He was quiet a long moment, then said, “I didn’t write that note.” I asked him what he meant, and he told me the note had been attached to my personnel file after his departure, using his name without his knowledge. He said he had never complained about my performance and had actually recommended me for a promotion the year before. Then he told me something that made my stomach drop: the note described an incident that supposedly happened during his final week, when he had already been on leave. I asked who had access to his account after he left, and he said only one person had been given temporary access. It was the same director who had eliminated our department.
I contacted the recruiter again and explained what I’d learned, then gave her permission to speak directly with my former supervisor. She called me the next morning and said the reference issue had been completely cleared up. My supervisor had confirmed that he never wrote anything negative about me and had never been asked to provide a reference after leaving. Then the recruiter told me she had received another message from my former company warning her that I was “not eligible for rehire.” I had never been told that, and I had never been fired for misconduct or resigned under bad circumstances. My attorney requested my complete personnel file and discovered that the rehire restriction had been added three months after my termination.
The company initially claimed it was a routine administrative notation, but they couldn’t explain why it had been entered under my former supervisor’s credentials. The recruiter eventually offered me the job after verifying everything independently, and I accepted. Two weeks later, my attorney sent the company a formal demand asking them to correct every false statement in my file. They removed the reference note, deleted the rehire restriction, and issued a written correction to the recruiter. My former supervisor later told me he had suspected someone was trying to damage my reputation because I had refused to sign the original separation agreement. They hadn’t just eliminated my job—they had tried to make sure I couldn’t find another one.
