So years ago I took a job at a major electronics stores repair depot. I was a good worker, an unofficial lead for one of the lines, etc. I was only there to pad my resume with hardware support and stuff. Pay was crap but it was laid back and easy enough to meet quotas, I already knew my hardware just wanted experience to put on a resume.
Place was hell though, people got fired for petty reasons, my breaking point, they fired the lead for missing a day, one day and made a speech about how we were all replacable (hr had made a speech weeks ago that they were not involved in previous firings as the manager was blaming them saying “corporate said they didn't meet quota or something and I couldn't stop it”) after the official lead was fired I got asked if I wanted to be an official lead… naturally I didn't want to be the next “Lee tech” as we called it at this point since Lee was gone.
So I put an application out, got an offer for something with better pay, some actual benefits and bonuses. Manager seemed happy, almost proud as he always said some saw this as a stepping stone and would move onto greater things. Then came finding my replacement, he wanted me in the process since I kept my area running, tested and distributed parts to others , did inventory, still did my own quota of repairs, etc (more than I should have and enough to have justified a pay raise looking back).
Well I didn't like any of the candidates I sat in interviews with, first said flat out he used to plan to steal phones when he worked for a mobile retailer. Manager gave him a chance for his honesty and the dude immediately tried to shove iphones down his pants and got busted by the metal detector at the entrance/ exit…. Second guy just rubbed me the wrong way, wouldn't commit, didn't seem knowledgeable, too laid back, and in general seemed off.
Well he got the job next as honesty failed…I tried to train him, he didn't want to learn. At this point I wanted to hand off the duties to someone already there who knew as much as I did at this point and could easily slide into the position, that got rejected because “I want to mold tla new hire so I don't have to deal with learned habbits”. So I kept trying to train him, he kept wandering off, then my last week he starts spouting off things about how he's waiting on his parents to arrange a marriage for him….them the next day he gives his views on women in the work place (we had like 1 old lady in our area who did vendor relations and specialty ordering)
Well I leave for the new job, but I keep in contact with a 2 or 3 people from there as us workers got along great. My replacement, the managers moldable clay is gone weeks into me leaving…turns out he approached some lady working in the warehouse, said some rather harassing things and hr stepped in and canned him then and there to avoid any potential law suits…also I'm now being bad mouthed by said manager. It's now going around about how I'm a loser, I won't last a month at the new place, I'm a bad judge of character, blah blah. I don't think anything of it though.
Well I got real sick at this job, ended up leaving to recover, and when I went applying later I heard back that one of my past jobs gave some negative feedback. I ask about it and get bluntly what if been told he was saying about me. I was a bit taken back, assumed this was illegal, but found out nope, in my state it's legal for them to bad mouth you as feed back during employment verification, some law says it's legal because employers should be able to share important information on employee performance good or bad.
So I explained it and to this day when filling out applications I have to leave a note not to contact them explaining that I left on bad terms after their chosen replacement for me happened to be terrible.
Figured that would be a fun story of how past managers can be crap long after you have left. And how you can't assume they can't bad mouth you in employment verifications as I found it it's perfectly legal in my state specifically