Employment References

Hi. I'm wondering if anyone has advice on employment references. I don't have much of a network to request from. I worked for the same company for quite a while, but left after a particularly bad period which included a couple of relationships with people in the office going horridly wrong. Total disaster. My work was always rated good to really good on reviews, but given the inter-personal stuff and the trouble it caused, there's no way I would have the courage to even ask for a reference. So that's out. This was a couple of years ago. I have since finished a masters degree and again the tangible result was pretty good, upper II, but the interaction with classmates, not so good. Nothing inappropriate, just really awkward. Most of the class was in their early 20s. I was older than most of them by 15 years and it made me really uncomfortable. I was quiet in class and kind of a pain to work with on the group project. I guess I'm ok about asking my tutors for a reference but I'm not so sure how they'd rate me, I guess it would depend what questions they were asked. Basically, I hate asking for references. It's so difficult for me to come up with someone who doesn't have a reason to find me questionable (interaction-wise) and is also in a position to give a reference. My background is: diagnosed BPD in 2006, on a really small dose of Seroquel at bedtime (for sleep). I'm also socially reluctant and get overwhelmed very easily. Thanks.

What about asking for written references? Then you don't have to worry about putting down a number and then having them talk about your inter-personal skill level without you knowing.

Tricky one.....

If you are explaining when you apply for work that you have BPD, and are able to explain that the social awkwardness etc is a part of the condition, and that you're working on improving that, then they shouldn't be able to discriminate against you because of your illness.....technically.

But I have no idea how that actually works out in the real world as I haven't worked properly since 2006.

I do have one letter of reference written by a volunteer supervisor a couple of years ago. It's been really nice and worry-free (helped me get into grad school), so maybe I should try to get a little collection going. Another big advantage here would be cutting out the part about ringing the referee to 'warn' them about the upcoming reference check (which I believe is considered good practice?). So uncomfortable, hi, this is so and so, remember me? I HATE telephoning people under most circumstances anyway. I don't even like answering the phone really. On the downside, I always think people are going to be suspicious of my pre-existing reference, as they normally ask for phone numbers and I assume most people have no problem handing them right over.

I have never tried to explain about having BPD, even when asked about medical conditions that could negatively affect work. The furthest I've gone is to say that I take sleeping medication and wouldn't be able to do very early mornings on a regular basis. (A job where I had to be in the office for 8:00 every day would be out of the question unless I lived pretty much next door.) Does anyone have any experience discussing BPD with a potential/new employer? How did it work out for you? How did you feel about your supervisor knowing?

None of my previous employers know about the BPD. I wasn't diagnosed and though I was sure I had it, didn't want to be telling people when there was no need to.

However, in my last job, my boss did end up finding out that I had anxiety and PTSD. It didn't work well for me at all. She tried to help me out in the first few weeks of finding out (I was attacked while working there, so had massive flare-ups of pretty much everything) but then started telling me to get over it, basically.

Employers are slowly getting better at being accepting and understanding of mental illness, but having been burned I'm not one to trust again.

Letters of reference, rather then phone numbers, are just as acceptable. There should be no problem with giving a potential employer a couple letters rather then a couple phone numbers.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience, Pheonix. That was sort of my intuition of how things would go, initial support and trying to understand, but then a let's get on with things attitude when it all starts to get inconvenient. I probably wouldn't say anything up front at this point. I'm just hoping to eventually find my niche. I think I could do really well in certain jobs, with certain types of co-workers, part-time hours preferably, yk? But, I'm slowly accepting that taking "any job just for now", is not an option for me. Just makes everything worse. It's difficult to explain to people without sounding a bit of a princess. Not that most people enquire, just me mostly, speculating on what people are thinking.

I can understand that. I'm not entirely sure how to deal with the subject of mental health and work myself yet, but it makes sense that you find a job where you can recover actively and that helps you get healthy in the long term, not one that is just going to make things worse.

I agree with Pheonix about the written references - you could even write to/email people to ask for them, which would cut out the phonecalls!