my new employee ran a background check on me and asked me about what he found

by Alison Green on September 25, 2024

I’m off today, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2019.

A reader writes:

I started a new position recently and was promoted quickly to a management position. Great, I have a long supervisory background, looking forward to helping in a wider capacity.

One of my direct reports is a very conscientious and ambitious young man named “Scott” who I have found pleasant to work with.

Last week, during a normal conversation about a project, Scott brought up that he had done a background search on me and then asked me about an arrest on my record — an insurance snafu that led to a driver’s license snafu and when I was pulled over for a normal traffic stop in a rather conservative county, I spent a night in lock-up. Which was both humiliating and illuminating.

This is not immediately googleable. I gave it a try myself after he brought it up, and some of the specificity of the details he used leads me to believe he went to one of the publicly available background report sites and paid the nominal fee to obtain a detailed report.

His question was framed as that he “had been doing some research and wanted to clarify what happened in X state, because it wasn’t clear if it (the arrest) was in X or Y state.” I lived in Y state more recently, but there’s nothing easily found that links the two without paying for it.

In the moment, I answered truthfully that these items were from more than a decade ago and were the result of a particular set of circumstances. I then excused myself from the conversation and returned to my office.

The longer I think about it, the more weirded out I am. Scott would like to advance and I feel like a follow-up conversation is definitely warranted, but I’m struggling with an approach aside from “hey, you super violated a boundary for me and that will go over like a ton of bricks if you do it with future managers.”

To be fair, this is an overtly aggressive office culture and asking to explain your professional background in a fair amount of detail to coworkers/employees is par for the course. But while I understand having a background check run by the company during the hiring process, I’d like to keep my personal background personal.

(And while I’m not wild about discussing this embarrassing incident, my reaction was more of a “how and why did you obtain this information?” than a deep, dark secret that I’m worried might come to light.)

How do I let go of my weirded-out feeling and how do I best address this in a follow-up conversation?

WHAT?

You are being way more chill about this than I would be.

It’s an incredible overstep to run a paid background check on your new manager — but what’s really weird here is that he thought he somehow had standing to (a) make it clear to you that he did this and (b) ask you to clarify what he found.

The way he asked you about this sounds like he genuinely thought it was appropriate. He was “doing some research and wanted to clarify what happened”?? Because he didn’t feel he had sufficient details? About something that’s none of his business whatsoever?

Have you seen anything else weird about his judgment? Because this is such a bizarre thing for him to approach you with that I’ve got to think there’s a bigger issue with him. Maybe it’s just incredible naivete — but regardless of what’s at the root, this is just wildly inappropriate and I suspect it’s part of some broader pattern.

And as you note, it’s not that this is a deep, dark secret. It’s just that it’s personal and spectacularly irrelevant to anything he would ever have cause to “research.”

So I don’t think you need to let go of your weirded-out feeling. Your weirded-out feeling is warranted and appropriate.

I would say this to him: “I was taken aback last week when you asked me about a traffic incident in my background. Frankly, I was too taken aback to address it in the moment, but I’m not clear on why you were undertaking that kind of background search on me in the first place — and especially on why you decided to inquire with me about it.” And then, depending on his answer, you could say, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t realize you violated a work boundary here. But I want to make sure that going forward you know that this was inappropriate, everyone you work with deserves privacy, and this is not something you should do again to anyone here.”

And I’d keep a very close eye on his judgment after this, especially around interpersonal stuff — and be prepared to swiftly shut down anything else inappropriate.

Read an update to this letter. 

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  1. MsM*

    I’m not sure whether to be sad, relieved, or worried that there doesn’t appear to have been an update on this one.

    2. ecnaseener*

      IMO, sad for us readers because I’m dying to know what he said, and worrying on the LW’s behalf because they might have just let it go.

      1. CorporateDrone*

        Early in my career I was working with a super chill guy who often gave coworkers rides home. Our place of employment allowed staff to have flexible work hours by staying late to complete work, with absolutely no security around or any concern about such things.

        Super chill guy (SCG) failed to show up at work for a couple of days with no notice and coworkers were joking about how he probably got arrested. So we googled and discovered that he a) had an extensive record as a sexual predator and b) had reoffended and was indeed in jail.

        Turned out the company checked referenced but didn’t google or run a background check.

        After that all the female staff swore that they would not be accepting rides or putting themselves in a position alone with a coworker without doing their own due diligence. I don’t necessarily think the fact that the coworker paid for a background check is necessarily creepy but asking about the results without explaining why is definitely over the line for me.

        1. Sleve*

          Except for the fact that Scott’s manager presumably wasn’t offering Scott rides or it would have been included in the letter.

          My issue is that if we start conflating the actions of people like Scott with the very real concerns of those women, then there is a risk that some people will go too far pushing back against the Scotts and start pushing back against vulnerable people with real concerns who want to do some deeper background digging.

          Statistically it’s not valid to say that any random person is at risk from merely working for a manager. Scott’s actions are not valid. Unfortunately, it is statistically clear that a woman who gets into a car alone with a person they don’t know very well is at risk of physical harm. Therefore those women’s actions are valid.

          I’m not saying Scott’s concerns aren’t valid or real. Who knows, he or somebody in his family may have been harmed by their manager in the past. Something must have spurred him to do this, I guess. But ‘I’m anxious’ isn’t a reason to go and run a background check on your boss and then interrogate them about it. Go for a literal run or something instead.

          1. Despachito*

            This is a tricky one.

            Would we feel differently about Scott doing the check if OP really WAS a perpetrator of something serious and Scott found out?

            If any random person who pays the fee can order a background check on anyone, Scott was not doing anything illegal or immoral. He found something irrelevant and made a mistake to tell OP, but what would the moral implications be if he had found that OP really had a relevant criminal record eg for stealing, embezzling or violent behavior? Should he hold his mouth because he learned about it in a non-standard way? (I think that in such a case he should definitely not tell OP but should tell someone else).

            1. Beany*

              But Scott isn’t OP’s boss; nor was he in a position of hiring/firing authority over OP. Nothing Scott found would have been actionable by Scott, and at best, should have been reported to the company’s HR. HR would/should then have told Scott to stay in his lane — case closed.

              1. Despachito*

                I specifically mean a situation if Scott revealed something Corporate Drone is describing (a person with a history of violence), which of course is not OP’s case.

                I agree that he should tell HR in any case and not the OP, but I can’t imagine HR not acting on that (stay in your lane = case closed).

                I don’t want to digress because that’s not what happened and I am speculating here but I don’t think the inappropriateness of “snooping” should overcome some shocking results if he found them.

            2. MigraineMonth*

              “If any random person who pays the fee can order a background check on anyone, Scott was not doing anything illegal or immoral.”

              I’ll agree it’s not illegal, but I think whether or not it was immoral depends on Scott’s motivations. In my view, running a background check on someone without their knowledge or permission is immoral unless you are concerned for someone’s safety. “I was curious” or “I wanted to know more about them” or “I thought they might be a bad person” doesn’t rise to that level. You also then have a responsibility to handle any irrelevant sensitive information that you do uncover appropriately.

              1. Despachito*

                “You also then have a responsibility to handle any irrelevant sensitive information that you do uncover appropriately.”

                I think this is absolutely key.

                ANY publicly available information on the internet is fair game, and if it is beyond a paywall but accessible to any random person, too, perhaps to a lesser extent.

                Unlike some I do not see anything appalling if someone deep-googles their coworkers just out of curiosity or of boredom. The important thing is to NEVER use that information against that person (unless it is something criminal) and NEVER mention it to that person or anyone else. Who can’t manage this should refrain from doing it.

        2. Craig*

          googling has the problem of false positives. Google my name and article about being arrested is top of the results-its not me but I’ve had questions about it. this is why proper background checks consider name dob previous addresses etc.

  2. L-squared*

    interesting that you often have to, as a condition of employment, allow a company to run a background check on you, which I assume people can see. But if you do the same, then your judgment is off.

    now look, would I have admitted to doing it? Of course not. Just like many people run background checks on dates and never say it. But its just interesting that its considered so out of bounds to do to your supervisor even though they do them on you.

    1. No_woman_an_island*

      No. Just no. You GIVE a prospective company your personal information and consent to them using it for a background check. You do not give Creepy Chris in Finance that same consent.

      2. Sleve*

        Exactly. If you don’t trust that company with your information you can work somewhere else. If you don’t trust any company with your information you can opt for self-employment. If you don’t trust Creepy Chris, whoops, too late, he has it now and he can do whatever creepy things he wants with it.

        Running a background check on a date isn’t the same, because dating is agreeing to enter into a vulnerable and intimate situation with someone. Of course people need to look out for their safety in that instance. You haven’t made any such agreement with Creepy Chris.

        You just …existing… in my vicinity and having bland workplace level interactions with me is not enough a threat to my safety as to give me the right to run background checks on you. If the context is changed and things get more intimate, maybe. Depends on the details. But until then? No.

        1. Moosey*

          The problem with this is that the public writ large doesn’t need your consent to run a background check — anyone can pretty much run a background check on anyone else.

          Scott’s problem was *telling* his manager what he’d done.

      3. Princess Sparklepony*

        I’d definitely hit the Like button if we had them.

        Creepy Chris is indeed creepy if he’s running background checks on people.

    2. Seven times*

      First, if a background check is run as a requirement for employment, it is handled through HR and is not usually seen even by the hiring manager. Second, the company’s background check states that this person has been vetted for working there. It exists to limit liability. The employees don’t have the standing to need that information. At best it’s gossip fodder.

      In terms of running background checks on people you’re dating, there is a personal “liability” involved, so while I find that creepy, it makes more sense.

      1. ferrina*

        Exactly this. There are very, very limited people who have access to that information, and it’s not to be bandied about. At my company, the only people that would know are HR, and only the most senior HR. The hiring manager would never have access to the background check.
        The point of the background check is to 1) double check that we can legally hire you and 2) ensure that there are no issues showing you client’s proprietary data. We genuinely don’t care about a traffic incident. And it’s a strict pass/fail- if you pass (most people do), then the results are never mentioned again. If you fail, you won’t get the job and the results are never mentioned again.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        There’s also a growing body of state law governing what information from a background check can be considered, which is a very good thing for everyone who’s been falsely arrested, spent a night in jail due to an insurance snafu, or is still being blocked from jobs due to past convictions for marijuana possession–even in states where it’s now legal.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          Yup. I think credit checks/credit scores are disallowed in a number of places now, because they’re considered unnecessarily invasive.

        2. Sleve*

          Or, you know, the growing risk that a woman might spend time in jail for losing a wanted pregnancy, while a bunch of strangers gossip about her life and decide whether she really acted like she wanted it enough to satisfy their standards.

