Letter of Recommendation

[Elenny]

An ex employee is asking me for a letter of recommendation. He is an old family friend whom we hired in late 2006 "as a favor" because he was down and out. His father and my father were business partners for many years, so my dad felt it was the least we could do.

He did a very good job in the sales department for about a year, but the last 6 months he was here his alcohol problem was getting the best of him. He was constantly late or absent, showed up drunk to work a few times, and was doing a mediocre job to say the least.

In April, after getting a complaint from a client that he showed up drunk to pick-up a check, I decided to fire him, but the very next day he left a voice mail message saying he had to leave town because of a family emergency and would not be coming back (I think he sensed he was getting fired).

Now he says he hasn't been able to find a job in Texas, and he wants a letter of recommendation from me. If I base it in his first year at work, he would get one with plenty of praise. But unfortunately all that great work was overshadowed by his last few months here.

So basically he is a really nice, sweet man, but has a serious alcohol problem that severely affects his job performance.

Any recommendations on how to deal with this? Should I give him the LoR anyway as one last favor? Or is that a bad business practice? This is the first time I have been torn about this, so I would like your opinions.

Thank you.

[Jim11]

There is no doubt it is very bad business practice to give someone a recommendation letter who was going to be fired because of alcohol problems. April isn't long ago, so unless you have reason to believe that he's gotten this problem under control then your reference letter is very misleading.

That being said, I think a lot of people would fire off the LOR anyway if he's a friend of the family and not a horrible guy. You need to decide for yourself if he is worth comprising your business ethics for.

Personally, if there was very little change of him being a competent employee, I wouldn't write it.