Sometimes it’s best to keep work and family separate.
One woman figured that out after having to fire her sister, who had been complaining about her as a boss and gossiping about her personal life online.
Redditor “problemwithmysister” shared her story in the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit after she discovered her sister’s blog and its contents.
The Redditor asked:
“[Am I the a**hole] for firing my sister after seeing her blog and not rehiring her without an apology?”
An old friend sent her a link to her sister’s blog, hoping to confirm her identity.
“Basically what happened is [I] read my sisters blog. It was sent to me by a friend of mine who was asking if one of the ‘characters’ was me. Spoiler alert, it was me.”
“Its couple years old and really popular. She doesn’t use our family’s real names but they are very similar and use the same first letter. So think real names: Katy, Julia, Marissa and Brad then the fake names being: Kathy, June, Marnie and Bob.”
“It’s descriptive enough of our lives and what we do for work that my friend identified me from it.”
The Redditor explained how the blog contained explicitly personal details from her life.
“Its mostly about her and her life but there is still a lot about us.”
“A year ago I had an abortion. It was during the lowest point in my life so far and only she and my husband knew about it. She swore to me that she would take the secret to her grave. Yeah, she dedicated a whole entry to it.”
The blog also includes important details about her business and her sister’s experiences working there.
“A couple months ago she and her husband got laid off due to world events. I run my own business that wasn’t really affected and I offered her a job there to help her out.”
“She’s not qualified in my field so I essentially made up a position for her so she could have a steady paycheck. She basically does data entry and other random tasks online from her home.”
“Her blog since then has basically centred on how much she hates it.”
“She called it demeaning work and says a bunch of bulls**t about how I obviously don’t respect her intelligence.”
“I say this is bulls**t because 1. She would need years of training to work any of the open positions [and] 2. I told her what she would do when I offered it and she gushed about how grateful she was and that I was really helping her.”
The Redditor reached out to her sister and confronted her about the blog.
“I called her and told her what I had read and how hurt I was.”
“Her defence is that the blog is her online diary where she vents and that I should know not to take any of it personally.”
“She actually had the gall to tell me that she is hurt that I read it! Apparently the right thing to do was ignore it??”
Her sister calling it an “online diary” wasn’t enough of an explanation.
“I told her off for telling the internet my secrets and dragging me online where I could be, AND WAS, found by people who know me.”
“She just said she did all her due-diligence by changing the names and it wasn’t her fault my friend found it.”
“We argued for a bit, it got increasingly heated, and I fired her.”
“I told her that if she couldn’t apologize or see how she was wrong here, then she wasn’t who I thought she is and she could find a job where she felt more respected.”
It’s been a week since the argument, and the Redditor is being pressured to give her sister her job back.
“It’s been a week and I haven’t spoken to her at all. Her husband has been contacting me on her behalf trying to get her job back as they need the money. He claims she is sorry but I think if she was, then she could tell me herself.”
“My own husband is telling me I am overreacting and that she’s family and I should just forget it. I don’t agree.”
“Am I the a**hole here?”
Fellow Redditors responded to the OP’s (Original Poster’s) situation, using the following scale:
- NTA: “Not the A**hole”
- YTA: “You’re the A**hole”
- ESH: “Everybody Sucks Here”
- NAH: “No A**holes Here”
The comments were resoundingly in the OP’s favor, given the nature of the blog, how easy it was to uncover her identity, and the fact that the internet is, well, not a private journaling space.
Some stressed how much this blog could potentially risk the future of her business.
“Your sister hasn’t just “vented some stuff online”, she’s caused some very real and very alarming potential risks to you and your business, and she can’t even see it. You were absolutely right to fire her for doing what she did, OP.” – SSTrihan
“Just replying to the top comment (NTA btw). I just want to say that there is a HUGE difference between complaining about your job to your friends and coworkers who are in the same situation, and telling the whole world about it.”
“I don’t know what business you are in but if I read that your employees cared so little about it I would seriously think twice about doing business with you.”
“Because you can be identified your sister ABSOLUTELY has hurt your business and she refuses to acknowledge that. I would say as an employer you are well within your rights to terminate her. As her sister, you should hire her and then fire her again because family is held to higher standards, not lower ones.”
“Edit because I forgot to mention JFC the damage to your business is insane but the fact that she was also talking about an abortion is a massive invasion of privacy.” – Mizeov
Others were surprised how ungrateful she was for the employment opportunity.
“NTA… i am a teacher and I teach my students one rule for employerabilty…. never trash talk those who pay your wage.”
