reference dilema

minnie_mouse

Hey guys,
have a bit of a problem if anyone has and advice would be great.
Ive just got fired from my job, basicaly i kept making mistakes costing the company money (not a huge amount of money!) and i was bad talking to customers. Im a shy person sometimes i cant get the words out. The boss said he coundt give me a written reference as the company does not do that. but he said if anyone rings hed give them a reference.
Im now thinking if i apply for jobs theyll want to know why i left and if they ring up looking for a reference god knows what the manager will say to them?

anyone have any idea what to do

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

lol - at least you are honest in why you were fired!

basically, that reference is going to be a dude that will torpedo any job a future employer might offer you.

i would suggest two things:

1. post in the "legal issues" forum a hypothetical situation (you can only post hypothetical situations in the legal issues forum) of "say you are fired from a job and a boss gives a bad reference to your prospective employer over the phone; do you have any legal protection?" This might serve as protection against a bad reference given from your old boss, or, at least, the possibility of taking him to court for giving an unfair reference.

2. Maybe take another job in the meantime, where they are desperate for employees, and, thus, unlikely to seek a reference. You can then use the reference from this for future proper job applications. You could take a college course over the time you are working in the new job and use that as the reason for why you decided to change jobs in future interviews.

LundiMardi

to be honest, the last few jobs i have got never checked any references.

minnie_mouse

im worried if i go for a job and the reason i give will be different to what boss says, god knows what he,d say. i heard what ur saying goin gor job there desperate for people might be good idea too

TheNog

i thought ur employer had to give u a basic reference stating when u started and finished?

i used to work with alot of my friends and they weren't the ideal employees if u get what i mean. so when they left the job and put down my name as a reference. i was only a supervisor but they told prospective employers
i was a manager. it worked a treat for all of them.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Employers know that they are open to serious legal cases if they give a bad reference, no matter how justified the bad reference is. So, instead, the badness of your performance is judged by the lack of praise in the reference.

A friend of mine told me about the reference his friend got from his boss when he left work:

"John Smith worked here from Sep 2003 to Mar 2005.

Yours Sincerely,

The Manager"