Last fall I wrote a post about a food runner who skipped work without getting his shifts covered to go on a little trip.

He lost his job.

The friend he went on the trip was also a food runner but he’d gotten his shifts covered.

However.

That friend texts me the next week to tell me he can’t come to work because he’s broken his ankle playing basketball.

He accompanies the text with a photo of a leg with a swollen ankle. No head. No body. Just a shoe. A sock. An ankle.

Hmmmm.

I told him I thought I was sorry and to let us know if he needed anything.

Hmmmm.

Momma wasn’t born yesterday.

I knew he hadn’t broken his ankle. He wanted to visit his girlfriend again in New Jersey.

Who hasn’t called in sick to work to get laid? Especially when you’re 22.

I never heard from him again.

The next day a regular asked where he was. He’d seen him at the gym earlier and had hoped to see him tonight.

I chuckled to myself.

A few weeks later his mom came in and we had a little chat over the matter.

Truth is, he picked the busiest week to stop showing up. I wasn’t mad. But I was disappointed. And I let his mother know as much.

Fast forward to today, and imagine my surprise when I get an email asking me to provide a professional reference for this young man.

I haven’t heard from him since he liked my comment about his broken ankle.

I thought to myself as I read it.

I can do do three things.

Ignore the request.

Do as it asked and provide commentary on his professional qualities or lack there of.

Or lie.

I chose to ignore it.

Fast forward to even later in the day and his mom comes in for dinner. I love his mom and her boyfriend. They are always nice to me, very sweet and very appreciative when I sneak them in.

So on their way out tonight we are chatting about their upcoming wedding and she says, that her son is going to send me a request for a reference.

I take a deep breath.

I say, your son needs to reach out and apologize for leaving me in a bind last summer before he asks for a reference.

This led to conversation about what a great kid he is, what a horrible liar he is, and how he needs to do the right thing.

We chatted a few minutes. I told her I’d be happy to write the reference but I really needed an apology first.

After she left, it reminded me of something a professor at the University of Kentucky told me while I was getting my MA.

Never ask for a reference if you aren’t 9,636,905% sure of what they are going to say. She’d had a student get letters of reference not realizing that one of their professors had written a perfectly average letter. About how average the student was.

I’ve followed this advice for 30+ years.

And I’ve never agreed to write a letter if I couldn’t be enthusiastically positive about the request.

It will be interesting to see if my phone rings tomorrow.

If it does I’ll do the reference.

If it does not then I’ll ignore it.

Although I did tell his mom I could write the reference he might deserve.