            1. Great Frogs of Literature*

              Yes, the US is bananapants. (I say, as a person who was born in and lives in the US.)

              That particular situation isn’t possible in many places… but I also can’t say that it’s impossible everywhere. Which is certainly a thing.

    3. Not on board*

      The supervisor themselves often don’t run a background check. Those are done by whomever is responsible for the hiring and during the hiring process. Also, usually it’s just reference checks rather than a full-out background check unless there are security requirements for the type of work you do. The fact that workplaces are often entrusting people with sensitive/financial/personal info means that they need to ensure that there isn’t something in that person’s history that would disqualify them from working at that particular workplace. Also, if you go to work somewhere that does these background checks, you can assume that your supervisor has already had one done by the employer.

      So no, this isn’t some sort of double standard. Anyone is free to run a background check on anyone but it’s inappropriate to then further invade their privacy in the workplace.

      1. JustaTech*

        Yes! My friend works in an industry that requires a pretty in-depth background check (childcare) and until she was site director the only thing she would know about her coworkers is pass/fail, but never details.
        Heck, I don’t know how much info she gets now as director on her staff beyond pass/fail. An overnight in county lockup over an insurance mix up? Not relevant, probably wouldn’t be included.

    4. Dust Bunny*

      Uh, no–there is a big difference between HR running a background check and being under obligation to keep the results confidential (or just not hiring you if they don’t like what they find) and Random Coworker Who Does Not Have This Authority doing it of his own volition.

    5. Wah*

      Plus, going to your boss to tell them you dug around his past, and then asking him for clarifications? This is so beyond knowing who you work with. This is making a threat and about to go over your head to do something nefarious over you territory.

      1. Goldenrod*

        It’s worse than just doing the check – which is weird in and of itself – this isn’t a casual Google search this is someone paying money to find out about you…

        What’s worse is that he then felt like he could request an explanation! Like LW owed him anything of that sort! That’s the really, really creepy part.

        1. Artemesia*

          I can’t imagine it as anything but a creepy power move — someone who thinks he can kneecap people in the company who might be in his way for promotion etc. No normal person thinks this is a normal thing to ask — this feels like threat/assault.

        2. Aeryn*

          I don’t think he actually wanted a clarification. It was an attempt to intimidate OP, by saying “I know all about your arrest”.

      2. Mary w*

        that’s exactly where I went. “Next time I want something (promotion, particular assignment) remember I know about your arrest…and could tell.”

    6. PurpleShark*

      But you said it yourself you “allow’ them to do so as a condition of employment. Creepy Chis paid money but wasn’t given the same permission. What purpose does that even serve if a employee has already been vetted by the company?

      1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

        Right, what was his goal here? Particularly because “I wanted to clarify whether this was in state X or Y” is so tangential that it sounds to me like “I want you to know that I know you were arrested and will use that information against you.”

        2. Margaret Cavendish*

          Guaranteed that’s what it was. I’ve never seen the outcome of a background check, but I imagine it would show both OP’s address and the location of the arrest. Those are *facts,* there’s literally nothing to clarify about them. The whole point was to let OP know that he knows about the arrest.

          1. Hobbit*

            I have dealt with background checks and the address of the employee at the time wasn’t included. It just provided the information needed to determine if the person could be hired or not.

        3. Observer*

          “I want you to know that I know you were arrested and will use that information against you.”

          Exactly!

          Alison isn’t that prone to telling people that they are under-reacting. She did that here, largely because of this, I would say.

      2. Glen*

        I don’t agree with their overall point but, come on. We “allow” companies to run a background check so we don’t wind up on the streets. It’s hardly freely given.

    7. I Have RBF*

      So, the work I do requires a criminal/financial background check. I have to give permission and basic information for them to do this. In my state, I am also entitled to a copy of the report, but I have to ask for it at the start. There are also rules on what is admissible for adverse actions, etc. IOTW, it’s highly regulated.

      John Q Subordinate? Has none of that: no permission, no details to use in the search, and no standing to do so. It’s at best, clueless, and more like creepy and/or manipulative.

      If one of my fellow employees did that on me, and then asked me about anything that they found, I would be talking to HR about possible stalking.

      The sheer amount of creepy overreach of a subordinate paying for background check stuff here is staggering, and says really bad things about their judgement and motives.

      1. Distracted Procrastinator*

        It’s also pretty common for people to have the same name as someone else. For me, it would be highly likely that any information a coworker would have about me would lead to false information coming through the background check. The company would have more details and be sure what they learn is actually about me. Creepy Scott wouldn’t.

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          My ex would get a lot of debt collector calls because he has a very common name. They were never his debts. (Wrong address, wrong middle initial, places he never lived, stores he never shopped at, etc.) But the debt collectors want to collect.

          So I’d be wary about unauthorized checks done by a co-worker.

    8. Irish Teacher.*

      In addition to what others have said, I also think it is different because the employer is often putting a certain trust in you and assumes a certain degree of liability if you do something wrong. For example, I am a teacher; my employer needs to know that I am not a danger to the children (well, teenagers, but legally, they are still children) I teach. An employer is, to some extent, vouching for you (and certainly, in education, we have seen what happens when employers don’t have access to that kind of information and people who left one job under a cloud can simply move on and do damage elsewhere). You are not vouching for your manager in the same way.

      I also think the issue here isn’t just the background check but the way in which they revealed it. It doesn’t sound to me so much as they admitted it as that they feel that the LW is the one in the wrong and that the LW needs to justify themself to him. And honestly, if a manager came to an employee and said “I just wanted to clarify if your traffic conviction was in X state or Y state,” that would feel a little off to me too. Not to the same extent but it would still come across like for some reason they were making a point of letting the employee know they knew of the conviction.

        1. Princess Sparklepony*

          I think the guy was looking for leverage for possible upward mobility… but I’m a suspicious person.

      2. Elizabeth the Ginger*

        And even when a background check is required, only relevant parts would ever be brought up to the employee/potential employee. I also needed to do a background check to chaperone my child’s field trips – but the teacher only got a “pass/fail”, not details, and the pass/fail was only about things that actually could pertain to child safety. For example, I think if I had failure to pay income tax on my record, that would not impact whether or not I would be allowed to take a group of first graders around an aquarium.

    9. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

      It’s not the running of the check that displays poor judgment – although that’s suspect too – it’s the confronting the manager about the results. Your company has a vested interest in screening you for possible liabilities. Your relationship with your manager is not comparable in this way.

    10. e271828*

      A coworker running a background check on another coworker is creeper territory.

      If you think this is OK, you should check your assumptions.

    11. fhqwhgads*

      Well for one thing, you sign a thing allowing them to run the background check on you when it’s done in a hiring context. Unless this guy is in HR and what he saw was the bg check the company did before hiring OP, OP never gave this dude permission to run a bg check on him. Of course it is possible to do so, but it’s the context that makes it weird.

    12. trifle*

      You’ve misunderstood background checks. I had to have one for my current company to get a security clearance. Even with that, no one at my current company knows the details– they just know I passed.

      1. Paint N Drip*

        Correct. The average person would be sorely disappointed by the real results of a background check lol

      2. Happy meal with extra happy*

        This isn’t necessarily true. My company gets the full background check documents, including verification of job history, credit report, any criminal record, and maybe civil case searches as well. That being said 1) only HR (generally) sees it and 2) I can only speak for my industry, which is heavily regulated.

    13. NotAnotherManager!*

      I can only speak to how my employers handle this, but I’ve been hiring people for well over a decade and have never been provided a copy of a background check nor the specifics of what was in them. My current employer does not even receive full details in HR – they get a summary report from the background provider that flags potentials issues that would be disqualifying for employment at our organization. I’ve only had one person turn up something that would not fly, and I was not advised of the specifics of what was found, only that it was disqualifying for a position of this nature.

      Running a personal background check on any of your colleagues is weird as hell.

    14. n.m.*

      I’m wondering what you mean by “people can see” as in my experience the people doing and viewing the background check are not the people I would be working with day to day. Are there offices where it’s typical for the actual prospective manager/supervisor to review those?

      1. Glen*

        they are way off, but I can’t agree that the difference is consent. I would never willingly allow anyone to run a background check, but if I want to eat and pay the rent, I have to. That’s not consensual.

        1. Leenie*

          I understand your point, but you’re aware that it’s happening. And in my company, HR contracts with a third party, and no one at work gets any details. It really isn’t at all comparable to an employee paying for a search on the LW without her knowledge or consent.

    17. Freya*

      Under Australian law, businesses are allowed to use an individual’s personal information only for purposes reasonably necessary to the business, that they told you about before they collected it (or as close to as possible). Pre-employment checks would be one of those reasonable purposes. Your employee record is required to be held confidential except when being used for a purpose directly related to your employment (so I’m not allowed to disclose an employee’s tax file number except when doing things like forwarding their tax to the tax office).

      An individual running a background check on an individual does not fall under that employment relationship (or potential employment relationship) and therefore it’s dodgy to pry about details revealed in the check.

    18. iglwif*

      I didn’t realize how common a practice this was in the US until I worked for a US company a while back. (I have no idea what they thought their background check on me was going to find, given that I last lived in the US when I was three.) Having never encountered this before, I casually asked around my new USian coworkers, and they were surprised I was surprised — all of them said every place they’d ever worked for did background checks and many did credit checks as well (!!). (To clarify, none of the jobs in question either work with vulnerable sectors or handle money, which are the things that would trigger that kind of check where I live.)

      Anyway, I think there’s a pretty substantial difference between giving a prospective employer permission to run a background check that only HR will see the detailed results of, and having a random person you work with run a background check on you without your permission!

  3. TracyXP*

    This really feels like Scott wanted to make OP aware that Scott knew about OP’s “indiscretion” and Scott could use it against OP in the future.

      1. tina turner*

        Agree. But if he “researches” your DIVORCE you know he’s way out of line — that’s more obvious & easy to grasp. So I’d be very wary of him. He didn’t just “google you” — he also TOLD you he did! That’s the scary part, he made sure you knew.”Knowledge is power” may be his POV.

        Have you looked HIM up? You might find something; worth the fee. Or a dweeb in his mom’s basement w/no life.

          1. JSPA*

            reposting my comment from the first time this ran, where people read a lot into, “paid for it”:

            “If you have a legit reason to pay for [any search, ever], they often give you a certain additional number for free, or several weeks or months of free access. Without debating whether it’s good or bad, some people use those services for screening AirBnB tenants, renters, potential dates, etc. If he does this more generally, he may be under the mistaken impression *which the sites themselves try to foster* that everyone does these things.

