worked 5 years at a small business as the sole employee. burnt out on some severe emotional/verbal abuse and just a bevy of other issues. decided to move across the country to open my own business in the same industry, was upfront about my plans and got fired for violating my “non-compete” (spoiler, i never signed one) which was great because i got to file for unemployment and get my llc filed and start operations.
things are slow, as the business is entirely online and we’re trying to grow organically which i expected and am fine with. started looking for a job to keep me busy and to stay on top of bills and expenses. got a lot of really bad offers well below my salary expectations – went on one interview and laid out what i wanted to make and they countered at a dollar shy per hour. whatever, i accepted. it was painless.
they sent me a form to sign to accept and okay a background check plus gave instructions for a drug screening which i took care of as soon as i could. this was LAST monday. the background check company requested W2’s from my last job, so I sent the most recent and oldest I had.
then they asked for a copy of my HS diploma because they couldn’t verify it? i replied that i don’t have it, believe it or not it’s not hanging above my desk in the study.
hadn’t heard anything in 4 business days so I reached out to the hiring manager who said there was an issue with my W2’s – i’ve only got W2’s going back to ‘19 from my previous job because they were paying me under the table the first year and a half or so (these folks paid me cash, put me on payroll and then took me OFF payroll and resumed paying cash before finally transitioning to legitimately paying me after 1.5yrs) so I explained that and the hiring manager asked if I could have someone from the company verify and I said no, not really, these people fired and blackballed me so I wouldn’t trust them to talk to a prospective employer. Finally I offered to send photos from previous employers instagram referring to me as the manager as far back as ‘17 and she kind of hemmed and hawed and asked me to send them over so I did. since then it’s been radio silence. wtf do I do? is this standard operating procedure by any measure?