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Help with a potentially hilarious situation
wasted pixels
Registered User
Registered User
Some names and details have been changed to protect the innocent (and avoid breaking any NDAs), but the situation goes something like this:
My dad was a senior vice-president with a well-known electronics company. He left about a year ago to spend more time at home, but he's recently accepted a position with the same company as a consultant. His area of work is very specialized, and they weren't able to find anyone to fill his position until just now. Because he's consulting in the same branch of the company that he used to work in, he's still on a lot of the CC lists from his old office.
So the other day my dad gets an email from his old boss announcing to everyone that my dad's old position has finally been filled. The boss shares a few kind words about the new hire, including the new guy's past experience, and his educational background. My dad didn't recognize the name of the new guy's alma mater -- Ashwood University -- and decided to Google it, expecting it to be "a small liberal arts college in New Jersey or something".
It turns out that Ashwood University is an internet-only "life experience" program that will get you a master's degree in "seven days or less".
Now my dad has been pretty clear that the situation will "take care of itself" given a few weeks, but he's open to the possibility of exposing the guy outright if someone can present him with a reasonably hilarious way of doing so. I'm a child of the 80's, so nothing makes me happier than life imitating sitcoms. And most importantly, there's an opportunity here to teach someone a valuable lesson about bogus credentials.
H/A, how would you guys put the F, U and N back in "fraudulent misrepresentation"?
My dad was a senior vice-president with a well-known electronics company. He left about a year ago to spend more time at home, but he's recently accepted a position with the same company as a consultant. His area of work is very specialized, and they weren't able to find anyone to fill his position until just now. Because he's consulting in the same branch of the company that he used to work in, he's still on a lot of the CC lists from his old office.
So the other day my dad gets an email from his old boss announcing to everyone that my dad's old position has finally been filled. The boss shares a few kind words about the new hire, including the new guy's past experience, and his educational background. My dad didn't recognize the name of the new guy's alma mater -- Ashwood University -- and decided to Google it, expecting it to be "a small liberal arts college in New Jersey or something".
It turns out that Ashwood University is an internet-only "life experience" program that will get you a master's degree in "seven days or less".
Now my dad has been pretty clear that the situation will "take care of itself" given a few weeks, but he's open to the possibility of exposing the guy outright if someone can present him with a reasonably hilarious way of doing so. I'm a child of the 80's, so nothing makes me happier than life imitating sitcoms. And most importantly, there's an opportunity here to teach someone a valuable lesson about bogus credentials.
H/A, how would you guys put the F, U and N back in "fraudulent misrepresentation"?
wasted pixels on
BTW, I got a message from Obs that equated installing OS X on a PC with car theft, murder and rape. Is he normally like that?
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
However...
Get your dad to start dropping hints. Ask the guy if he's ever played x computer game or something, and say 'well you can master it in seven days or less...'
www.rockmidgets.com
Nobody applied.
Background: My lecturer used to work as an engineer in Sydney for a reasonably large company. Anyway in the 80's there was an earthquake and since many of the churches were based around English designs they didn't stand well up to earthquakes and his company got the contract to restore all of the the churches.
He was also on the board for Engineers Australia which also meant he had to interview people in order for them to join.
Anyway he was interviewing some guy for membership one day and he asked what jobs that he may of heard of that he has worked on. The guy claimed to work on the churches. Now these meetings are usually the most informal thing you can ever have and usually go for half an hour, my lecturer then spent the next hour and a half grilling the poor sap on how he solved every single problem that presented itself in the church. The other guy in the room said it was the most horrific interview he had ever seen.
Satans..... hints..... I'm a mo bro!
At least they're honest... in a search-engine-keyword-spamming, freudian-slipping kind of way.
Check out my band, click the banner.
Or just send an e-mail out about how his dad just got a degree from Ashwood in the same thing the new employee "in a mere 7 days." Questions will arise, and skepticism towards the new employee will, too.
It's also a week of a lot of work and probably isn't worth it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sJq8rqr4IcQ
Okay, this isn't advice per se... but that was freaking hilarious.