            I’m sort of playing devil’s advocate here, because it seems creepy as all get out to me, too. But I’ve known people (some of them ‘missing stairs’ in other ways, admittedly) who’d have done it without any particular intent.”

            (I went on to agree with the broad consensus that actually bringing it up is still messed up.)

            I bring this up again because the bigger risk to our individual and social wellbeing companies who are trying to normalize tracking and / or searching everybody, as they tend to promote a broad culture of fear. This fear very commonly aligns with stereotypes, and encourages isolation. As a result, it fails to align with actual data on who–if anyone–is likely to harm you; and if it successfully makes you distrust most people, you’re bereft of a social network who can support you, if you do have to get out of a legitimately scary solution.

            1. Florence Reece*

              Hmm. I’m not sure I’m understanding the point you’re trying to (re)make here. I agree that companies who offer individualized data for a fee are the problem, and they do work to normalize that behavior. But the rest of that paragraph — do you think there are harmful stereotypes at play here with regards to the employee who inappropriately background-checked his manager? It comes off like you’re suggesting the manager is wrong to distrust this employee because he could be part of her social network(????)

              1. Theon, Theon, it rhymes with neon*

                I read it as: the person doing the searching is wrong to distrust everyone they find with an arrest history, because having a traffic violation/a marijuana conviction/etc. is not a good predictor of whether that person is going to harm you. If you avoid everyone who has an arrest (the purpose of running the background check), what are you going to do when you actually need a support system someday? You’ve ruled out a bunch of potential friends, supporters, and allies for no good reason.

                1. JSPA*

                  Yup, the TL;DR is,
                  “creepy acts have an individual component, but can also be a symptom of bigger drivers. We should keep an eye on the (more damaging) drivers.”

                  We have learned to call out “_____ culture” while calling out “_____.” But when there are discrete (e.g. corporate) drivers of certain attitudes, we can and should notice what that’s doing to us.

                  “Fear culture” (using manufactured fear to drive behavior and justify limitless data collection and surveillance) is real, but often…pretty blatant. “Buy one background search, get free searches for 3 months” is insidious, and reaches even people who otherwise refuse to go along with the attitudes and tools of fear culture.

            2. Boof*

              I quite agree there are all kind of reasons someone might come across such info that aren’t necessarily damning (and for all we know they didn’t actually spend any money on it).
              The damning part is actually /asking their boss about the old traffic arrest they found while snooping around/.
              Double lulz for letting their boss know under the guise of “clarification”.

          2. Junior Assistant Peon*

            That’s where he crossed the line into stalker territory. If this was something a quick Google search would have revealed, it would have been a lot less weird.

            1. Boof*

              Even if it was a quick google search, I think it would be really weird to bring it up at all, much less under the guise of “clarification”

      2. Apex Mountain*

        Maybe, but what kind of leverage is it? It’s not some shameful secret that OP got a minor traffic violation

        1. Hobbit*

          Maybe that was the point of bringing it up. To see how OP reacted. If OP freaked and begged Scott not to tell, he has leverage. Since OP just handled it and clarified the situation Scott may come to the conclusion it’s not something that can be used against OP.

      4. ferrina*

        Yeah, it’s definitely a power play. But it’s also a pretty sucky power play- Scott immediately showed all his cards, and they are weak. He’s getting high on perceived power that he doesn’t even have.

        I guarantee that karma came back to Scott- he’s going to try this with someone that actually plays power games, and that person is going to ensure retribution comes. I’ve seen this happen to several people (heck, I’ve been the one that made this happen to a couple of them!) and it’s always sweet when it happens.

        1. Moosey*

          Exactly – the key to wielding compromising material is not tipping your hand that you have it until you need to!

    2. Successful Birthday Rememberer*

      It definitely had an undertone of malice for me.
      I hope someday we can get an update on it.

    3. RIP Pillowfort*

      Yeah, combined with the description of the workplace- I would have assumed malice on Scott’s part.

      And just the mentality of “I’m going to do an invasive background check on my boss” is really just so crazy. Like how do you get there from a reasonable place? I don’t think you do.

    5. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah, I would absolutely bring this aspect up when discussing it with him, and I wouldn’t stop until I saw some awareness dawn and a slight squirm: “What were you hoping to gain by looking into my, or anyone’s, background in such a detailed way?” “Okay, but why would you think that was appropriate?” “Why, though?” “Again, why?” “I’m still honestly not sure what you were hoping to gain by doing such a thing, since you haven’t really told me, but let you tell me you were lucky that it’s me, and that all you found was the fall out of an insurance company error. If you had actually found something personal or sensitive, and it was someone less understanding than me, there’d be more than just concern about your judgement regarding interpersonal interactions at work. Do not do any deep digging into the personal details of anyone else at this company, and most certainly do not tell anyone if you already have and make them feel their privacy has been invaded”.

    6. MigraineMonth*

      How Scott saw this playing out in his head:

      Busy office building during the daytime. In one office, a young man sits across a mahogany desk from his manager.

      OP: So I’ll need the TPS report on my desk by Wednesday. Any questions?
      Scott: Just one. That ‘little incident’ with your car insurance ten years ago; did that happen in Nevada or Arizona?
      OP: Blood drains from face. Closes the office blinds. Speaks in a hushed voice. You know about that?
      Scott: Amazing what you can find out from a paid internet background check these days.
      OP: Please, you can’t tell anyone. Please.
      Scott: Yes, it would be awful if that got out, especially with your upcoming promotion. Don’t worry, I’ll probably forget all about it, if nothing makes me irritated. Speaking of which, the TPS report…
      OP: Don’t worry about that! I’ll do it!
      Scott: Excellent. I think this is the beginning of a fruitful manager-report relationship. Scott saunters out.
      OP: Removes the false bottom of a desk drawer and takes out a gun with the serial numbers removed. Mutters to self. No one can ever know about the car insurance snafu…

      Ominous music builds. Fade to black.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          How it actually went:

          OP: So I’ll need the TPS report on my desk by Wednesday. Any questions?
          Scott: Just one. That ‘little incident’ with your car insurance ten years ago; did that happen in Nevada or Arizona?
          OP: What?
          Scott: You know. That time you were arrested.
          OP: Huh?
          Scott: When you spent time in the slammer! Was it in Nevada or Arizona.
          OP: Uh, Nevada. Wait, what? Why are we talking about that?
          Scott: So about that TPS report…
          OP: On my desk by Wednesday.
          Scott: Sighs

      3. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

        It’s a pity Peter Falk is no longer with us, because that would make an excellent opening to an episode of Columbo. Maybe the next season of Poker Face?

      5. Crencestre*

        Mmm…maybe! But if OP did that, then Scott would lose a manager whom he’d just blackmailed into compliance and that’s the LAST thing he’d want to happen. Scott would surely want OP around to cater to his every whim. After all, Scott’s NEXT manager would almost certainly NOT be easy blackmail material!

        OP, I once saw a slightly similar situation play out BUT saw the potential blackmailer totally foiled by their “target”. Back in the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic had led to an explosion of homophobia, a gay colleague of mine (“Jay”) had an acquaintance who threatened to reveal Jay’s sexual orientation to his employer if he didn’t do what this acquaintance wanted. Jay immediately told his employer about this; the employer’s reaction was that they didn’t care about Jay’s orientation at all – he was an excellent employee and that was all that mattered. Needless to say, when the would-be blackmailer DID contact Jay’s employer, he got laughed off the phone – and, of course, got absolutely nothing from Jay!

        It’s impossible to say how YOUR employer would react upon learning what Scott discovered. But, OP, your description of this incident really doesn’t sound as if it’s something that would raise alarm bells for an employer – Scott did NOT discover that you abused a child or spouse, sexually assaulted anyone, drove while drunk or stoned or did anything else that reflected badly on your character. My guess is that, if Scott DID tell your manager about this, their reaction would be to wonder why on earth Scott did that deep dive into your background. Because what he did is NOT normal!

    9. TG*

      Me too – I thought he was trying to threaten the boss on his job….I’d fire this guy if I had the power to.

    10. KJC*

      That was exactly how I read it, as well. There’s really nothing here to “use,” but it sounds like he was making a very thinly veiled “I know embarrassing things about you” comment in order to intimidate her.

  5. A Significant Tree*

    It sounds like Scott read about how some people must be in their overpromoted jobs because they have dirt on someone higher up, and thought that was sound work advice.

    I agree with TracyXP, Scott definitely wanted OP to know what he found and was likely hoping it was a bigger secret than OP considered it. Running a check is one thing (weird and intrusive but keep it to yourself) – following up with the person for more details to “clear something up” is saying “I want you to know that I know.”

    If he did it that openly to OP, the odds are he’s run checks on everyone and was test-driving what he found out with anyone who had something that appeared questionable.

      1. DrMrsC*

        I think this is where is obvious attempt to flex on the new manager really went sideways. Was it great that he did it, and then admitted to it. No. But that he positioned himself in asking about it as though he was owed an explanation – that is waving the red flag while on fire and holding down the button on an airhorn!

        1. Successful Birthday Rememberer*

          That’s the part that bugged me – an attitude of being entitled to an explanation.

      2. Emikyu*

        Frankly, even if Scott were OP’s boss rather than the other way around, I would still find it incredibly presumptuous of him to ask for an explanation. It was a long time ago, not relevant to the job he was hired for, and clearly not enough of a red flag for HR to say “don’t hire this guy.” If my boss did something like this to me, I would find it extremely weird and creepy.

      3. Irish Teacher.*

        My feeling is that that might have been the intent, especially as the LW is new. I suspect the idea was to put the LW in a position where she either had to respond to his request, in which case she would be sort of acting in the role of employee or else refuse to answer, in which case, she would seem to give him the upper hand by acting like she had something to hide.

        I’ve had a few students play this game, so maybe I’m reading it in that light but it’s one that really annoys me. “Miss, I just want to ask you, why are you allowing other student to use his phone?” “Miss, I think you should write a referral on such a student. You shouldn’t be letting him get away with X,” “Miss, I just wanted to know why you didn’t call the roll at the start of class.” Consciously or unconsciously, they are setting up a situation where, whether I justify myself or refuse to justify myself, it sort of…equalises our roles and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what he is trying to do here: establish himself as her equal and therefore hopefully make her feel more awkward about giving him instructions, correcting him, etc.

        I don’t think it’s a particularly effective strategy, by the way. It reminds me of the employee who used to tell his manager his expectations of her.

  6. LinesInTheSand*

    I wonder if this answer would change at all depending on what the background check turned up. There’s a certain kind of mind that does not necessarily understand “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” with respect to information gathering. And if I found out my boss had spent some time in jail, I’d probably be curious about that.

