I have been used as a reference and I have called to talk to references – at times it can be awkward.  I am extremely careful with what I say when I am the reference as I sense legal danger everywhere.  When I am calling a reference, I truly enjoy the people who just roll and I only have to direct them a bit.

Now our local paper runs this short Q&A article about a liability waiver.  I have never encountered such a document:

Q: One company I interviewed with asked me to sign a waiver saying my former supervisor would not be liable for anything he said about me. Is that legal?

A: Yes, the waiver is legal. But with or without the waiver, your former supervisor is free to talk about you and your performance. “Legally, an ex-employer or representative of an ex-employer can say anything about the employee as long as it’s truthful and isn’t confidential, like medication information,” said Bill Egan, an employment attorney at Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly in Minneapolis who advises companies. “Nothing prohibits them from providing truthful information about a former employee.”

Despite this fact, many references are still reluctant to speak openly about a former employee.  Over time, you learn to hear the things they don’t say.  In the end, that becomes the basis for learning the most information on the call.  Perhaps it doesn’t have to be that way?

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This abcnews.com article will tweak every Utilitarian out there (my editing):

The federal government has 2.6 million civilian workers, making it the nation’s largest employer. But, it turns out a growing number of these workers are not working.

Coburn commissioned the report “Missing in Action: AWOL in the Federal Government,” which tracked the number of absent workers without leave, AWOL workers, across 18 government agencies from 2001 to 2007.

It found that federal workers missed nearly 20 million hours of work in the last six years, not including vacation time or sick leave. On average, 2.8 million hours of work are lost per year because of AWOL absences.

Can you imagine this trend in a private-sector business?  Me either.  Then comes this howler:

The union that represents many federal employees doesn’t blame its workers, but rather the Bush administration.

“To me it’s a scathing indictment of the Bush administration, their total incompetence and mismanagement and disdain for government and running government,” said Mark Roth, general counsel of the American Federation of Government Employees/AFL-CIO. “Apparently, they are so asleep at the wheel that they’re letting people go for months without any consequences.”

Right.

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