Should I fire this guy because he bought his degree from the internet?

Hey guys, I posted this on another board and the verdict I got was to
fire him. Since I've been lurking here for a while I thought I'd post
it here for some more advice.

A couple years ago I hired a guy named Thomas as a senior tech for a
small data center I run in California. He always seemed like a pretty
competent worker. Thomas had great personal skills, came into work
on-time, and pretty much completed projects better than any of the
other techs in our facility. He seemed like a pretty intelligent guy,
actually. On occasion I've even had dinner with his wife and young
daughter who's going through chemo. I generally consider Thomas a
friend.

The other day I invited him to my house to hang out and have a few
drinks. At one point in the evening we were shooting the **** and
talking about the worst things we've ever done in our lives. I
regaled him with a tale about how I stole expensive clothes from
department stores as a teenager and he told me about how he once sent
explicit pictures of his cheating ex-girlfriend sodomizing a toothbrush
to her parents. I laughed and passed him another drink.

I guess he was getting a little too tipsy because a little later he
related a story about how he got his college degree in philosophy. We
don't require college degrees, but we generally hire and give greater
pay to candidates with the degree over the candidate without one.
Thomas said that he bought it off the internet for $450 from some
website called "The Transnational Council" for something something. He
wrote the domain http://www.tcge.org on a napkin and said that he had
listed the degree he got through them on the resume he sent my
secretary two years ago. I've heard this website discussed on some
message boards a few days ago. Apparently they represent universities
who grant degrees based on previous college credits, work history, and
military/life experience. Now I don't know what to do. Company policy
is to terminate people who lie on their resumes, but he doesn't seem
like that bad of a guy. The website he got his degree from looks like
what they're doing is pretty unethical since there's no coursework
involved. But I guess the degree is technically legal. Should I fire
him because he bought his degree from the internet instead of attending
a regular university?

What he did was pretty crooked. I think I'll decide to go ahead and
fire him over this. If you were his employer what would you do?

wrote:

spam spam spam spam spam spam spam

Congratulations, that was the most wordy spam I've ever seen.

Rich

Is he a cyclist?

Fire yourself. You hired him. You should have checked.

wrote:
:: Hey guys, I posted this on another board and the verdict I got was to
:: fire him. Since I've been lurking here for a while I thought I'd post
:: it here for some more advice.
::
:: A couple years ago I hired a guy named Thomas as a senior tech for a
:: small data center I run in California. He always seemed like a pretty
:: competent worker. Thomas had great personal skills, came into work
:: on-time, and pretty much completed projects better than any of the
:: other techs in our facility. He seemed like a pretty intelligent guy,
:: actually. On occasion I've even had dinner with his wife and young
:: daughter who's going through chemo. I generally consider Thomas a
:: friend.
::
:: The other day I invited him to my house to hang out and have a few
:: drinks. At one point in the evening we were shooting the **** and
:: talking about the worst things we've ever done in our lives. I
:: regaled him with a tale about how I stole expensive clothes from
:: department stores as a teenager and he told me about how he once sent
:: explicit pictures of his cheating ex-girlfriend sodomizing a
:: toothbrush to her parents. I laughed and passed him another drink.
::
:: I guess he was getting a little too tipsy because a little later he
:: related a story about how he got his college degree in philosophy. We
:: don't require college degrees, but we generally hire and give greater
:: pay to candidates with the degree over the candidate without one.
:: Thomas said that he bought it off the internet for $450 from some
:: website called "The Transnational Council" for something something.
:: He wrote the domain http://www.tcge.org on a napkin and said that he
:: had listed the degree he got through them on the resume he sent my
:: secretary two years ago. I've heard this website discussed on some
:: message boards a few days ago. Apparently they represent universities
:: who grant degrees based on previous college credits, work history,
:: and military/life experience. Now I don't know what to do. Company
:: policy is to terminate people who lie on their resumes, but he
:: doesn't seem like that bad of a guy. The website he got his degree
:: from looks like what they're doing is pretty unethical since there's
:: no coursework involved. But I guess the degree is technically legal.
:: Should I fire him because he bought his degree from the internet
:: instead of attending a regular university?
::
:: What he did was pretty crooked. I think I'll decide to go ahead and
:: fire him over this. If you were his employer what would you do?

Fire whoever thought spamming this message to multiple unrelated
newsgroups was a good way to draw traffic to your site.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Updated Bicycle Touring Books List:
http://www.phred.org/~josh/bike/tourbooks.html

On 2006-01-17, wrote:

Hey guys, I posted this on another board and the verdict I got was to
fire him. Since I've been lurking here for a while I thought I'd post
it here for some more advice.

First thing I'd do is post this in a relevant group at least.

--

John )

Hey guys, I posted this on another board and the verdict I got was to
fire him. Since I've been lurking here for a while I thought I'd post
it here for some more advice.

Keep lurking...

I guess he was getting a little too tipsy because a little later he
related a story about how he got his college degree in philosophy. We
don't require college degrees, but we generally hire and give greater
pay to candidates with the degree over the candidate without one.
Thomas said that he bought it off the internet for $450 from some
website called "The Transnational Council" for something something. He
wrote the domain http://www.tcge.org on a napkin and said that he had
listed the degree he got through them on the resume he sent my
secretary two years ago.

Wow. The Universe is such an incredibly small place. What are the odds that
this guy posted identical messages for a website named www.diplomaforge.org?
And further, what are the odds that the relevant IP addresses of the two
sites are identical? And further, what are the odds that, of all the
newsgroups he posted (which are about 20 so far), this is the only one that
suspects he's the owner of the relevant sites, and not simply a troll?

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com

And further, what are the odds that, of all the
newsgroups he posted (which are about 20 so far), this is the only one that
suspects he's the owner of the relevant sites,

Does this mean that cyclists are more intelligent
or probably just more perceptive to the smell of trolls? :-)
Archie A.