    I think OP might have more success with a line like “The company did a background check on me when I was hired and they obviously didn’t find anything concerning. Beyond that, the history you’re bringing up is something I don’t discuss. Please do not do this again with me or anyone else.”

    1. BethRA*

      It doesn’t sound like the company does do background checks – and it’s an invasive and inappropriate thing for him to have done in any case. And then to demand and explanation?

      It’s one thing to come across information, it’s another to go looking to the point of paying a fee to a databroker to access someone’s information.

      1. I guess my entire company was the real work wife the whole time.*

        An individual running a personal background check is totally irrelevant to whether the company does background checks. Why do you think it sounds like the company doesn’t?

        1. BethRA*

          I agree that it’s totally irrelevant, but the person I was responding to suggested telling Snoopy Sam that the company DID run one so he didn’t need to worry. OP didn’t mention that happening so I doubt the advice is even applicable.

    2. Tobias Funke*

      I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but something about this response is too apologetic/shameful to me. Sometimes when people do really inappropriate things they need to be told they are inappropriate. It’s a kindness.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        Yeah, scorching the earth with Scott has some benefit for OP but most of the benefit will go to Scott. He really, really, needs to know how over the line this is.

    3. Michelle Smith*

      It’s totally normal to be curious about things you happen to find out about. But it would be bizarre I think in just about any scenario to act on said curiosity. I can’t think of a situation where this would be his business.

    4. ferrina*

      Honestly, this feels like the age-old question “should I snoop through my partner’s stuff?”. And the answer is generally “no, that’s wrong” but with a caveat that if you did find something awful, it does change in retrospect. But if you don’t find anything incriminating, you just invaded the privacy of an innocent person.

      So if you are going to snoop, I would say be mindful of what it says about you and about your relationships. And that might be okay! You might have good reasons to do an in-depth background check about a coworker! But treating it as though it’s a normal default is problematic. It’s an invasive step, and just doing it changes the relationship in unpredictable ways (whether it’s finding serious information that you need to take action on, or deciding to never admit that you know more about a coworker than they would reasonably expect you to)

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I always think of a Captain Awkward letter in which the nosy mother of the OP had volunteered to help her move in. When tucking into pizza afterwards the mum said “Hey I found a vibrator in your bedside table”. The OP genuinely didn’t care that she’d seen it; she’d let her help with the move, she knew mum would be all up in her stuff, and she might open the wrong drawer. What bugged her was she was being fronted about it. I always remember a comment on it saying “You’re her baby! You could be on drugs!” Okay, but if you’re worried about your kid being on drugs, you open the drawer, think “Huh, that’s definitely not drugs. Or dangerous. Go daughter, good for you!” and never mention it to her, ever.

      2. Cyndi*

        There’s also an old AAM post somewhere where the comments really got into it over whether it was okay to go to your employee’s home in person if they no-call/no-show, and the answer to that seemed to also be “no that’s an unforgivably invasive thing to do, unless your employee is actually having an emergency and then it’s retroactively fine.”

    5. Observer*

      And if I found out my boss had spent some time in jail, I’d probably be curious about that.

      One of the hallmarks of baseline maturity is that not everything that’s in one’s head comes out of their mouth.

      This guy did a fairly deliberate and specific search then made is a point to ask the LW about it. And in a way that positioned him as being entitled to that information.

      Which is one reason that the LW need(ed) to keep an eye on him.

  7. Star Trek Nutcase*

    I missed the original post cause this is so delulu there’s no way I’d have forgotten it. I worked and supervised in academia several decades. And if a report had ever told me he had run a background check on me, I would have not only sharply slapped him down but ensured his poor judgement was significantly noted for future work purposes. (Makes me wish I actually HAD something to be found just to have this story to tell – unfortunately my middle name is boring )

    1. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

      This letter was from 2019, I wonder if it would play out differently now. If I were approached by a co-worker who ran a background check on me I would take it up my manager and HR. These days if he approached anyone; a manager or co-worker and told them that he ran a check on them and wanted answers, he definitely would be dealt with, hopefully.

  8. Hannah Lee*

    So, is Scott now in an executive position at Linked In?

    Because the mindset that what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine to rummage through and use as I please, even if it’s private or personal and none of my GD business and I had to go digging through your entire life to find it is … something.

    1. ferrina*

      lol!
      I hate to defend LinkedIn’s AI, but at least it’s gathering information efficiently. Scott sounds like he wasted his resources to find….um, not much except reinforce that he’s creepy. At least LinkedIn is getting something?

      1. MigraineMonth*

        It may be gathering the information efficiently, but I doubt it’s doing anything useful with it. No, “feeding an algorithm” is not in itself a useful activity.

        1. zinzarin*

          I think it’s a bit early to day that they’re not “doing anything useful with it.”

          It’s been a literal week so far.

          If you have an ideological position against AI, that’s one thing. If so, go ahead and make that case. But it’s really, really early days to say that this particular implementation of AI won’t produce anything useful.

  9. Anon21*

    The phrasing of this (“I wanted to confirm if it happened in State X or Y”) smacks of a very young person who has heard of the concept of blackmail or read about it in a book, but falls flat on his face when trying to put it into practice. It’s reminding me of Max Fischer, the teenage protagonist of the movie Rushmore, and his attempts to seduce an older woman in what he thinks is a suave and sophisticated manner, but actually comes across as childish.

    1. Tony Howard*

      I agree with Anon here . This sounds like someone who is laying the groundwork for some future blackmail attempt. While Alison’s advice is solid, I think I would recommend a third party be present at that conversation- preferably HR – because there is no way of knowing how he might “spin” that encounter sans witnesses. Good luck !

    2. Curious*

      Reminds me of Pete Campbell and Don Draper (nee Dick Whitman) — and how Bert Cooper simply didn’t care.

      1. Shrimp Emplaced*

        So glad you brought up this reference — it was running through my head too!

        I hope OP never had any further issues with Scott, creepy or otherwise. (Also I’ll bring up The Gift of Fear again re: trusting your weirded-out feelings and not trying to brush them off.)

    3. Goldenrod*

      “The phrasing of this (“I wanted to confirm if it happened in State X or Y”)”

      Yes, agreed, this is not a subtle ploy! I would have loved if LW had asked, “Why do you need to know?” but obviously most people would be too shocked to respond in the moment.

      But seriously – why does he need to confirm the state? There is no good answer to that.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        Yeah, that was actually another red flag to me. (As if there weren’t enough; the whole incident is a red flag factory.) But like, I can’t imagine why he’d even care what state it happened in, so it really comes across like a way to just let her know he knew or try and reverse the manager/employee dynamic or put her on the backfoot.

        If he’d asked something like “I just wanted to clarify that the traffic violation you got was for insurance and not dangerous driving, right?” it would still most definitely be an overstep, but I could possibly read it as just somebody who is very socially inept and out of touch, but this…is hard to read as anything other than a deliberate attempt to show her that he could find out about her background.

        1. hiraeth*

          Right, exactly. Why would it ever matter to him what state it was in? He wouldn’t have any reason to ask that question other than to make a power play. A really inept one.

    5. Worldwalker*

      I can think of at least one Sherlock Holmes story, one Lord Peter Wimsey story, and no less than three John Thorndyke stories, where blackmailers came to a bad end (being shot, stabbed, pushed into a well, etc.) and their killers got away with it. I wonder if Scott considered those when he read about blackmail in books?

      1. Expelliarmus*

        Don’t forget the many Columbo episodes where this happens! And I think it happened in at least one episode of Monk too.

  10. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

    The fact that LW mentioned that it’s an “an overtly aggressive office culture and asking to explain your professional background in a fair amount of detail to coworkers/employees is par for the course” puts me on pause a bit, but I think a word in HR’s ear about this behavior may be helpful. He was completely comfortable interrupting a work conversation to demand clarification about information he obtained about a long ago personal incident of his manager.

    Either he’s completely clueless about personal privacy, or he does not care about personal privacy, which means boundary stomping is likely to be in his future. Should anyone be foolish enough to get on his bad side for slighting him professionally or declining a date, I would not put it past someone like this to do some pretty damaging stuff. He hasn’t done those things yet, but knowing about this incident would be crucial in assessing how to handle other boundary crossing/stalking/sabotage things that could be in his future.

    1. ferrina*

      Yeah, any decent HR would want to know about this. This is bizarre behavior.

      That said, I do wonder if there is already some culture issues at this company where this sort of behavior has been normalized. This faintly reminder me of the letter where OP bit their coworker, and everyone was just kind of….okay with it.

    2. learnedthehardway*

      I agree – this was, at best, a serious privacy violation, and probably a ham-handed attempt at blackmail. HR should have been informed.

  11. Fig Season*

    Am I the only one who thinks that this on its own warranted firing, even if he wasn’t trying to threaten his boss? (Though it definitely sounds like he was low-key threatening LW.)

    2. Successful Birthday Rememberer*

      I think firing is justifiable for not only doing it but also for the implied threat.

    3. Czech Mate*

      No, I don’t think so.

      Unpopular opinion but…I kinda think that with all of the background check type sites that exist out there, we’re all probably looking each other up all the time. I imagine it probably went down like this:

      Scott: I wonder how LW got into this field, let me look him up…oh, he had a blog in high school? Interesting, I wonder what high school…oh this site says Maryland…oh god, this site says he was arrested in Maryland?…well, now I HAVE to know…should I tell LW I know?…maybe I should tell LW I know…

      Bringing it up to the manager is especially weird and over the line, and Scott definitely should have stopped there, but to me it’s not inherently too bad.

      2. Eldritch Office Worker*

        “I kinda think that with all of the background check type sites that exist out there, we’re all probably looking each other up all the time.”

        We’re really not

        1. Cordelia*

          We might be doing a quick google of our new coworkers names. We are not paying to do background checks on them.

          1. Czech Mate*

            No, but I could see how someone would do this. It’s weird, but not immediately fireable weird. Bringing it up is (to me) a little more concerning, but I think it also sort of depends on what the subordinate is otherwise like normally.

          2. Guacamole Bob*

            Yeah, if Scott had said “I saw on your LinkedIn profile that you used to work at X, were you involved in the launch of product Y? I was always curious how they pulled that off” then OP wouldn’t have written a letter. A bit of curiosity about a new manager or colleague’s professional background is pretty understandable and things like a company website bio or LinkedIn profile is fair game for discussion. But most normal people will leave it there and at least pretend not to have seen anything that is personal rather than professional, and certainly anything that’s past the top handful of Google results.

            An actual paid background check is a whole other level of weird.

