[MrMon]

It's pretty much common knowledge that you can no longer give bad references, no matter how bad the employee was. You are simply way too open to lawsuits. And you can innoculate yourself in the interview process by saying something like "I was the one keeping them afloat for two years and they were really bitter when I left." References are worth less than you think, prospective employers are really more interested in your resume and their gut feel from your interviews.

I was actually fired from a very prestigous place but always got around it by saying that I and management had a personality conflict. Virtually everyone said "Yeah, we've heard that is a very difficult place to work." Apparently a lot of my co-workers had interviewed ahead of me.