You know,   I have avoided writing for this for such a long time, and now that I have a lawyer involved, I should probably not write about it, however, well… this is the pinnacle of betrayal, to which I have never been exposed.

Ok, we all have been duped, and lied to, and we probably have lied ourselves. I’m sure that there are enough folks out there whom have had money taken from them, by those they trusted however, if you’re anything like me, you get over that aspect.

But what about identity theft? have you ever had someone whom you were actively helping, and encouraging, and standing by in support, outright steal your entire history and use it for their own gain?

About 2 years ago, I started working at a company where I was suppose to find all the flaws with this one employee and have her fired. I’m an honorable person. I did the research and it turned out that the gentleman who wanted me to do this, was himself the one responsible for all the errors and flaws within the code, and programming. The girl who he wanted fired, was doing a decent job.

His reasoning was that she spelled things incorrectly. I’m a reasonable person, and in programming, if an individual defines a variable as var foneNumbr instead of phoneNumber, and does it the same everywhere, well… the code will work. It won’t matter whether someone uses abc or myVariable, as a name for a variable. As long as when they are trying to reference it, it is spelled the same in all instances.

However he was adamant, and I went on to explain to him, that well, sorry… but really, if you were to look at the code, you’d discover, that on my choice, i would replace him, because he is the worse coder of the two.

Anyway, he was determined, and i ended up protecting her, and fighting for her, as well as training her, because she was at best – a novice programmer, when i met her. As good as most entry level programmers. She was new in the country, with ambitions, and as I was also an immigrant I understood the desire to succeed.

I ended up being promoted, and became her boss, and this other gentleman was moved out of my department into marketing, where his skills actually lay.

I think started to train her extensively, so that she could get a decent job, including what to look for, and what how to be when going to different interviews.

As she didn’t speak english very well, and as she was an immigrant (under a year here), she wasn’t taken seriously and not offered any position, for over 30k a year.  That is usual, and I’m sure that many of you who understand the marketplace, realize this as a reality.  There is a natural fear of hiring, however at the same token many immigrants, within IT lie on their resumes, in order to land the good jobs, and what has happened, especially in IT is a natural distrust of immigration skills.

Well, I was watching her frustration, and asked to see her resume one day, and i understood why she wasn’t taken seriously. It was equitable to one which you would see, for someone applying at McDonalds or BurgerKing.

So, as I have experience in executive corporations, I gave her my resume, and said, ‘use this as a template to rewrite your resume, and make sure that you remove everything that is mine on this resume.” I then encouraged her to apply at opportunities, which she never wanted to try, because she didn’t think she’d be hired. and rightly so.

An opportunity came up at University of Toronto, and she didn’t want to apply because it was 50K+ and she didn’t think she was qualified, and nervous.

I’ve worked for universities, and done many contracts for them in my career. SFU, Stanford, Harvard, UBC, and so forth. I was fully familiar with their environments, and how  they went about interviewing and what they looked for, so i educated her, with her new; more streamlined, executive resume, and she ended up getting an interview. I even showed her how to write a proper cover letter, and then, told her what questions they would ask, and trained her outright.

She was offered the job, and as I was her boss, i was able to give her a reference.

She was hired.

About 1 month later, she wanted to get her sister a job there, and I said that it wasn’t a good idea yet, because her sisters skills needed to improve, and she wasn’t qualified yet. But Mari is stubborn, and though she never mentioned it to me again, one day, I was called by her (we were dating by this point) and she asked me to give her sister a reference for University of Toronto. I couldn’t. I am ethical. I have never worked with her sister Milla, and I wouldn’t give her a reference, but i would help in translation of the questions, so that her sister could get references from Russia.

When I arrived, I asked to see the resume she used, and was given a USB drive with her resume on it. I saved it to my computer, and opened it and I was confused. “sorry, you made a mistake, you gave me back my resume” and handed her back the USB drive. Now I knew that they both had my resume to use as a template, so this didn’t surprise me.

Mari came and looked at my laptop and said, no that is Milla’s resume. I opened it again and looked at it and then i opened my resume, because i was in shock!

All milla did was change the names of the companies, and swap out my name, for her name. She used my resume to get the job at the Unversity and all of it was my information. my skills, what work i did at each location, the technologies I used at each job, and after I got over the initial shock, I was livid. Absolutely angry.

she had stolen the last 10 years of my life, and used it to get herself a job at the University, stealing all my experience, and pretending to be something she wasn’t.

I was angry. beyond angry, I had never ever been betrayed by anyone in my life to that measure, and then for them to stupidly hand it back to me, thinking that it was just ok to do that, was a slap in my face. the excuse I recieved when i asked what the hell were you thinking that you used my resume to get you a job???
“well maybe when i am your age, I will have that much experience, but right now i don’t so i needed it to get this job.”

I couldn’t believe my ears.

mari and i didn’t talk for a week or so and then she called me and was sorry and all that stuff. and we continued dating.

it has been over a year now, and i discovered, that while she was only involved with me, she was lying. she was also involved with other guys and dating them, and the only reason she was with me, was so i wouldn’t go to the university and immigration and inform them of my identity theft.

she even mocked me and dared me to do something about it. she laughed in my face and said haha, and thought that it was fine, and you know what i get to hear from her? Well you were angry at my sister, and you shouldn’t have yelled at her.

to which i would respond, geezus, she stole from me, what the hell did you expect? did you think i’d be fine with being stolen from?

to which she would just roll her eyes and shrug, because so what.

so now, my lawyer and i have a meeting with the university since i kept the resume she gave me, which is the same resume she handed into the the University. I also, have to arrange a meeting with Immigration, and if it is possible to pursue this criminally I will do so.

I am an immigrant.

I am ashamed at the quality of immigrants which are now coming to this country. It seems as though all the nations are exporting their criminals to our country.

I am no longer an advocate of immigration. I think that it’s time the Canadian Government closed it’s doors.

this is a most difficult task for me to undertake. because i did love her very much, and to be so mocked, and ridiculed with her viewpoint being that it doesn’t matter, as long as she gets what she wants, is devastating.

i do not tend to go after anyone that has offended me. I turn the other cheek. it is my nature. I forgive and i forget and i will open my door again and again, because i believe people need to be given unconditional love.

however, i have to draw the line somewhere someday, and it seems as this will be the when and where of this inevitability…

very sad indeed…