            1. I Have RBF*

              Yeah, I will check out the LinkedIn of people I work with, just to see where they’ve been in the work world. That is the equivalent of looking at their resume. Everything on their public profile is stuff that they decided to put out there. Their choice rules what I can see.

              But paying one of those “background on anyone” sites to dig up dirt? On a coworker? Oh, hell no! A) Not my job, B) Not my business, C) Not gonna spend the money, and D) I’m not that nosy.

              1. JustaTech*

                Seriously. I might be as curious as a sack of cats, but I understand reasonable boundaries and privacy and stuff.
                And also learning stuff you didn’t want to know.

          3. dawbs*

            Yeah, I think most of us pause before we put in the cc info.

            I do the background checks at my work and I absolutely don’t do checks on people I’m not given permission to check (the volunteer/potential employee has given permission and the necessary info before I run it).

            I am a nosy parker (I do know this about myself! but I also work to keep it in check) and I would totally google a random person but I’d not run a paid ‘check’ on them. I also won’t run a work check on anyone (I am pretty darn sure that nobody is checking to make sure I’m handling it appropriately, but I don’t mess around with it) for non-work reasons. Running it through the work check w/o permission seems a lot MORE fire-able to me.

            (In fact, when the family grapevine let it slip a 3rd cousin was arrested again, I wanted to do some checking because of a safety of a vulnerable person. It took me a while to do the searching; I went through my state’s DOJ database [which, yes, is public] and a lot of hassle when I could have just typed it in this search. But, ethics)

          4. Anax*

            Yes. Absolutely.

            I would do a quick google search of my manager’s name, for sure. If they have a public blog or Facebook page which promotes violently bigoted views, I’d like to know. (Especially because I’m trans, and some folks are… really bananas about that.)

            Anything more than “idle curiosity” or “is this person going to actively make me unsafe” is an overstep.

        2. wordswords*

          Yeah. We really aren’t! A bit of googling to see if there’s any relevant info, sure, maybe — I don’t do that either, but it doesn’t strike me as invasive in the same way as what Czech Mate is describing, let alone what “Scott” did — but not a deep rabbithole of digging for personal info.

          If you find that you’re doing it as a matter of course… maybe it’s time to take a step back and consider whether there’s anything in your workplace or life that’s affected your sense of norms on this one?

        3. Ellis Bell*

          Yeah, when I was a reporter I could discover what size underwear people were wearing by taking a good deep look around on the internet, and it’s genuinely not at all interesting and you have to take anything you find with large doses of salt and it will also make you very unpopular if you raise it with anyone. Find a hobby, is my advice.

      3. MigraineMonth*

        No, we aren’t all looking each other up all the time. If I want to know more about my boss, I might look them up on LinkedIn or the company site. I might look for their online publications. I might even *talk to them*.

        Some people check neighbors/coworkers/dates that they get a bad vibe from against criminal or sex offender databases for safety reasons. Some people browse public social media to learn more about coworkers.

        It is *extraordinarily weird*, though, to *pay* for a background check on anyone you aren’t considering hiring or entering a financial arrangement with. Even in those cases, it should really only be with their permission. Bringing up information found in such a background check is controlling/stalking/threatening/blackmailing behavior, not “curiosity”.

        1. A reader among many*

          Agreed! We live in a concerning world in which we *can* find out all sorts of things about each other that we *should not* unless we have a strong and specific reason to do so.

      4. Dust Bunny*

        No? No, I think a lot of us have never considered doing this, and the fact that Scott brought up the arrest means it wasn’t just idle curiosity.

      5. Cat Tree*

        “we’re all probably looking each other up all the time.”

        I think this is one of those things where most people DON’T do it, but the minority who do it assume everyone else does it too. I certainly don’t do it and none of my friends have ever mentioned it. So if others are doing it, they’re working hard to keep it a secret. I have a rare last name and a locally notorious relative with the same list name (local to him, not me). So if people are routinely googling me I would expect it to come up in conversation occasionally but it never does. Even if people search but try to hide it, I would expect occasional slips or accidents and that never happens to me.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          “Everyone shoplifts/cheats on their partner/drives drunk/steals money from their parents a little bit, right?”

          Um, no. Everyone really, really doesn’t.

          1. Worldwalker*

            Exactly. It’s like the discussion about the person who went to a conference: one person was saying that we’ve all made mistakes like lying and scheming our way into a conference we weren’t supposed to go to. Um, no, most people haven’t done that. Or this.

          2. Moosey*

            Not an equivalent analogy. There’s nothing illegal (with a few exceptions) about using sites like Intelius or People Finder.

      6. BethRA*

        But looking up the information OP referenced would have taken far more than just hitting Google or DuckDuckGo, it would mean intentionally subscribing (i.e., paying money) to a data broker and searching there.

        And he didn’t just tell OP what he found, he asked OP – his manager – for details.

        His behavior is inherently bad. It may not warrant firing, depending on how he is generally and whether or not he understands he overstepped, but it’s not benign.

      7. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

        A few months after my now-partner and I first met, she mentioned that she had googled me. It hadn’t occurred to me to google her, but I understood her wanting more information than “introduced by mutual friends” before inviting me into her life. (I’m not the only person with my name, but there aren’t a huge number of us, either.)

        What Scott did isn’t just deciding that what he saw in his boss’s background check is his business–I don’t think it is, but you’re right that a lot of information is out there. He felt entitled to ask for more information than he could find in the records. “Tell me more about your accident, like where it happened” sounds like a lead-in to asking for more details, things more interesting than “this was in Maryland, right?”

      8. e271828*

        No, people are not routinely running in-depth paid background checks on their colleagues or bosses. This is not normal and the person who did this was, I hope, not tolerated long in that workplace.

      9. Tammy 2*

        I’m sure not.

        I might look up a LinkedIn but even then I wouldn’t mention something I saw there without a pretty compelling reason.

        1. Worldwalker*

          But LinkedIn is supposed to be public information. That’s kind of the point.

          This is a lot deeper search.

          1. Moosey*

            “LinkedIn is supposed to be public information.”

            The information on those sites is compiled from public records. OP’s arrest was a matter of public record.

          2. Pescadero*

            Everything the pay internet background check sites provide is public information. They are just aggregators of public information.

      10. Elitist Semicolon*

        LW said it wasn’t information that would come up from a Google search, so no, this wasn’t a guy who wanted to know more about their boss’s professional background and stumbled across something by accident.

      11. Irish Teacher.*

        I’d buy that if it wasn’t for the weird way in which he brought it up. If it was a kind of shamefaced, “I’m sorry but I read…,” then yeah, that seems possible. Even if he asked a question that made it sound like he was hoping the story was more dramatic, like “I heard you were arrested for a traffic violation. What did you do?” I could write him off as just a particularly socially awkward gossip and busybody, but “I just wanted to clarify which state your arrest took place in,” sounds both like somebody trying deliberately to act as his manager’s manager and also like he is making a point of letting her know he knows and not in a “maybe I should be upfront with her” way but more in a way that gives me the impression he thinks it’s she who should be embarrassed here (even though it really isn’t).

        I see where you are coming from because I did have a situation like you describe. It basically went “oh, my colleague has shared something from their spouse/sibling/parent’s page. Oh, yeah, they mentioned their spouse/sibling/parent/child was going for an important interview recently. I’ll just look and see if they got that job. Yi-i-ikes…what the heck have I just learnt about colleague’s family?” Yeah, they happened to have posted something on their page that…well, I won’t say it was personal because it was posted publically (I have no access to the relative’s page beyond what is public to the world) but I don’t necessarily think it was something my colleague would want me knowing. Think something like finding out their child had been in foster care or their parent was an alcoholic or their spouse had just come out of prison.

        So I do know how idle curiosity over something minor – “I wonder if that person was in the same class as my cousin” – can lead to your finding out far more than you bargained for. But I would never dream of going to my colleague and saying, “hey, I just wanted to clarify: was it drink or drugs your mother was addicted to?” That would be so far past the line as to be ridiculous.

      12. ReallyBadPerson*

        Nope. Randomly googling your colleagues or looking up what your boss paid for her house might be normal, but paying for background check is not.

      13. Not being creeped on*

        Honestly, I really do NOT think that looking people up is that common. I have a somewhat famous relative, and my name is clearly connected to theirs on a website – it shows up on the first page of results on Google, although towards the bottom, generally.

        I have literally NEVER had anybody ask me about this that indicates they found this through searching. Not once in my life. And I work in a pretty public-facing job with a lot of coworkers, so there’s a pretty big sample size on this.

        1. Cedrus Libani*

          I’ve found light Google-stalking to be normal. I have a searchable name, and I used to be active in a niche hobby community, which I don’t really talk about nowadays; I did cool stuff, but it’s been years. (Went to grad school, no time no money, and never got back into it.) Yet it’s most of my Google results, so it comes up.

          Obviously, there’s a difference: “that’s a cool hobby, tell me about it” is starting a conversation, while “you got arrested, explain yourself” is starting a fight!

      14. Observer*

        I kinda think that with all of the background check type sites that exist out there, we’re all probably looking each other up all the time

        No. Most people actually have better things to do with their time (and money).

        Based on what the LW says the scenario you posit is beyond unlikely because that information needs a query to the correct database. Which also means that he’s clumsily lying about why he’s asking. Or he’s doing it this way on purpose to find a a way to make sure that the LW understands that he *knows*.

    5. Eldritch Office Worker*

      If OP chose to fire this person, I would fully support that choice. I think there are arguments to be made for different courses of action, but if nothing else it’s a sign that this person has extremely poor professional judgement.

    6. a trans person*

      As a queer Pagan, among other things that are legal but could still get me attacked, yes I would take this as a genuine threat and seek immediate firing. (No I don’t have a social media presence to be found.)

      1. I Have RBF*

        Yeah, most of my queer pagan stuff is under a pseudonym, but I did have one person a while ago that found out my wallet name and insisted that I use only that, and be referred to in official matters as only that. In essence, she doxxed my pseudonym. So now I have to worry about that.

    8. Polaris*

      I’d have considered it, if only because I’ve seen something like this in play in my life recently, but the “background check” was a red herring and it involved a relative of the questioner being the arresting officer. (Its not exact but man the plot is sooooo similar….)

  12. Sneaky Squirrel*

    I wonder about the legality of what Scott has done and specifically if that would put the company at any risk if the LW. In the US, an employer would typically be required to obtain consent and notify the person of the intent to run a background check and then the information obtained cannot be used to deny equal employment opportunity. There is also a limitation on time frames (usually 7 years).

