I am a woman in tech. I need an excuse to not let this potentially new employer contact my old manager. They asked specifically for my old manager for reference. The title says it all, and this old manager is the reason why I left. This old manager expected me to be his personal girlie cheerleader & made sexual advances, I had to work entirely on my own and was constantly fighting with this manager for the bare minimum respect. And there is NO HR department at this place either, HR department was on their side if anything (just a single woman who enjoyed the culture, ugh, that was the entire HR department).
Also, I don’t have any other managers they can speak with. I am a consultant and my last job was my first role outside of consulting. And my consulting gigs were local businesses and hard to get ahold of if you’re a recruiter, also from years ago. I was able to gave them other contacts at the same company and from university, but they came back specifically asking for the manager. :/
What is a reasonable excuse?