Brainless Stupidity in Corporate America reaches a new low with Background Check
Pushing the boundaries again to rip away our dignity by ignoring our most basic rights.
Record-breaking stupidity achieved in corporate America with a single thoughtless, illegal act.
Of all my multi-decades of experience dealing with corporate America, what I experienced yesterday above all other experiences shows the extreme hubris, the arrogance, of those willfully ignorant of reality, who, beyond all reason and common sense, steadfastly defend the most idiotic decisions they’ve made without allowing anyone to question.
Is using your God-given brain while employed in corporate America a crime? Considering what happened to me yesterday, it must be.
What bee, you may ask, flew into my bonnet to make me so grumpy and harshly critical of those we people among us who we already know are assholes? Good question. I didn’t have an interview.
Now, before you dismiss me as just singularly bitter for my own circumstance, you may want to read on so that you understand the details of how this not-so-special event did not happen and how those pesky little details which led to me not being interviewed will at some point in the not-too-distant future affect you.
I was informed by a recruiter that a potential employer was impressed enough by my resume that they wanted to schedule a phone interview. I accepted.
Before that interview happened, the employer decided to run a background check.
Google states the first problem with this succinctly:
Can someone run a background check without my permission?
You must always obtain written consent before doing any kind of criminal background check on a prospective employee. It is illegal to single out a particular candidate for a background check, so it is always best to perform a background check only after a job offer has been presented.
In their haste to move the process along, the company broke federal law. There is no argument they could make to excuse that fact. They simply did not obtain my written permission.
Once again my rights have been violated.
I don’t know how many times my rights have been trampled upon by corporate America. I’ve lost count.
I could go through the motions of making an effort to report them to someone somewhere, but what’s the point?
I’ve already been shown repeatedly over the course of the last few decades that no one gives a shit.
In fact, if I complain too much or too long, it could come back to hurt me, my current employment, and my reputation. The thugs of corporate America will use bullying intimidating tactics to silence me if I so much as think of filing a complaint.
The enablers of this country will tacitly support these bullying tactics, their personalities being the type that always submits to power no matter the cost. They are conflict-avoidant and force others to be the same way.
Standing up for myself and my rights would be seen as rebellious and confrontational.
Not to mention that I could lose my current job if my employer decides that I am not loyal enough.
Even writing this much here under a pseudonym is highly risky.
This is one way Americans have decided that they don’t deserve to have their basic rights acknowledged, tossing them in the trash. They are obedient without question to their powerful corporate masters readily handing them more power than a system already skewed in their favor against workers gives our corporations.
The second problem is they used information obtained in a less than forthright way to make a decision regarding employment. Another no-no.
The third problem is they denied me the chance to explain any “inconsistencies” found in that record before canceling the interview.
These first three problems, despite being completely unethical and criminal, are now accepted as the way we do business in America.
It is the fourth and fifth problems with this situation that clearly show the arrogance and outright stupidity of their action and subsequent decision.
Fourth, they went back 20 years of history to find a reason, any reason, to cancel the interview.
They didn’t find any issues in the last 10 years of my employment, so they looked back an additional 10 years.
Since their regular background check wasn’t enough to dig up the dirt they desired, they resorted to taking an action that should be abhorrent in any country that thinks of itself as a free nation.
Half the country hasn’t even been alive long enough to have a 20-year work history. How abusive and absurdly vindictive is a company that feels it must dig through a person’s entire life, going back 20 years to find a minor inconsistency to deny a person employment?
How histrionic (i.e., prone to irrational and melodramatic outbursts beyond what is reasonable for a situation) and irrational is a company that upon finding the single “inconsistency” that they hunted down like a wanted fugitive reacts by immediately canceling an interview without allowing the potential employee under consideration any rebuttal?
Google also has something to say about this incursion into my ancient history:
In the state of Texas, background checks generated by an employer can go back seven years into an applicant’s criminal and personal history.
And this:
How Far Back do Employment Background Checks go in California? In California. . . seven years.
Not only is this employer irrationally histrionic and reactionary beyond reason, logic, and common sense, they have broken federal law a second time through this single action.
How upset would you be if this happened to you? Don’t worry. It will.
Employers encroaching on the rights of their employees, or potential employees is a never-ending battle. They will not cease these attacks attempting to strip us of our rights until we have forfeited ALL our rights.
It’s in their nature. It’s in their corporate DNA. They cannot stop themselves from attacking our most basic rights to exist with any amount of dignity and freedom as long as they see us, their employees, as the enemy.
Now you may just be fascist enough, just disdainful and heartless enough in your beliefs to casually dismiss these four transgressions, these incursions into my life, breaking the law wantonly without any regard for me as a person, and by extension, the rights of all workers in this country as nothing to complain about. A country, which by the way, ranks dead last among all developed nations for worker’s rights.
Even if that is all fine and dandy with you as you worship at the feet of your infallible false corporate gods, the fifth problem with their action could be enough to sway even you, self-flagellator, that perhaps in their unquestionable arrogant all-knowing superiority, they went a step too far.
The fifth problem is that they looked for an employer they expected to be there but was not. The reason the employer In question was not there?
The company changed its name in 2016!
I was employed by the company in question for a 6 year period (1998–2003) over 15 years ago. Naturally, the original name of the company was listed on my background report. The name they were looking for, a name the company didn’t use until 2016, was, to their surprise, NOT THERE!
It takes a special kind of stupid to demand that someone work for an employer that did not yet exist at the time.
Yes, I listed both iterations of the company on my resume. I did so to avoid such complications. I put the company’s current name followed by their former name clearly indicating that I was aware that the company had undergone a name change more than 10 years after my employment there.
Apparently, this explanation did not appease them, according to the recruiter who was acting as an intermediary. Being as diplomatic as humanly possible so as to not upset her client, she tried to tell me that this particular company is “exceptionally strict” when it comes to “inconsistencies” in their background checks.
There comes a time, America, when enough is enough!
This abuse of power and the reason for the company to withdraw their invitation to interview with them, a company that must be one of the most idiotic companies on the Earth, is beyond my ability to accept as “exceptionally strict with inconsistencies.”
Those in charge of conducting the interviews for the open positions have clearly put their incompetence and stubborn self-absorbed arrogance on display for all the world to see. For the sake of what little sanity and common sense remain in corporate America, I ought to be able to elevate my complaint regarding this decision to someone who still uses their brain.
There must be someone besides me who can see this for what it is: complete incompetence reinforcing brainless insanity.
If there was ever a time and a place to call out a company for going too far in their “strict enforcement” of zero tolerance for “inconsistencies” on a background check, this is it. The company is clearly on the wrong side of right.
An insulting slap in the face with no ability to address my grievance.
I’m sick and tired of attempting to contact lawyers who don’t respond. I also know that the few lawyers who do respond, if any, will charge me a $10,000 retainer fee.
In America, you only have the rights that you can afford to defend. For most of us, that means no rights.
I demand justice!
I demand sanity!
I demand that someone with a brain with the power to do something about this take action!
This is pushing an already broken system to an extreme that I cannot accept.
