A week or so ago,
I wrote about Wal-Mart releasing the college transcript of whistleblower Jared Bowen. The company's intention was to smear him so that nobody would believe his story about former director Tom Coughlin's slush fund to bribe trade union organizers.
As part of its document dump last Friday, Wal-Mart released copies of Bowen's college transcript and his forged college transcript which has a much higher GPA. The idea, presumably, is to demonstrate that because Bowen lied about this, he could lie about anything. Assuming the documents are absolutely legitimate and Wal-Mart's story is true, the documents make Wal-Mart look absolutely ridiculous. So, once again, I'm asking how dumb is Wal-Mart?
I'm not savvy enough to reproduce the .pdfs of the transcripts here, so let me describe them to you. I'll start with the legitimate transcript. If you remember what your college transcript looks like, this one is pretty much the same. It's watermarked with the school's name (Northern Arizona) and the word copy all over it. It includes the semester Bowen took each class, the garde he got and how many points it's worth towards his GPA. On the back of the transcript (also reproduced as part of the exhibit), is a complete guide to reading the front, including an explanation of all possible grade symbols.
The fake transcript is a single-sided sheet of paper. The first thing that caught my eye is the phrase "this is not an official transcript" right on top (this is why the company's claim that Bowen committed a felony in submitting this transcript a bogus charge). Other than two lines across the top of the page, the rest of the transcript is just typewritten course numbers and grades. There are no watermarks. There is no guide to the symbols. There is no identifying information for Jared Bowen other than his name at the top. It is obvious that he printed this up on his computer one night and handed it to Wal-Mart.
Yet Wal-Mart claims that they did not know Bowen forged his transcript until after he was terminated earlier this year. Then I have to ask how dumb are they? Why did they accept a transcript that did not come direct from the university? Does their employment office know what a college transcript looks like? In truth, Wal-Mart is almost certainly lying. For heaven's sake, their real version of the college transcript is dated 5/6/05. There is no way they ever could have gotten it if it wasn't authorized by Bowen himself and Bowen wouldn't have sent it to them if he didn't know they already knew about the forgery (actually, I'm not sure why he sent it any event).
What we're left with is this: Wal-Mart is either incredibly dumb or they hired someone who forged his college transcripts anyways. At the very least we know they didn't ask for a real transcript until after they fired him.
What do you think that says about the screening process for Wal-Mart employees?
JR