"I hadn't told anyone that I had been hired."
The lady across from me leaned in and waved her hands over the tabletop. We were at a rather upscale, local place located in the heart of Honolulu's business district. The afterhours crowds hadn't arrived just yet, as 6:00 p.m. only marks the early dinner and post-work drinking crowd in a city where folks tend to eat late.
"Finally, I was given my letter of hiring and cleared to start work, so I emailed a friend and told them the good news, that evening another friend and former co-worker also emailed to congratulate me, saying that he'd heard from her (the first friend), that I'd been hired and was working again."
"The next morning, I went to my new job's online site and found everything shut down."
"I'd been cleared to work, had an active email and forum accounts, and had regular communications with my office. Now my clearance has pulled, my assignments are gone, and my email hasn't updated for over a week."
"I went to my normal staff functions on Saturday at site, and was treated as if nothing was wrong, yet I have no communication or expectation of working now."
"I've been hired multiple times by different employers, (five) but haven't worked a paid day in over a year."
"I suppose someone made a call and that was it."
"I can't live in a country where I can't work."
This twenty-something graduate student's offense? Participating in the Anti-War movement a few years ago. She's been hired and then removed from jobs at five differing employers with no cause or explanation since then. On four of these occasions, she had already been processed by HR and cleared for work by her company. One administrator freely admitted to her that she would never work in any professional capacity again--anywhere in America--if someone like herself had anything to do with it.
Welcome to the Neo McCarthyism of 2013.
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