People suck.

I started this as a comment on cmoth's blog, but the comment took on a life of its own. In short, I was interested by the idea that too many people turn a minor inconvenience into a major headache as a result of their expecting the situation to fix itself. When life gives some people lemons, they yell and scream at the lemons until the lemons turn moldy and smell gross and attract fruit flies. Fuck lemonade - just throw the lemons in the garbage and move on.

There are many people out there who hate what I do for a living, and I'm frequently seen as the bad guy: I prevent people from getting jobs. My company does all kinds of background checks, from criminal backgrounds to verifying work history and credit reporting.

My office gets calls from people all the time who are furious because of the dirt we dug up on them. But in most cases their dishonesty was the reason they didn't get the job. Many companies would rather hire an honest reformed criminal than a liar.

And here's what really bugs me- they state that they've already quit their other job. They thought they could beat the background check, I guess. They scream and threaten lawsuits, and call us bad people for doing what we do (ironically, every "bad person" in my office passed a pretty robust background check). They had a job, thought they found a better job, lied about their past, and now they have no job.

Look, I'm sympathetic. I've written about this in the past. I don't always agree with the hiring decision however it's our job to find out everything. But seriously, I'm not remotely sympathetic to the people who try to hide their past or their lack of work experience by simply lying about it. I've been turned down for jobs because of a lack of experience, and I feel much better about that than if I were to go through the entire hiring process based on a bunch of lies and then get shitcanned in my first week when the employer finds out the truth.

The moral of the story? No, it's not "be honest." It's a brutally competitive job market out there so do what you feel you have to do. But if you get caught, and here's the moral of the story, please don't call me and scream in my ear. I have a headache.