Burning bridges at work can come back around in unexpected ways.

When one employee who had moved to a competitor was asked to weigh in on a former coworker applying for a role, the name immediately brought back some unpleasant memories.

And in the end, his past misdeeds ended up costing him the job.

Keep reading for the full story!

No Job For You

I left the company that I had worked for for over a decade last year for a better position at a competitor.

A few months after I left, I was asked about an analyst who I’d only briefly interacted with but had a little history with.

He claimed he was laid off and was looking for a new job.

My former employer was going through a lot of issues with employee turnover, so I thought it was unlikely he was laid off and more likely he was fired.

This analyst wasn’t a good guy, though.

This analyst was a jerk of the highest level.

A few years prior, I was helping roll out a process improvement that I had designed and implemented on one of the teams that I had previously worked on.

As a coworker, he was extremely difficult to work with.

When his boss, my colleague, got done explaining the new procedure to their team, this guy spoke up and said this was a stupid idea.

He flat out refused to follow the new process improvement.

He began to hold up the entire process.

I felt very insulted, and I spoke up to explain how implementing this change would benefit the team, save us time, etc.

Everyone was on board except him.

This analyst eventually moved into another position at my old company.

I was speaking to his former manager after he switched teams, and he said he was dumb as a brick. Those were his exact words.

A couple subsequent interactions with this analyst proved his old manager right.

So he was able to use these insights to impact the hiring decision.

In my feedback to the hiring manager, I explained that this guy would not be a good fit and gave my reasons.

He was not hired.

Sounds like there was plenty of proof to back this up.

What did Reddit think?

This user may just have to steal this colorful expression.

This commenter offers a few more phrases.

When you’re told someone is a troublemaker, it pays to listen.

In the working world, reputations travel faster than résumés.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.