I am finding myself more and more depressed these days. I have been out of work since August. I have applied at a lot of different places and with about
6-7 temp. agencies. I have gotten 2 assignments. One for a day and one for 4 hours. I realize part of it is because alot of jobs want computer skills such as Word, Excel, ect which I have no experience. I have never had to use any of those programs except very basic Word. I am enrolled in a computer class in the spring semester at the comm. college. I also know there are jobs I can do thru these agencies and the jobs I have applied at. My problem? I believe my former employer is giving negative references. I get good reviews from my other references. I lost my job because my supervisor micromanged. She watched every teeny tiny thing I did. I never made any error that was "life threatening". They were just little ones that go on every day in every office. Just one example, I was filing back and the next morning someone was looking for a file and both my supervisor and I looked in all drawers for misfiling. I found it. I had left it on top of the file cabinet. She got very upset because that was wasting everyones time as she asked people to check on their desks for the file. My best friend said that they have to look on their desks all the time for files but noone loses their job over it. Now, this one gets me. We, in my department were told we had to be team players. Well, one day mid morning I was given a very fat file to make 2 copies of. It was decided that I would make one copy and then do the second. I had to do something at certain times and I asked someone else to do it for me so I did not have to stop. Well, it took me the rest of the day, most of the next and then on Friday I just had to double check them. My supervisor told me I took too long to get the file done which caused a delay in one of the files being shipped. I was never told of any deadline and my supervisor did agree to that. She said in the future if I have to copy something I was NOT to expect any of my co-workers to do any of my other duties. You know, there are a few things that are done better with no interruptions. I did another copy job for this other supervisor (the one I had to copy the file for) which was very simple and very quick but I had to make like 20 copes of like booklet and staple it right where she showed me to. I did that. On a couple of them the staple did not go thru so I pulled it out and restapled (after that I realized the copier had a stapler to do the work). Well she got very upset at the few I had to restaple and said it was very unprofessional. My super agreed (they are best friends) and said we did not want to lose any large accounts because of the tiny staple holes. I wanted to say to her, "do you think I am that stupid to believe we would lose any accts?" Even my dad said the same thing. These are the type of things. Anyway, back to the main topic. I have found out that a former employer can say anything they want as long as it is true and not medical related. I did some research on reference checking and found that 85% of employers ignor their legal depts and spill their guts, and that you can have all good reviews but one bad one can ruin you. I do not know what to say when potential employers ask why I was let go. The thing is, I have no idea what information they will say. I just feel my self sinking and that there is no hope. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
chelsi
Post Edited (hw_chelsi) : 12/3/2005 10:32:00 AM (GMT-7)