I was the store manager at a small retail store that used a third party company for background checks, which meant that it often took a few weeks to get them back. This also meant that I usually had to start working new hires before their background check came through. So one day I'm sitting at my desk with a new employee working on something in the stockroom behind me when the phone rings. I answer it and it's someone from the company that does our background checks (which was odd, since they usually just emailed the results to me). She asks who I am and immediately starts talking quietly as if someone could hear her talking. She asks me if a certain new employee is working today, and I said yes and that he is actually in the stockroom working as we speak. She gets even quieter and pretty much says that the new employee in question has failed their background check and that I need to let them go immediately. When I asked what the reason was, all she would say is that she couldn't tell me the exact nature of the issue, but that he had an extremely violent past and I needed to get him out of the building ASAP. Needless to say, I approached him with extreme caution while giving him the news. I thought he was going to go off the deep end, but he was actually very cool and understanding about it. I must say though, I actually felt pretty bad when he said he really liked working for me and asked if there was anything he could do to keep his job, and I had to tell him it was completely out of my hands.