Serious question--for some reason, I've always believed that previous employers tend to avoid saying anything negative about their former employees. Is this not the case?
This is very much the case. When employees/employers broadcast negative info about each other, both parties suffer. Obviously, the accused suffers because all this negative info about them is now public, but the accuser also suffers because they look like a jerk for publishing it. Who would want to work with a person/company that is known to talk crap about people they work with?
I think angvp is only publishing this because it's entirely anonymous -- he hasn't named the two employees in question or his company.
> but the accuser also suffers because they look
> like a jerk for publishing it
Or the accused now goes "well, I wasn't going to say anything, but here are all the things I didn't like about you."
Somewhat related, but this is one of the reasons for 5-star inflation in feedback systems like Airbnb.
I recently saw this exchange in a review:
Host: The guest kept the windows open with the A/C on full blast the whole time.
Guest: lol, you were spying on me? I wasn't going to say anything, but your place smelled like human feces.
Looks pretty bad for both parties and not something you want in your history, so my experience with Airbnb is that people give good ratings except for the worst of conditions. I think as far as Airbnb cares, it's working as intended. Everything looks peachy.
They don't usually trash former employees, but you can read between the line.
One time a reference given by the candidate for a senior post glossed over everything but focused on attendance. "He is a good guy. He is always on time for work and very punctual for meetings."
Well, after Guy #1 left the company I met a former colleague of him on other company, and she told me "why you didn't call us? we would advise you to not hire this guy!" so that's where my assumption came from, you're right, there are probably people that will hide the truth just to be diplomatic.
I think angvp is only publishing this because it's entirely anonymous -- he hasn't named the two employees in question or his company.