Last month, I received a job offer for a tech company in the San Francisco area. I'm a recent college graduate, and this was my first salaried job offer in my field so I was extremely hyped at the opportunity! It was a bit daunting to move across the US, but as someone that wants to work in tech professionally I knew the move would have to come eventually. If I was going to move to California, Seattle, or Toronto, it might as well be on a company's dime right?
Unfortunately, things went straight to shit this past monday, when I was scheduled to come into the office and start onboarding. I come in, give my ID to the receptionist, and get told to have a seat while they call my manager. After 10 minutes of waiting, this chick walks out with a couple of security guards comes out and tells me that I was banned from the company's premises, and she was there to escort me out. Obviously I'm confused since I was supposed to start onboarding that day, and I showed her the emails between me and the hiring team. The chick just restated that I was banned, and she again told me to leave. By the time we left the lobby and I started calling an uber, she literally had almost 10 officers standing between me and the entrance of the building, as if I was going to try and charge the front door. It was horrifying and embarrassing, but I tried justifying it as a mistake that the hiring team would be able to clear up.
This past week I've been constantly trying to get ahold of my recruiter with no success until tonight. She said that the security team has a former employee with my name on their watchlist. Since the watchlist is apparently managed by the security team and not the company itself, the hiring team had no idea I shared the name with a banned employee.
So while this SHOULD be an easy fix, the hiring team has decided to side with the security team and cancel my onboarding until “They can figure out the situation.” This is despite the fact that I:
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Have never worked with this company before.
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Have never worked in California before.
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Only got my bachelor's 2 months ago.
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Lived over 2,000 miles away from their office prior to being given plane tickets.
And worst of all, my recruiter is claiming they WON'T be compensating me for moving out here! So not only am I back to square one on the job hunt, but I'm in unknown territory with nothing but a storage unit and $300 in my savings. The only silver lining is the company claims they won't be cancelling my hotel room as a “courtesy”, but once next Friday hits I won't even have that.
Sorry if this is long-winded, but I'm completely lost and I have no idea wtf I'm supposed to even do. I don't have any family back home I can call and ask for help, and I don't know anybody in California that I can rely on.