A nasty reference from an ex manager has ruined dream job

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Posting in AIBU for traffic

Here’s the situation. My 19 year old was juggling 2 jobs. His main job was full-time in a restaurant. He also took on a secondary bar job. He was always clear with the bar job that the restaurant was his main job and that he could only work on days he was off at the restaurant. It was agreed he’d let them know each week the days he wasn’t at the restaurant. They were fine with this.

However then the bar manager starts putting him on days where he’s said he can’t work, and insists he has to come in. He tried his absolute hardest not to let anybody down but it was impossible. This caused many nightmares at work, and he chose to prioritise his main job and handed his notice in at the bar. During his notice there was one shift that clashed with the restaurant shift. He let the manager know that he just couldn’t do it and that he was going to the restaurant instead, and told the bar manager he’d have to finish at the bar immediately. He was only there a month and did his job fine. It was also a job on a ‘casual’ basis without even a proper contract, and it was 0 hours. IMO it works both ways, if you won’t even offer proper hours or a contract you can’t expect the employee to commit and prioritise you when they have another contracted job.

He recently applied for a luxury hotel front desk agent job abroad, it was a brilliant opportunity with great pay, an amazing bonus scheme, training, accommodation, visa support, and career progression. They offered him the job. They wanted 2 employment references from 2 different jobs. As the bar and restaurant job are the only jobs he’s had, he had to list the bar down as one of the references. He thought that because he did the actual job well they’d be fine to just list a brief letter confirming he did indeed work there and performed his duties on the job. He approached them first to ask them to do the reference and they agreed. It never occurred to him that they’d do this to him.

The hotel has rescinded his job offer after speaking to the bar. The bar has told the hotel that he just buggered off without working notice, and so the hotel have decided he is unreliable. This is despite a glowing review from his other job. DS is absolutely devastated. He has tried explaining the situation to the hotel but they don’t want to know. The bar manager was well aware what a huge opportunity this was to DS, as when DS went to ask them for the reference he told them all about it. This one bloke in his 50s made a conscious decision to ruin what he knew was an amazing opportunity for a young lad that literally could have changed the course of his life. I find it unimaginably cruel. There literally wasn’t a contract at the bar job, he had no obligation to work notice for them. He does not deserve this. He truly is gutted, it was a job in his dream sector (he’d like to get into the hotel industry) in his dream country.

Is there anything he can do? With the other job being abroad I feel it makes going to any legal/tribunal thing more difficult.

OP I have worked in hotels and hospitality internationally and in the UK from FOH positions to senior management levels.

This opportunity is most likely gone now. Positions in the good hotels don't take too long to fill and often there are hundreds of applicants. I'm sure your DS was a fantastic candidate but even if they only rescinded the offer yesterday, they've probably already offered it to someone else who has probably accepted so I doubt very much you'll have any luck pushing forward with this job now.

Also, many, many, many hospitality jobs boast about their benefits but they either aren't as good as they seem on paper or are much more difficult to access. For example, I was a senior manager in a very well know, internationally recognised hotel chain who offered the world on paper. One of the perks was discounted vouchers towards retail stores in the UK. I was supposed to have access to my benefits platform from 2 weeks my start date. 8 months later I still couldn't get access and since it was an international hotel chain, trying to escalate things was a nightmare as you just kept getting passed from pillar to post.
I know that's only a small example but this voucher scheme was one of the big benefits they used to attract staff (could literally save £100's off certain items, like £500 TV's for £300 etc).

The benefits are often very hard to actually get at and often get removed as a staff perk quite randomly (ie free hotel stays in any country!)

Also with regards to bonuses, these are often unattainable or you're relying on several departments to help you reach the goals which makes things even more difficult.

And training schemes are often code for 'we'll throw you into each department and expect you to pick it up really quickly even if you've never used that particular software before, then we'll make you cover the front desk, work DM shifts, jump on night shifts, do housekeeping and run an event all within 48 hours at no extra pay'.

I know this sounds like I'm just shitting on hospitality, and in a way I am, I just want you (and your son) to see that in my experience, it's never as good as they make it sound, so thinking he was going to land his dream job at 19 is incredibly optimistic and quite unrealistic.

I loved working in hospitality (inspite of all the above) so if he has an interest in it, he needs to keep trying and applying elsewhere. But he needs to be realistic and stop viewing this one hotel and the golden egg it probably wouldn't have been

Ok then I would definitely follow up with the hotel. It's possible HR just did an automatic rejection, it's worth following up with the people he interviewed with to see if they can intercede.

He has nothing to be humiliated about but I would say a good antidote to humiliation is to be assertive, to stand up for yourself.

