Workplace Nightmares·
THE DO NOT REHIRE LIST
A 15-year North Carolina employee is denied rehire after applying for a comeback, amid a director's claim of a do-not-rehire flag and HR's denial, raising retaliation questions.
Company mistake or a signal?
Be one of the first to vote.
A former employee in North Carolina got rejected for a job they had already done for 15 years, and then was told the company had them on a "do not rehire" list.
The poster had spent a decade and a half at the company before leaving after giving four weeks' notice. By their account, they thought they left on good terms. So when a position opened up, they applied to come back.
The answer came back as a flat denial.
Not wanting to let it sit there, the poster contacted the director. That was the same director they had worked with for all 15 years before leaving, and the person they would have reported to if rehired. The response was immediate and blunt: the company had the poster on a "do not rehire" list.
That raised a simple question. If there was really a "do not rehire" flag on the file, where had it come from?
The poster went straight to HR.
HR's answer cut against the director's claim. They told the poster, in so many words, "I was not on a 'do not rehire' list."
Now the story had split in two. The director had said the company wouldn't bring the poster back because of a "do not rehire" list. HR said there was no such listing at all. The poster concluded that the director had denied the application and lied about the reason.
What makes the situation so sharp is the setup: this wasn't a stranger cold-applying to a new workplace. It was someone with 15 years in the building, someone who had given notice before leaving, someone who had expected that history to count for something. Instead, the application was denied, then attributed to a blacklist that HR later denied existed.
The poster is now left asking one final question: "Does this imply any sort of retaliation?"