What's this? I didn't do anything to earn this piece of crap...
... wait, where have I seen that name before?
Why are there cats in a hospital?
Also get your dad to wear a t-shirt saying:
"I WENT TO ASHWOOD UNIVERSITY FOR 6 DAYS, GOT MY DEGREE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID TSHIRT"
Or something like that.
Even better, print up a certificate that looks like a degree, and in fancy lettering it says "I went to Ashwood University for 6 days and all I got was this stupid degree!"
Bonus points if your dad staples it to a t-shirt and wears it around.
Alternatively, see if you can somehow get the Ashwood spam to start seeping into the company's listservs.
From: Your Dad
To: Everyone
Hey guys, I know some of you are working pretty hard right now to get your Master's/Doctors/(whatever applies to the company), and I know that can be pretty expensive, but check THIS place out! I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it with my own eyes!
http://www.woeac.org/
http://www.boua.org/
Seriously.
Look dude, as much as I'm with your dad on this one, you have to remember that in situations like this, most of the time it is the whistle-blower who gets fired.
What? Would he get fired for knowing about a fake diploma-bearing employee? For reading emails sent to him? What situations "like this" have you been in?
Also, you agree that if he can do this job, it doesn't matter? Are you kidding? We know nothing about the job, it could be Safety and Quality Assurance for all we know. That'll go over well. Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and skip my junior and senior years and just get my engineering degree for $400, and go design bridge trusses without knowing anything about structural engineering, you goddamned idiot.
PSN/XBL: dragoniemx
Im assuming hes not performing brain surgery and for any sort of position where peoples lives are at stake, there would be some sort of background checking or prior experience needed.
That said, if youre in texas, apparently its illegal to use a diploma from Ashwood. So if the OP lives there, i suggest ignoring all the advice about the dad getting his own diploma from there next week.
Check out my band, click the banner.
I'm paying 5k a semester for university (Canada, I think our tuition is lower). And no way am I gonna let some shitface with a week-long I-waited-on-my-ass degree in whatever take a potential job from me.
And in fear for your dad's job, he should just ask Ashwood "university" to send him an information package (under a fake name of course) to the head of the company he works at. That way it wouldn't be traced back to him. =\ and that fraud can either go to jail or be blackballed from any sort of meaningful job (or something like that).
Your dad could potentially make himself look like an idiot.
Yes, it does, actually. Google it and search, say, the first 20 pages. Longer if you want to waste time. It's only about the fake one.
Unless his dad misheard, and the diploma is from Ashwood College in Australia, which seems unlikely, because that's not a university, it's a high school.
There are reasons his dad may not want to pull any pranks or do anything, but they are not this.
PSN/XBL: dragoniemx
http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/
I checked the guy's school out before I posted.
That's the thing, there's no way he can do the job. My dad's initial fuss with the guy was that they needed to hire a CPA, but whoever did the hire felt that a master's degree was "good enough". I guess you could argue he's not going to kill anyone if he doesn't know what he's doing, but he's still wasting a lot of people's time and resources.
He's not going to cause a bridge to collapse or bungle a surgery, granted, but he could very easily tank a project or blow it during a meeting with an international partner. My dad is certain the guy's incompetence will out him before long, but why on earth would you not want to have some fun with a situation like this?
Because your idea of fun might not match up with others people's, and in this litigious society of ours, as well as the prickly nature of corporate culture, your dad could stand to get sued or fired.
I don't know why all of you are calling for the father to buy a degree, $495 or whatever is a damn lot of money, nothing I personally would spend on a prank that could possible get me fired for insulting my boss's intelligence.
Because it would be funny.
(No, it obviously isn't worth it. But it's an amusing possibility.)
My dad is a consultant, he's not going to get fired.
If the next mod to come along could lock this, it hasn't worked out the way I hoped at all. I was looking for some funny suggestions for dealing with an unpleasant situation, and you guys tend to be good at that. In hindsight, though, I probably should have gone to one of the discussion boards. I'm sorry I brought it up at all.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH