Ex-Best Buy manager Michael Oliveri, may “suck,” but he’s pretty darn clever. After he was fired from Best Buy he applied with Circuit City and Target, but became suspicious when job offers from those companies were abruptly terminated.
Suspecting that Best Buy might be interfering, Oliveri created an email account in the name of a Target employee and contacted Best Buy for a reference. In his lawsuit, Oliveri alleges that Ann McCafferty, a human resources manager at Best Buy, responded:
“I will give you the skinny on him but you can’t say you got any info from best Buy or we can be sued. Just don’t hire him and say you went with a better candidate.
“He was hired as GM and demoted after 12 months or so because he sucked. He is desperate for a job because supposedly his wife left him because he has no job. I would not touch him.
“Again, do not forward this email to anybody or say where you heard the info from because we were not allowed to give this info out, but I would hate you to get stuck with this guy!”
The Philadelphia Inquirer says it’s against New Jersey law to interfere “with a prospective employment relationship.” Best Buy says it is investigating.
Ex-manager sues Best Buy over email [Philadelphia Inquirer] (Thanks, Joshua!)
(Photo:amanjo)
More From Consumerist
-
Best Buy Changing Its Return Policy From 30 Days To 15 Days
-
How To Lose A Sale Through Laziness And Obnoxiousness
-
Best Buy Needs Your Personal Info To Sell An XM Radio Receiver, Can’t Tell You Why
-
Wait, Best Buy Replacement Plans Don’t Fix Or Replace Discontinued Gadgets?
-
No One At Best Buy Actually Wants To Sell Me An Xbox
I hate references. I left a job because the company was bought about six months after I started working there, and I left because the new manager would lie to customers (and employees) whenever she felt like it. I know she’s tried to sabotage one job I applied for- the manager was out of town when they called for the reference, and when the employee who answered told her about it, her reply was “Make up some bad stuff about him, I’m made at him.”
(This was when I was still working for her. I totally don’t understand why, if she was mad at me, she’d want me to stay employed with her company, she never made sense.)
But, on the flip side, I’ve always been told it’s a bad thing to say “No, don’t call for a reference.” So, I don’t know. Whatever.
Yeah, I mean, on one hand, I respect the right of the employer to give a bad reference if it is deserved.
But, on the other hand, in the job search, one mediocre reference will effectively take you out of the running for a job. Putting this much power into the hands of a petty a-hole with an ax to grind makes me extremely leery.
@ARP: Good idea, but the only problem with that is that HR departments in larger companies often have one person handling references and they may not have ever met someone. I worked as an HR Assistant for a 4,500-employee company and when prospective employers would call, the HR secretary would transfer the person to me and I’d give dates, titles, and salaries. I did this starting my very first day of work, so I’d have no way of knowing if someone was a good hire or a total nutcase. So, my “stick to the facts” approach wasn’t because there was something to be read between the lines, but because I really could not give any sort of reference.
Everyone is smart today right? We all know the rules:
A1: Bob did work for us, but we can’t tell you anymore than that.
A2: Bob was a great employee, we miss him.
Clearly, A1 means that Bob sucked, don’t hire him. Nothing bad was said; more importantly, nothing good was said either. Message understood.
The only thing a former employer is allowed to say is to verify dates of employment. That’s the law.
See, this is a story that i could stand to see sensationalized in the media.
Next on Total Access: New Jersey, we interviewed Best Buy employees about Michael Oliveri… See what they have to say!!
Anon BB Emp 1: Yea man, he was a total douche…
Anon BB Emp 2: This one time, he gave me a candy bar, which was cool, but then i found out it was 2 years old and past its due date
Anon BB Emp 3: I didn’t really know him, but I said hi to him once, and he said “not so good, but not dead.” … now that i think about it, he does suck.
SHOCKING FOOTAGE, etc.
Interesting. I would interpret “interfer[ing] with a prospective employment relationship” as offering unsolicited advice not to hire someone or otherwise doing something that is not a typical part of the employment process (gathering references).
So the guy sucks yet a high ranking Best Buy tool provides sensitive data to someone posing as a Target employee…
Real smart, Best Buy! You may not suck as bad as this guy, but you sure are far more stupid than he is!
@snoop-blog:
snoopblog stop posting comments in these stories with nothing but pure url referencing back to the story, its annoying and really unnecessary. You have done this more than once on a few different articles and its nothing but disruptive.
@Ben Popken: Actually my girlfriend tells me I could be wrong. So you can give feedback. But I’m pretty sure saying “he sucked” isn’t kosher.
@Brine: I love that strategy. One I heard or read somewhere, if you are the person calling for a reference, is to say something like, “I am thinking of hiring so-and-so and I would like your candid comments. However, if you do not have anything good to say, feel free to simply hang up.”
@Ben Popken:
Its pretty unethical to reply to a employee asking for professional reference comments regarding someone wanting to work at that said workplace, that stuff doesnt float.