a psychological problem or some kind of midlife crisis.

Heres something to roll your eyes at. Currently he is taking night classes to get a license to sell Real Estate. Can you imagine him as your Realtor? Of course DW said that will probably go the way of his college degree in Psychology and his license in massage therapy that he never did anything with.

I have met a couple of seriously nutty realtors, so this guy won't be the lone crazy person in that field at least It's probably at good thing that he doesn't work as a massage therapist, though...I can't imagine that he'd give a very relaxing massage

His behavior doesn't sound like a midlife crisis to me. People having a midlife crisis usually don't file false loss reports on others, etc. He sounds truly nuts. If your wife thinks that this guy has a substance abuse issue, can't she somehow report that to the company and get him tested? The company must have some sort of drug policy for it's employees. There has to be SOMETHING that can be done about this guy. I'm more afraid that once he's fired, he'll come back and do something to your wife because he blames her for his issues, though. That's why there need to be police reports and a paper trail at least.

 

[barkley]

i suspect that even if the employee's prior employers were still in bsns. they would be unlikely to reveal any negative info. on him-the liability issue is too high. my former employer would only tell a prospective employer looking to hire a former employee (1) the employee is eligible for rehire or not, (2) the employee's final salary was "x". and this was only disclosed if the prospective employer asked specificly. we could not write letters of reccommendation for any employee what so ever. it went so far as to disallowing disemination of information within the department (so a rotten apple could apply to another position and the hiring supervisor could get no feedback/insight to their work abilities, work habits...). only if a behaviour resulted in a conviction could a potential employer find out (and again-they would have had to do a criminal background search, my employer would not have freely released the information), if a "deal" involving embezzlement of funds occured wherein no conviction happened-the employee could apply to another employer without worry of disclosure.

as far as drug testing goes-unless an employee's employment contract (and most retail jobs don't require an employment contract to be signed at hiring) spec. states that illegal drug or alcohol use or impairment is grounds for termination there is little or nothing an employer can do (they must focus the termination on the negative behaviours not the root cause), drug testing must be agreed to by the employee in writing.

it's a very sad situation-i am hopeful that the recent episode with a customer can be used as a final basis for termination.