Dear ventin you are lucky to find a job.
I was in a worse situation "How to deal with back stabbers" or dealong with back tstabbers on advice line. I finally was let go under whatever reason. Not to mention lack of professional responsibility or violating PMI code of conduct by my boss then. I am quite happy after I am no longer with this insurance company in NY metro area.

I am happy that it worked out on your terms. It is a great feeling. I am still walking around with some bad memories and anger.

I remember reading your first post and thought, wow, I hope things work out for that guy. I am glad to hear that they did. Best wishes to you in your new career. Bob's advice rocks!

Hope for change? That would be the one reason I would tell them. "I'd heard you were going to fire me. I know Fred was fired randomly." This isn't the same as ego-gratification. The only reason to keep your options open is if you want to go back to work there. [Bad idea]. The other apparent reason for keeping your yap shut is that maybe these folks would give you a good recommendation, but you don't trust them anyway so don't rely on that.
My ethical issue with keeping quiet is then I wonder how much of the problem is mine. Granted, I am not responsible for other's behavior, but I am responsible for letting them know exactly how it makes me feel. Words, not eye-rolls.
I argued with some college girls who said if they saw a child molested by an adult, they would remove the child from the situation but not report the adult. They didn't want to ruin his life.
My question is: "How responsible are you for the next child that got molested by the same person?"
I say speak up. Silence is always construed as consent and agreement.

Well done!

I was making a bet with myself that you were going to say you were looking for a position that was more of a challenge, and that you'd become "too comfortable".

Again, Kudos!

W12

Venting, you are to be commended for the way you handled this. It is really tempting to speak out, but that has to be done very carefully, and usually isn't of any value when faced with your management and HR. They just aren't going to be able to hear the truth, and it wind up reflecting unfavorably on you.

No, it isn't fair, but we have to deal with reality.

Mike M, silence is not always construed as consent and agreement. Far from it.

In this case, the problem he faces with giving a negative answer is not that he won't get a good reference, but that someone will decide to go from a neutral reference like "Yes, he worked here from this date to that date." to something really negative like "he's a complainer, trouble maker, and fossilized to top it off". Why should he take that risk?

There are some real differences between such a situation and the theoretical one you mention.

1. The reasoning - Why should I worry about the negative repercussions to someone who is willing to wreck someone else's life for self-gratification? Too much compassion for someone who does not deserve any compassion is actually a bad thing, as your example indicates. Self-protection, on the other hand, is legitimate (up to a point).

2. Level of risk. Especially in the US, where it's possible to report such things anonymously, there is no risk. Ticking off a former, or soon to be former, employer more than necessary does carry an element of risk.

3. The victims - By definition, the victims of child molestation are children who really can do little for themselves to get out of the situation, except depend on adults. This put an active responsibility on the adults around them. Employees, on the other hand, are generally autonomous adults who DO have options, even when the options are not great. Even if they cannot afford to just walk out, they can generally start looking for another job, or start upgrading whatever skills they need to be more employable. And, at the very, very worst, they CAN walk out.

4. Long tern effects - With the child molester, the only way to protect other kids is to report it, and there is a very good chance that the report WILL make a difference, hopefully immediately. In fact, most of the time it's the only way to protect the kid they say they would remove from the situation, because the only way to keep the molester permanently away from the victim is generally through reporting the molester. In the case of the job seeker, the long term effect for future victims is likely to be none, and the effect to him will be none - bad.

So, no, I see no ethical / moral imperative to speak up.

Now, if this were an institution with mentally incompetent residents, or residents not there of their own free will, who were being abused, things would be different. But, I would say that the course there would not be to speak up at the exit interview, but to report the problem.

Bob, while your advice has once again been proven right, I think you devalue the act of whistleblowing (assuming Venting was able to meet w/HR separately from his/her boss) when you say the only upside is "emotional gratification."

Taking a risk like this, foolish as it is, pretty much cuts to the essence of acting as a free person.

Whether saying the right thing to the wrong apparatchik gets you shipped to Siberia or gets you blacklisted, foreclosed, uninsured, and divorced, the act of saying it is 1) irrational (and some will opportunistically relish your
irrationality) and 2) courageous.

"Emotional gratification" is high-fiving after your team scores the go-ahead touchdown. Or distributing a policy memo to subordinates and pompously starting one of the paragraphs with a word like "furthermore," just to show 'em who's boss.

I was all set to tell my last employer why I was leaving thinking that it would have some sort of good effect for my remaining co-workers. Fortunately, before my exit interview, I had the eye-opening notion that nothing was going to improve anything between the boss and the remaining employees and that the best revenge was to leave with a smile. I still had my dignity - and a better job to boot!

This is the guy who posted the original and follow-up. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posted comments - I read them all. I was sorely tempted to tell them off (in a constructive manner), but I was and am convinced that nothing would have changed. This company had a history of management-by-whim and wasn't going to change just because I complained about it, or pointed out how destructive that was to the company.