People advice not to let your personal life influence your work, but it is hard to balance personal and professional life.
Especially when your family tries to show up at your work.
Redditor aitathrowaway7852 encountered this very issue with their mom. So they turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.
They asked:
“AITA for getting my mother banned from my place of work?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My mother and I have never gotten along. Like, at all.”
“I’ll spare the details, but life with her when I was growing up was (most of the time) not fun in the slightest. She kicked me out of her house a little over two years ago, and we haven’t really talked much since.”
“The little bit of words that we’ve exchanged after that has just been us arguing, her calling me a failure, threatening me, etc, etc.”
“I can never bring myself to block her number and move on with my life because there’s always the hope that she’ll become a better person, but so far I’ve been unlucky.”
OP saw a glimmer of hope.
“We had a somewhat decent conversation (at least for us) a few months back for the first time in longer than I can remember.”
“Somewhere in there, I mindlessly (and accidentally) mentioned the name of the store I work at, which is a place she used to frequent quite a bit.”
“Upon hearing this, she told me she would start coming back to that store again so I could get her special discounts and whatnot. I told her that’s not exactly how it works there, and that it was pretty ridiculous for her to use me for a discount.”
“The conversation quickly turned into yet another argument, she said some pretty nasty things that I really wish I never heard come out of anyone’s mouth, let alone my own mother’s.”
OP doesn’t know if they should go no-contact.
“I had been thinking about getting a no contact order against her for a while, just for my own peace of mind and reassurance that she wouldn’t track my house down (she doesn’t know where I live for obvious reasons) and start drama, or some other outlandish shit that she’s done before.”
“After this conversation, I finally put it into action and started looking into things I can legally do to keep her away from me, at least for the time being.”
“The next day, I explained what was happening to my manager.”
“I told her that my mother frequents our store, and since we got into an argument, there’s a very real chance she will come in and cause conflict. I asked if it was possible for me to stay in the back room and have someone else cover for me until she leaves if I ever see her coming into the store.”
“It’s unlikely she would cause any trouble if she didn’t see me in there. My manager, being the absolute saint that she is, immediately agreed.”
OP’s manager wanted to help.
“She seemed genuinely concerned for me, and really seemed like she wanted to help. She then told me that because of the severity of the situation, my mother is absolutely not allowed into the store under any circumstances.”
“I personally didn’t see why it was necessary to completely ban her altogether, but my manager insisted that my safety and everyone else’s comes first, which I understand.”
I” was talking to a close friend about everything, and he seemed to think that completely banning her was a bit extreme.”
“He insisted I shouldn’t bring personal matters into a work setting, and that it seemed like I was letting my personal dislike for my mother get in the way of running a store.”
“I considered what he said, and while I still want to believe I didn’t do any wrong, I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t have said anything in the first place.”
“So, AITA?”
Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors agreed OP was the a**hole.
“NTA. You have a right to feel safe and respected in your place of work.” ~ ScrubsCutie
“The decision was the managers, not yours, and a decision was made from information you shared out of concern for yourself and respect for your job. In addition, it’s not as if she is banned from the only grocery store in town and she would struggle to exist otherwise, right?”
“NTA. But if you haven’t yet, consider a little therapy just to clear out any cobwebs from your life with your mom so you’re ‘baggage free’ for the future.” ~ Mechai44
“Yeah, definitely. I felt incredibly guilty at first for even bringing it up to anyone, but I now know I did the right thing. I think it’d be worse if I didn’t tell anyone.”
“And yeah, I’m working on it. Thank you!” ~ aitathrowaway7852
“If you are looking at a no contact order, it’s logical for your manager to ban her from the store. If that no contact order comes through, it’s likely she wouldn’t be allowed in anyway.”
“Your mother has installed fear, obligation and guilt buttons throughout your life. This is why you are feeling you can’t block her and feeling guilty over the store ban. Any reasonable boundaries will trigger that FOG because that’s how she keeps control.”
“You are not a bad person for needing space from your mother. You would not be bad for blocking her. She is the one with the problems.”
“Unfortunately unless she seeks therapy and makes major changes you will never have the mother you deserve. It’s very hard to come to terms with and people say it is like grieving the mother you wanted all those years and understanding she will never be that.”
“Therapy can help unpack this and disable those buttons she’s installed. I’m glad you’re looking into it. Try not to feel guilty about living your best life.” ~ Silentlybroken
“Your manager is awesome and so are you. Please take some time to be good to yourself and let this set the precedent for establishing some distance from your mother, because I’m sorry to say this but she’s never going to become the mother you deserve and should have had growing up. Take care.” ~ lecorbeauamelasse
OP is just setting some boundaries.