    Scott wasn’t acting on behalf of the company, as LW knows, but he’s bringing it up in a work capacity. But what if he somehow uses the information discriminatorily? Or passes on LW’s information to someone higher up who uses it discriminatorily?

    LW was exceptionally cool about it. Even with a clean record, I’d have gone berserk to find out my employees were running a background check on me and also expecting me to explain myself.

    1. KaciHall*

      I just sat through FCRA training last week (for a refresher course – I’ve worked at a background check company for more than 5 years.) This was absolutely not covered.

      I kind of want to ask our legal person.

      1. KaciHall*

        posted too soon –

        I think the fact that this hasn’t been covered on any training just shows you how crazy this actually is.

    2. Tippy*

      FWIW, unless there’s more info they found out everything in the letter would be considered public record in some states. It might take a little knowledge and a smidge more work (but not a lot) and this can be pulled from arrest records, booking (and release) sheets and court records. I live in Florida a bunch of counties have this information available online.

      1. KaciHall*

        Very few states have comprehensive free court records access. Florida’s is pretty good, Indiana has a pretty good one, and Missouri used to be better. But in Florida, you have to search county by county (and it shows court records, not arrests) . There’s not a free national arrest data website. It sounds like he was not arrested in his current state, so he either spent way too much time looking state by state (and county by county) to access the free databases, or he did a comprehensive check.

        1. Tippy*

          Oh definitely, but if you know where they were arrested in then it’s easy. If he found out that the arrest happened in say Perry, Fl, wikipedia will tell you Perry is in Taylor County. And assuming Taylor county clerk has the records online (it’s kind of small so possibly not) then you just go search. That’s why I said it takes a little more work and know-how, but it’s certainly not a lengthy process. And in Florida it’s definitely not illegal. Still weird though doing it to your co-worker/boss.

    1. Unkempt Flatware*

      Yep. I’d have calmly told him right then and there he needed to pack up and head home for the day and then schedule a termination meeting with HR for the next morning.

  14. My oh my*

    Ooof. I would figure out a way to get Scott out of that job. Even if it took a year or two. Carefully though, so it couldn’t come back to him that it was me. He is a SNEAKY SNAKE. It’s even more disturbing that he comes off as very pleasant. I have someone I work with now who I’m close to, but I have to remember that she is sneaky, and goes behind lots of people’s backs to management to get her way and curry favor. I assume everything I write to her may somehow end up in front of all the managers, and make sure when we do updates to senior management they’re very public.

  16. Trillian Astra*

    I have to respectfully disagree with the commentariat here: I worked closely with a coworker who later was found (when one of our staff googled him) to be a convicted felon of aggravated sexual assault, which the company had not caught during the onboarding process because of a weird loophole no one had experienced before.

    I believe it is in everyone’s right to do a dive on the people you work with. Scott definitely screwed up by asking the way he did and there were a million better ways he could have gone about this (or just left it alone because the record probably stated it was some kind of vehicle violation which isn’t applicable to the job, you would hope).

    I don’t know. I don’t quite agree that this is something that needs to be a huge red flag if the employee is doing well in other aspects.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Googling and paying for a background check are wildly different levels of checking someone out.

      1. KatAlyst*

        I’m just popping in to say “maybe” where others appear to default to “definitely”… because at least one of those paid-background-report websites has a subscription option, which potentially takes it back down to Google-level.
        I happen to have the subscription, which I got for vetting roommates & ended up keeping because it saves time in my very niche job. I don’t run reports for fun because I am already tired of researching stuff by 10 a.m. but it’s not something I’d see as more-intrustive-by-default.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          So because you’ve already paid for it, you don’t think that requesting background report on a coworker is more invasive than googling them? I would expect the level of information to be pretty different (as evidenced by a 10-year-old arrest for a car insurance issue showing up in a background report).

          I’d feel uncomfortable if I knew a coworker had requested a background report on me unless they had safety concerns about working with me or leaving me with children.

          1. Moosey*

            It’s ultimately not “invasive” if the results are a matter of public record.

            Elected governments have made the decisions that arrest records are a matter of public record.

            1. whimbrel*

              Sure, but it’s incredibly unsettling to then take that info, regardless of how it was obtained, and interrogate your boss (!) about the circumstances.

    2. Roberta*

      I think the red flag is not 100% in looking up his employer, but in bringing it up to OP.

      I wouldn’t even be upset if someone checked me out, though in my position we are all required to have vulnerable sector checks. It can illuminate, as you found out, records that may slip by for some reason or another.

      But it was not a violent offence. It was barely an offence. Bringing it up to OP is when Scott stopped making it his consideration and is now trying to bring OP into it. Best case scenario it shows wildly inappropriate understanding of how work boundaries work. Worst case Scott could be suggesting he would use it against OP in the future.

      1. Emikyu*

        I agree with this, especially since if he hadn’t brought it up, no one would know. This is one of those rare situations where if the lesson he learns is “don’t get caught”, that’s probably just as good as learning not to do it.

    3. Sneaky Squirrel*

      My line in the sand here is how the information was obtained and used.

      I believe that people overall have a right to privacy. I don’t have the right to know every single piece of information of someone else’s background, especially when it has not been made publicly available.

      But I have a right to my own security within limitations. I don’t get to look up someone’s personal medical history to see if they are carrying some infectious diseases, but some information is made publicly available out of the interest for my safety, such as sex offender registries. My employer has a due diligence to protect me which may include a background check and rules of engagement. None of that is foolproof, as you said, and if I feel my security or another’s is at risk, I have a right to take additional actions to protect myself. That may include finding more information to validate my thoughts or removing myself from the situation completely.

      Why this is a red flag for me – Because Scott isn’t doing the background search out of the interest of his own security. Why someone was arrested decades ago wasn’t relevant information to him especially when there was no public file or criminal record behind it. He brought it up anyways to be nosy and/or possibly use it against LW.

      1. Worldwalker*

        Yeah. It looks like he’s planning blackmail.

        “Nice reputation ya got there… it would be terrible if something happened to it….”

    4. Blarg*

      I recently met a new friend who is literally a journalist. And I felt weird googling her name, despite that being a thing she actually wants people to do, to find her work. This is NOT something that is normal, routine, or that “everybody” does. I cannot envision giving my credit card info to some sketch online company that promises to get me information that it has no real legitimate reason to have and share with me.

    5. Ccbac*

      as a young person, I once interviewed for a job with a small company (no employees other than owner. a basic website, but not much prominence in the industry). the interview was at a public library and, after I was offered the job, I was given the officer’s address. it was located above some stores in a small somewhat sketchy strip mall in an out of the way area. This was my first full time office job. I remember sitting there in the parking lot a bit confused/unsure on my first day. a little worried I had somehow been scammed and/or that I was about to be involved in a very elaborate kidnapping scheme. It all depends ended up being (mostly) fine and it was a sort of legit business, but on that first day I really wished I had been able to do more than a light Google of the owner before going into a non-descript/unmarked door…. I was putting a lot of trust in a person I had met once to be honest/safe and who they said they were.

    6. Observer*

      The difference between your situation and what the LW starts with the fact that what your staff person did was a basic Google search, not a paid and highly specific search.

      Beyond that, Scott did not find anything of importance, but still brought it up. And in a way that 1. proves that he’s not honest about his intent, because no one needs “clarification” it a traffic ticket happened in State 1 or State 2, but also because that information was there with the ticket information. and 2. in way the shows that he’s trying to assert dominance over the LW.

    7. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

      This is an interesting point, I think in places where they do background checks (or just in general), employees actually are putting a lot of trust in the employer to have carried out the background check process ‘correctly’ (so that incidents like the one you describe would have been picked up, which clearly it wasn’t in that case). As an employee you are asked, and expected, to subordinate your own judgement and risk assessment to the employer’s.

      However – Scott asking “just to clarify, did this happen in state x or state y?” doesn’t really add any understanding in any meaningful way. The key part of that is what did he intend to do with the information once OP answered?

      I think this company probably does do background checks on people (as well as the culture of ‘justifying’ your background) ans that this is Scott’s attempt to turn that process around on “the company”. It wouldn’t surprise me if Scott had something in his background that ultimately didn’t stop him getting the job (obviously) but that they had asked for additional information about. He sees this as an intrusion and thinks, well, if I have to justify myself then so should the company. His manager (OP) is the ‘face’ of the company to him and then he conflates the actions of ‘the company’ with digging into the background of his manager.

  17. Blarg*

    This reminds me of the time in the late 90s when my little brother searched through all my stuff in my childhood room while I was away at college. He called me to let me know he’d done it and asked specific and invasive questions about journal entries – to reinforce that he had read it all, and to ostensibly have “dirt” on me to use my own trauma as a cudgel.

    When I went home for break, I packed up all those things to take them back to school. He asked why I was bothering when he’d gone through it already.

    Anyway, these guys are fun. The internet makes it so much easier for them.

      1. Blarg*

        Nah. We have a cautious relationship. Not surprising our parents were also a piece of work. We put effort into maintaining contact but I def keep him at a distance.

    2. Dust Bunny*

      A friend of my mom’s was going through her son’s room while he was away at college, looking for all her missing dishes and flatware, and found some written porn (nothing disturbing) printed off of the Internet. She had seen a few small charges on the card that she gave him to use on her behalf if she sent him on errands but hadn’t really thought anything of it. She wasn’t mad; it was just kind of juvenile.

      He had a desk that had a built-in file drawer, so she made a file for Internet Porn and filed it for him so the next time he was home he would know she had seen it.

    3. Hannah Lee*

      I have a cousin who when she was younger was a bit sheltered and easily shocked, very given to pearl clutching. One time, years ago, she was visiting me for a few days, and happened to notice some mail that was on my counter an account statement from Blockbuster (hence the years ago) listing some videos that I’d returned late and the charge for them.

      At one point we were talking and she was all “there’s something I need to talk to you about … it’s difficult. I hate to bring it up … but I’m worried about you. Is everything okay? I noticed your Blockbuster statement showed you’ve been renting porn videos and that doesn’t seem like you”

      I was wracking my brain … and bouncing back and forth between “what? I haven’t rented porn videos Did someone steal my card?” and “So what if I did, what’s the problem, and what business would it be of yours” and “why are you reading MY mail so closely?”

      Turns out the film I’d returned late was decidedly NOT a porn film.
      Dear Reader, it was “Wings of Desire” the critically acclaimed film by Wim Wenders, German filmmaker. Wenders won Best Director for it at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s a profound (from what I remember) and artsy film about invisible angels who watch over Berlin, and comfort, guide people there while contemplating deep stuff.
      Bonus: it features a lovely turn by Peter Falk.
      And the aesthetic of lone male figures detached and observing human beings while posing in great coats with excellent posture makes me think it was an visual inspiration for the creators of Sherlock.

