The more you know.

My friend, an attorney in a law firm, is also leaving his current position. His new job is pretty sweet: in-house counsel at a Fortune 300 company. After it was announced that he was leaving his position in a couple weeks, a few other attorneys in his practice group asked him to let them know if there are any additional openings in his new company.

What he said was "Absolutely."

What he thought was "HELL no."

He has seen the shady, underhanded things they do, the shortcuts they make, and the lapses in judgment. He's seen them drop the ball and blame it on someone else. He witnessed them breaching another coworker's privacy. Gossip, back-stabbing, and tattling to the partners--the list goes on.

"Why the fuck would I want to bring them over to my company?" he asked me. "Not only would they fuck up everything, they would make me look bad for recommending them."

"You have a point," I said.

"And the thing is, they KNOW that I know their shady bullshit. Do they really think I want my new company to hire a bunch of back-stabbing, incompetent lazy-asses?"

"Well, maybe they thought you guys were such good pals, you'd recommend them anyway," I said. He started shaking his head vehemently while I was talking. "Also, maybe they thought it wouldn't hurt to ask."

"Oh hell no," he said.

Amused by his growing agitation, I said, "Or, honestly, maybe they didn't think they did anything wrong."

After I said that, I think his head almost exploded. It made me laugh, but he didn't think it was that funny.

So what's the lesson here? It is perhaps a corollary to the "Don't burn bridges" axiom: Don't be a back-stabbing, incompetent lazy-ass. Or at least don't let your bosses or coworkers know you are a back-stabbing, incompetent lazy-ass.

Because you never know.