Re: anjil's GOOD NEWS & other OT

[Guest guest]

one other weird part of this story is, my boss also fired the gal

who was the receptionist. she wants me to write a letter of

reference for her ... but i don't feel right, saying anything

positive about her. ... i think i will just say i don't think it's

appropriate for me to write the ltr since i didn't work really

closely w/her & wasn't really aware of her work habits.

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I can tell you that it is almost totally standard practice with

every major corporation these days to NOT provide letters of

reference. In the last 35 years, I have worked for two very large

companies and two medium size companies. NONE of them provided

reference letters as a matter of corporate policy. The only thing

we (anybody other than the Human Resources Department) were allowed

to do was verify employment, as in " yes, I can confirm that so and

so did work here. " And that was it. During that same 35 years I

wrote exactly 3 letters of reference on my own (in violation of

policy for whoever I was working for at the time). In every

instance, it was for someone who had been caught in a " down-sizing "

through no fault of their own. And every single one of them was an

A list performer that I would have had work for me at any time, any

place. In other words, I could give good solid references with no

guilty conscience.

The reason that most companies have this policy is very simple -

legal liability. Best advice in a case like this is to steer clear

of it.