I worked in hospitality for ages and it's so important to stand up for yourself in this industry, it's good practice for him.

Honestly I’d find the name of the person who hired him and try and find his email address and email him explaining. He has nothing to lose.

Also, I will say that I had a boss who bullied me really badly. He would call me a slag because I wore makeup, once locked me in a cupboard when I was in there getting glassware because he apparently 'forgot', tried to fire me because I wouldn't swap the expensive wine for the cheap wine (he was literally pouring cheap wine into expensive bottles he pulled out the bottle bin), refused to get me uniform that fit because he said I was far too fat to be a size 12 in his opinion etc.

He wrote me a really shitty 'reference' and sent it to every hotel in the area when he found out I was looking to leave the hotel.

I threatened him with defamation of character and followed the guidance on ACAS. He soon rescinded his letter but the damage was done sadly. This is one of the reasons I no longer work in hospitality.

Very frustrating but a good life lesson, be careful who you ask for a reference because you give them the power to do something like this. It could be worth checking if there are grounds to take any action against the bar but whether that's worth it or not...

When I was 15 I got sacked by a similar sounding manager in a water park from a water park kiosk, he was such a small minded man on a power trip. I still see him working there when I visit my parents some 25 years later!

As others have said just omit the bar job in future, it never happened. It won't show up on any HR checks/searches unless he's applying for something like MI5. DBS checks just search for criminal convictions they're not checking whether you've declared a few shifts working in a bar.

If looking for a second referee school/college would probably be a better shout. No one would surely quibble a 19year old only having one previous employer.

The other potential takeaway is to remember that adults much older than him are perfectly capable of being jealous spiteful babies. I still remember the shock of learning this in my first job! So in future, he might want to be a bit more wary about what he tells people at work, even if they seem really friendly.

I'm sorry this has happened, take comfort in the fact this pathetic man will never have the sort of opportunities still waiting for your son.

I'm inclined to think that if the hotel aren't prepared to listen to your son's explanation and give him the chance to find another referee then they might not be that great to work for and he could have had a lucky escape.

This is why I hate 0 hours contracts and would never have anyone on them. A genuine 0 hours contract gives an employee the option to pick and choose from available shifts but in reality they're used to avoid giving staff any proper benefits and keep costs down.

When he next fills in an application he should state his reason for leaving the bar job and get his side of things in so to speak, if he absolutely has to put it down at all, personally, I wouldn't

@SleepyRich it may not be true in hospitality but for recent office jobs I have had to download tax statements from the government gateway which were checked against my employment record.

Your son needs to chalk it up to life experience and move on I'm afraid, being his mother you have obviously taken everything your son said as fact and the owner providing the reference has obviously given his. No doubt the actual truth will lie some where in the middle, so unless you have some factual hard facts and evidence forget truing to take it to a tribunal. Also getting his mother involved with make any other future employees run aile of they find out. Give him support but stay out of it.

I don’t think there is anything to be done here either, but in future he needs to say he only had one job. It was a shitty thing for the manager to do, and he must really have went to town for them to rescind the offer.

I do wonder though if your son was quite as clear as he is saying, especially if the manager kept asking, which indicates maybe your son was keen to please and possibly changed when he was available at the last minute.

either way it was a bad experience and I don’t think much can be done to rescue it now. I’m sorry

Long term, it's fine. He's learned from the experience. He can apply for a dream job with another top hotel company and next time put down just the restaurant as a reference, or do some babysitting locally for a family and have them, as a second ref.

If he really feels mistreated, he could write a very polite letter to the HR team of the hotel chain explaining the situation - that he had made clear the restaurant was his main job and gave dates he couldn't work. When the manager then assigned him clashing shifts he did the responsible thing and resigned, but the manager tried to insist he fulfil the shifts he had already said he wasn't available for. Unfortunately this led the manager to write the reference he did which DS strongly objects to as a misleading, libellous representation of his work ethic which has cost him his dream job offer, and he really hopes they will reconsider, in light of the glowing reference from his other employer which truly reflects his attitude to the industry.

Worth a shot.

I collect references and give any questionable feedback to the hiring manager so they make the final call.

In my experience, they are very conservative and risk averse. Anything which might indicate someone might not be a good fit or is in any way unreliable rings massive alarm bells.

Even if the accusations are inaccurate like in your DS’s case, the ex-employer will be seen as “having nothing to lose” by a lot of hiring managers. Obviously some are being petty, but there are those who are honest about a past employees poor conduct and it’s very hard to differentiate.

I had a similar situation recently and the candidate had offered to provide character references etc, but the hiring manager didn’t want to take the risk and withdrew the offer anyway.

I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s much to be done.

I would pursue this with ACAS.
He may be entitled to compensation.