Dear Editor,
VOUCHING
I can’t speak for everyone, of course, but there have been many times I’ve been asked to “VOUCH” for someone, or to give a recommendation, usually for a job. I take vouching for someone very seriously, for the simple reason that I’m telling the employer (usually a friend) that this person will not misbehave, will not act in an unethical manner, and will be a trustworthy hire. MY OWN reputation is on the line. If I vouch for someone, and they turn out to be a thief or a deadbeat, the employer (my friend, usually) will feel betrayed, because they trusted my judgment. They won’t make that mistake again, and I will be humiliated, were the person I vouched for turn out to be a bad actor. I will be revealed as having BAD JUDGMENT. I can no longer be trusted. I give my honest evaluation to anyone thinking of giving trust and responsibility to someone I know, often someone I’ve actually hired or worked with myself in the past. If that person showed me any poor work habits or any character flaws, I feel obligated to pass that on. Was the person chronically late? Did they speak inappropriately to customers, or to co-workers? Were they self-starters, and take responsibility for completing tasks? Did they acknowledge mistakes? Could you trust their word? These things are vital for an employer to know about a potential hire. An employer should know these things before they hire someone to represent their business, because your employees DO represent YOU, as the owner, for better or worse. If you know someone to be a liar, you cannot recommend them for ANY job, without a stark warning to the potential employer. If you know someone to speak abusively, to belittle others, or to actually be a bully, you would recommend to any friend or potential employer to PASS on hiring such a person. What if the person you’re being asked to vouch for has a criminal record? What if they’ve been found liable for sexual abuse? What if they have a long record of defrauding people for their own profit? What if they drove a string of their own business ventures into the ground, bankrupt? To be sure, people deserve a second chance, BUT ONLY if they have shown they recognize their past bad behavior, and have worked hard to turn their lives around. If you’re going to have to hire, say, a non-smoker, can you hire the guy or gal who is actively smoking a cigarette while being interviewed? That would be insane, especially if they were trying to convince you that they had QUIT, while you can see with your own eyes that they are lying! We Americans still get to vote, and to recommend individuals for jobs, often jobs of great responsibility. We in essence VOUCH for the people we vote for. We need to be careful, because OUR OWN reputations are on the line. If you know a candidate has severe character flaws, and vote for them anyway, you betray the nation as clearly as you would betray a friend by recommending they hire someone who ends up ripping them off, lying to them, and/or defrauding them. The employer (in this case, a friend) who hired the person you vouched for and got burned, would be justified in thinking you APPROVED of all that person’s bad behavior, you considered it all OK, and were cool with the bad actor victimizing his new employer, and perhaps destroying his business. I, personally, couldn’t live with that.