      I guess the title threw her off?

      I’d heard the title in the Nanci Griffith song If Wishes Were Changes, and that Wenders was working with U2 and I was curious about it. I still have some of the tracks from the soundtrack on my phone because they strike a particular mood.

      While she wasn’t trying to be malicious, the trifecta combo of nosiness, judginess and narrow-mindedness was … a lot. But someone who pulled this with ANY hint of “gotcha!” or power play would immediately go on ‘a list’ for me. Particularly someone at work I didn’t have years of positive history with.

      1. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

        This is why parents are doing their kids a disservice by trying to shield them from everything in the world. They can’t distinguish between an art film and Last Tango In Paris which totally sounds like a musical. It is not.

    4. alle*

      I had something kind of similar happen as a teenager in the mid-90s. My sister threw a party and invited some of my high school bullies. Apparently, they went into my room and snooped through my things. Fortunately, I did not keep a diary or had any risky or embarrassing photos so there was nothing interesting to find.

  18. Bumblebee*

    For some reason, I am completely convinced that the OP is a woman of color, and that Scott is a young white man, and he is pulling a power play here.

    2. DawnShadow*

      I also saw OP as a person of color (I assumed male) because it seems par for the course that a black man would have to worry about spending the night in jail in a conservative county because of a minor license/paperwork transgression.

      1. Orv*

        Yeah, a white guy probably would have been allowed to just continue on his way. I say this as a white person who’s been driving for over 30 years without ever being so much as pulled over. I’m not dumb enough to think that this is because I’m somehow an exceptionally law-abiding driver.

    3. Observer*

      I’m not convinced. But I also would not be shocked.

      Nor would I be shocked if the LW did not check both of those boxes, but just one.

    4. Observer*

      What on earth?

      Given what the LW described, the comment you are responding to is reasonable.

      Between winding up in jail for the night (do some googling about “driving while black”) and Scott’s clear power flex, it makes a lot of sense.

    1. Bast*

      Yeah, I’m not exactly sure what Scott was trying to do here? Even if it is blackmail, a minor traffic violation in most fields is no big deal, unless you’re perhaps a truck driver, taxi driver, etc. If this was an attempt at blackmail it was very poorly executed with very poor blackmail material, as even if this is brought up, no one is likely to care. If I Googled my boss/coworker and came across something as mundane as a ticket for speeding, expired registration, no insurance etc., particularly from over a decade ago, it wouldn’t really register as something important enough for my mind to remember, let alone bring up to said boss/colleague. If someone tried using this as blackmail material against someone else, I’d probably think it was a joke because it’s just so ridiculous. The vast majority of the office has likely had some traffic violation over the last 10 years; no one cares.

    2. The Prettiest Curse*

      And even if you did discover that a colleague had multiple felony convictions, the appropriate response would be to go to HR and/or the person’s manager – not bring it up to them in a meeting!

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        Subtle as a dumptruck. I’m annoyed on behalf of people living in the world that OP didn’t reply with AAM’s “What an odd question,” and returned awkward to sender by letting him sputter out.

  22. HonorBox*

    I really hope the letter writer brought HR into any follow up conversations. The fact that Scott paid for a background check on his boss and then brought it up “to clarify something” makes me think Scott is the kind of person who also would spin the conversation with LW in a way that benefits Scott. Like Scott would report LW to HR for some sort of threat. Having another set of ears in the room would be extremely beneficial.

  23. Apex Mountain*

    I don’t know why he did this, but if it’s blackmail or something to threaten the OP with, how would that work exactly… “Give me a promotion or I’ll tell everyone your auto insurance expired once”

    1. Miss Muffet*

      He’ll just say “OP was in JAIL once” and leave out the minor offense that triggered it. Esp if the OP is a POC (which I also assumed based on the description of the incident), it just serves to feed into a “SCARY BLACK PERSON SHOULDN’T BE TRUSTED” kind of feeling, which no one needs, but lets Scott feel some power for holding the knowledge and thinking he can hold it over OP’s head somehow.

      1. AJ*

        Not necessarily a POC. I have a cis white female ex-friend that was booked for old tickets, expired license stuff.

        1. Carol the happy*

          And I have a friend who is an identical twin- whose sister’s boyfriend stole drivers license and military ID card, plus credit and gas cards back in the early 90s. Boyfriend got pulled over, immediately roughed up, and sister started trying to reason with the cop. The cop knocked her out, and boyfriend gave my friend’s ID to him instead of telling who the sister really was (and she was groggy from a fist to the head that slammed her into the car.)

          It was finally solved by my friend’s lawyer, the boyfriend had six different stories, the cop got fired, but he got a commendation in the news- Total sewer fire.
          Twin Sister only saw a hospital ER, (serious concussion) not a jail cell. Boyfriend got 90 days, with 2 weeks in real time. And the Twin Sisters each always carry a picture of both of them together, with work name tags.
          Because the internet doesn’t ever forget.

          As for Scott- he needs to be gone. I hope he was enough of a screw up that he got fired!

  24. HB*

    I might be alone in this, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that Scott was somehow threatening or attempting to blackmail the LW. I think it’s just as likely that he’s absurdly nosy and brought it up to the LW because he wanted more details. I’ve also noticed a phenomenon where people will tell on themselves in situations where they realize they’ve done something inappropriate, and so they find a way to confess to get it off their conscience.

    In any case, I hope Scott’s judgement improved.

    1. Apex Mountain*

      I agree with that, mainly because there’s nothing to blackmail anyone with…So the OP had a minor traffic incident a long time ago? Not even close to blackmail material

    2. Irish Teacher.*

      I didn’t think of blackmail or threatening so much as…sort of way of establishing dominance. The LW describes the employee as amitious and mentions being new herself, so my feeling is that it’s a way of…sort of asserting himself and putting the LW on the backfoot. “You’re the new person here so you are answerable to us and not the other way around.”

      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        I was going to tell you that someone fleshed out this idea below with very clear and excellent phrasing. It is you.

      2. HB*

        I understand this reading of the situation and think it’s perfectly valid, I just don’t think it’s any more or less likely than him being a busybody. A lot depends on what his tone of voice/body language was in the interaction, as well as how he behaves generally.

        Admittedly, my feeling of him just being nosy comes from my experience with much younger coworkers who were particularly fond of doing what I can only describe as light stalking. Things like looking at the calendars of other people in the office to see what meetings they were in, scouring LinkedIn for info on people who ended up leaving, etc. Nothing that wasn’t technically available to view, but also *really* pushing the boundaries of professional norms. Two of them were interns at the time, and the third had been working for a few years but when they were all around each other (which was often because they were all close in age), the behavior tended to feed itself. If this is a super gossipy office, I wouldn’t be surprised by some warped behavior.

  25. Irish Teacher.*

    I think the weirdest thing here is what this says about his understanding of hierarchy. I don’t mean that in a “he should know his place as a worker bee” way, but…asking your manager to “clarify” something personal that is none of your business…seems to me like a bit of a powerplay.

    Especially as what he asked for clarification on…doesn’t even seem particularly important. Like I could maybe understand asking for clarification on what a conviction was for. It would still be inappropriate, but I can understand somebody wanting to know, if all they knew was that it was a traffic offence, for example, there is a difference between danagerous driving and the LW’s situation, but why would it matter where it was. It feels a bit like the employee just wanted to show the LW that they knew and to bring it up in a way that makes them seem like the manager and the manager like the employee.

    It strikes me as having shades of the employee who would tell his manager his “expectations” of her.

  26. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

    This letter was from 2019, I wonder if it would play out differently now. If I were approached by a co-worker who ran a background check on me I would take it up my manager and HR. These days if he approached anyone; a manager or co-worker and told them that he ran a check on them and wanted answers, he definitely would be dealt with, hopefully.

    1. EDIA*

      The professional world has not changed that drastically in 5 years. In this case, LW is the best person to address it with Scott, because LW has that authority as Scott’s boss. Letting HR know what’s going on, sure, but asking HR to handle it as a first resort undermines LW’s authority as Scott’s boss.

    2. Strive to Excel*

      I think as much as we like to think we’ll take the “correct” actions when presented with someone behaving badly, shock is a HELLUVA drug. I’ve had interactions where in retrospect I would have handled them really differently, but at the time I was so flummoxed that I took the complete wrong tack.

      1. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

        I have too. It’s hard to react properly in the moment though I’m getting better at it.

  27. urbosa wife*

    I have to admire the guts this guy has for actually telling LW he ran a background check on them. Meanwhile I’m scared to even look people up on LinkedIn because I know they’ll see someone from my company searched them.

    1. urbosa wife*

      For the record I don’t think what Scott did was cool or normal, at all. But it takes an interesting type of person to actually think to say something like that.

  28. Crencestre*

    Since this happened 5 years ago, it would VERY interesting to get an update and find out what happened with this employee – somehow, I doubt that he rose very rapidly through the ranks of THAT company!

    But I wonder what his motivation was in running this background check on the OP? Worst case scenario was that he was setting OP up for not-so-subtle blackmail – “I’ll keep my lip zipped about your time in the slammer IF you give me a raise/extra time off with pay/a better assignment/no work trips out of town, etc., etc.”

    Best case scenario is that this was a young, overly zealous individual with no sense at all of how the working world actually works. But given his stunning lapse of judgment, if I were the OP, I would NOT want to wait around to find out – I’d hustle that employee out of the company as fast as I could!

  29. WantonSeedStitch*

    Sometimes it seems like there are some people on this site who treat “so what did you do this weekend?” from a coworker as rudely intrusive. THIS is rudely intrusive. I won’t speculate on motives–sheer nosiness is at least as likely as a blackmail attempt–but it’s way out of line no matter what the motivation.

  30. Pool Noodle Barnacle Pen0s*

    This was a hamfisted attempt at a power play, performed by someone with a warped and overinflated sense of his own prowess. I would schedule a meeting with Scott, with an HR rep present, and invite him to explain his reasoning. “Walk me through your process here, Scott.” Should be an interesting convo.

    Followed up with letting him know he’s on a 12 week PIP effective immediately, with the stated objective of monitoring and correcting his severely impaired professional judgment.

  31. Mehitabel*

    I’d have reported him to HR and threatened a lawsuit. That’s out outrageously egregious and violating I find his action.

    But that’s just me, I guess.

  32. MotherofaPickle*

    I used to work for The State. Looking up People on the state website thingy was not uncommon. E.g., my Dad has several unpaid speeding tickets from well over a decade ago (fun fact: I was in the car for all of them!).

