I once received a reference-verification call for a previous coworker and friend which started to go in the direction of asking for more than confirmation of em

I once received a reference-verification call for a previous coworker and friend which started to go in the direction of asking for more than confirmation of employment and general pleasantness to work with, and I wrapped it up as soon as possible with the old "hard stop." It's not my job to pause my actual work to sell you on a candidate. A job reference is not analogous to a letter of recommendation. If my previous coworker was a colossal jerk, I might say, "Hmm, I'm not really sure about that, it was a while ago," and that's it.