    I would def look someone up via public record if I thought they were at all shady, but never spend my actual money on digging up inconsequential dirt.

    Toxic workplace. This is not a bees situation; this is a radioactive yellowjackets situation. Hope they got out before the fallout.

    1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      “Toxic workplace. This is not a bees situation; this is a radioactive yellowjackets situation. Hope they got out before the fallout.”
      The situation though, the toxic snooper is new. It would make sense to show him the door before OP leaving himself.

      1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        Backwards: the Letter Writer is new, not the toxic snooper. I wonder if LW replaced someone, and if so, if they had any contact with that person to know what they thought about Mr. Snooper.

        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          I did get that completely backward. OP is a new manager walking into a staffer who did a deep dig on him. Wow. Yeah, totally need an update. This guy is not who I would want in my department. But being the established person…I do wonder if OP found a toxic department or one outlier.
          thanks

  34. Nah*

    I was in a situation very similar to the OP. You can’t get people like employee to understand the line crossed. If the OP said Allison’s suggested script (or similar) to the employee, the employee would only think the OP was defensive after having been found out. Been there done that(well, very similar).

  36. DE*

    If it’s not odd for an employer to do a background check on an employee then I think it should not be odd for an employee to do one on their employer. He’s doing his due diligence.

    Asking follow up questions was weird though.

    1. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      Knowledge and consent.

      You authorize a background check to be run on you. Generally with the expectation that the results are confidential.

    2. HSE Compliance*

      Your supervisor is not your employer. The company is your employer.

      Running a paid background check on someone that hasn’t consented, and then to *question them on it*, is really, really weird. It comes across as an invasive attempt at a power play.

      Also – every background check I’ve consented to with an employer is third party. My employer only got results stating “passed” or “failed”. They didn’t get actual information, and it was all handled specifically through HR.

      1. iglwif*

        Oh that’s interesting! I wasn’t sure how this worked (I’ve only had one background check by an employer because I have mostly worked in Canada and never worked with vulnerable sectors or in a financial role) so I was thinking, like, probably HR gets some details but nobody else at the company would.

  37. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    Right, in academia or healthcare this could be a fireable offense on its own.

    It is borderline because it isn’t a FERPA or HIPAA violation, but it shows such poor judgement for someone who would need to be able to follow those guidelines. I have a deep level of records access and part of having that access is you don’t access anything you do not have a legitimate reason to access.

  38. Katydid*

    If anyone needs reminding, this is the kind of situation where it’s useful to reply: “Why do you ask?”

    See what he says. Afterwards, you can say something noncommittal (“Hmmmm”) and change the subject if you want more time to figure out how you’re going to deal with his poor boundaries.

  39. Disappointed but not surprised*

    This is really weird. It’s like someone asking you to clarify why you put your pet down a couple years ago. Oh, did you go to Vet in city A or city B? After the awkwardness faded, I wouldn’t be able to look at this person with a straight face and my friends would know about the coworker who ran a background check on me AND told me about it. Here’s hoping that OP is laughing about this 5 years later.

  40. Nope*

    I’d fire Scott. No second chance for that kind of behavior. It’s too far beyond what is appropriate and shows such an astonishing lack of judgment, that I wouldn’t want him working for me.

  41. Tesuji*

    The manager’s response is even weirder to me than the employee’s actions.

    Scott’s actions seem like garden-variety stupidity. Like, I can imagine who comes from a privileged background in their first job doing something this moronic.

    Now, I’d expect Scott to be fired immediately. At the *very* least, I’d expect him to get the dressing-down of his life about how inappropriate this is. Like, this isn’t even a close question about whether this is normal behavior.

    … but instead the manager behaves as though getting called on the carpet by an underling is perfectly normal, and that he has the right to interrogate her.

    That’s just pants-on-head crazy. That’s… honestly, if I were *her* boss and this was in any way the kind of job where handling unexpected situations was a possibility, I’d start wondering if she was capable of the job.

    Either there’s some *huge* chunks of information she’s leaving out (e.g., Scott is the owner’s son or the job is taking place in a part of the world where women have no legal rights) or I’d want to (if I had a time machine) gently suggest to the LW that she needs to get to a therapist post-haste to deal with whatever issues made her fawn in a situation like this.

  42. The.mostest*

    whatever “aggressive office culture” this is….count me out. I cannot imagine the stress and strife that OP may have normalized due to such surroundings. Don’t get me wrong, Scott was out of the ballpark out-of-line, but if this is the scale for OP to think “wow that’s odd” then what the heck is considered normal ?!

  43. Sharon*

    This would have been a great time to use the classic Miss Manners line: “Why do you need to know?” followed by a pointed pause.

  44. CV*

    People google each other fairly often, for various reasons. Paying for someone else to do the work for you of googling/searching public records is just the efficient way to do that same thing. I think the creepiness level is identical.

    It understandably bothers us that so very much is available about us, but that’s a different problem (and possibly mostly a USA problem.) We don’t think about it until we get surprised, and then we have an emotional reaction to information that already existed in public form.

    What someone does with that info later, multiplies whatever creepiness factor one assigns to googling someone in the first place.

    I think these three aspects are getting bundled together in the discussion.

  45. Daria grace*

    I’m baffled about what Scott thought he’d find. Presumably stronger background checks were done by the company as a condition of employment so if someone has a job there his less extensive records check is not gonna turn up any criminal history worth finding.

    I’d be very very concerned about his judgement on the job, particularly the risk of him using company data and resources to conduct “research” on things and people that are none of his business.

  46. Sally*

    Curious what others think how this would be if the background check had revealed something more serious, such as armed robbery or sexual assault. The company might have determined that enough time had passed and cleared the background check etc, but if the employee felt physically vulnerable in some way, maybe it would be understandable that they would want to know details. Even though asking the person they are now considering “potentially dangerous” for details is paradoxical, I could maybe see the psychology of wanting to hear the mitigating circumstances, or assurance that the OP is no longer dangerous.
    With the traffic violation though, I can also only see this as a power move.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      If an employee was nervous enough to quietly pay for checks out of fears for her safety and then found something serious, then imo she’d be very unlikely – and foolish – to confront such a person herself.

      Anyway, she’s not qualified to judge the truthfulness of the response or to evaluate risk of reoffending.
      In that case, the correct approach would be to report immediately to HR or her grandboss (probably they’d overlook or not realise that her info came from paid investigations)

      This guy asked a very odd question about a minor traffic offence. No acceptable explanation for that.

      1. Hyaline*

        That’s the thing—I’m going to give a pass to someone who googles or even does a background check because they’re concerned about safety. But the proper use of that info never involves this creepy slipping “I know what you did last summer” lines into conversation. It would be heading to HR with actual concerns.

    2. Boof*

      It’d only matter if it was relevant to the employee – like if they were getting a dangerous vibe (maybe comments that are somewhat inappropriate etc ) but weren’t sure what, if anything, to do about it; then it might make sense to bring it to HR / in the context of whatever actions were not right /

    3. Irish Teacher.*

      I think it would also depend on HOW they approached the person. In my opinion, something like “sorry, but I was wondering about the circumstances of your arrest” would show bad judgement, but I the context of something serious, I would think it could be excusable. “I just wanted to clarify which state you were arrested in,” on the other hand, sounds…well, like they are treating the manager as THEIR employee. And I know the LW may not be quoting exact words, but I’m guessing it was said in a way that had that arrogant tone because it’s not the obvious way to phrase the sentence.

  47. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    Yikes, makes me shudder. I’d be nervous about working with him. Creepy, bordering on stalker behaviour. At best a clumsy powerplay.
    Unethical too, because the OP never consented to her employee performing this check.

    I would also be worried that he might have paid for checks on other coworkers and more senior managers – and found far more effective blackmail material
    e.g. Old drug convictions in a zero-tolerance organisation, or “why did you decide to have an abortion in Feb 2015?”, or “Why aren’t you aren’t out as gay here”

    I hope the OP reported him and that – unless he had a very convincing explanation & apology – he was promptly fired.

  48. Hyaline*

    The focus on it having to have been a paid background check is interesting, because there’s no proof it was (OP assumed so, but it’s hypothetically Google-able, depending). Does it really change things if Scott found this via Google? I feel like it doesn’t—not a lot—as the egregiously weird thing isn’t getting the info but trying to do something with it. It feels really weirdly like Scott is attempting to leverage this as blackmail or idk effed up bonding. The bringing it up is bizarrocakes even if the info was found innocently on an unrelated search.

    1. Boof*

      Yea I don’t think whether or not it was paid matters that much except the part where it probably didn’t come up with a casual “oh let me double check how to spell my bosses name” or whatever myriad of innocuous reasons one might have to do a brief google search on a coworker

    2. Daria grace*

      To me it feels like there’s a difference because there’s an extra degree of intentionality in a paid search. There’s something about handing over money that makes it a deliberate snooping effort in a way a casual google while bored is not

  49. Student*

    This sure reads to me like your new employee made an inept attempt at blackmail.

    Check in on your other employees. I would bet money that he tried this on them as well. As a manager, you’re able to tell him off, whereas they may need you to stick up for them or to help them navigate it.

  50. Irish Teacher.*

    I kind of wonder if he has problems with the LW being his boss, whether because he was there longer or possibly for something like…maybe she is younger than him or belongs to some group he doesn’t respect the authority of and this is a way of “cutting her down to size” and “asserting his position.”

  52. SnookidyBoo*

    I once worked with this bizarre young woman who got it into her head that I was ‘bad’ and it was up to her to ‘prove’ that I was untrustworthy and doing bad things. How do I know this? Because after three months of her bizarre behavior my manager called a meeting and she outright admitted that she had taken it upon herself to investigate me.

    Her proof? One day I had given her a ride and in the side pocket of my car was a packet of post cards/fliers that I had not distributed.

    If she had asked (or even bothered to take them out and look because you could only see the edge of the postcards) she would have seen that they were from three years prior when our distributor had given us (a city run art gallery) a thousand too many and I couldn’t distribute all of them.

    I had tucked them into the passenger side of my car and forgotten about them.

    My coworker had said nothing, clarified nothing, didn’t even bother to check to see if they were our postcards, just jumped to the conclusion that I was lying about distributing post cards and therefore was a criminal.

    She also accused me of falsifying my time sheet.

    In the meeting my boss (who I worked closely with) clarified none of the things she thought were happening, were happening. But she WOULD NOT STOP. My boss told her to drop it three separate times and finally had to raise her voice and tell my coworker that I was not her concern and she wasn’t responsible for my behavior.

    My coworker quit a couple of weeks later. Still remains one of the most bizarre encounters in my work life.

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