“AITA for promoting my sister’s ex even after he got her friend pregnant?”

“AITA for promoting my sister’s ex even after he got her friend pregnant?”

I’m in a weird situation here. My sister “Sarah” had been with “Josh” for 3 years. I own a business, without getting too specific I have 8 employees right now – so fairly small. I hired Josh originally as a favor to Sarah but he was a natural fit. From day one he’s been a huge contributor. All was fine and dandy until about 3 months ago it came out that Josh had been sleeping with Sarah’s best friend Ashley. Ashley is now pregnant

Obviously Sarah left him is now living with our parents. He is now engaged to Ashley and living with her (I don’t see this lasting). While this was happening I tried to remain professional with Josh. While I think he’s a scummy guy technically personal stuff shouldn’t be used against him at work.

One of my longest employees unfortunately has had some major health complications come up and he unofficially retired (keeping him on the books for insurance but he wont be working for a while.)

Hate to say it but Josh really stepped up in his absence. He’s been incredibly essential in keeping us running and successful, more now that ever before. Now that its become clear that my other employee wont be coming back anytime soon, I needed to replace him.

Josh is the natural candidate so I gave it to him with about a 50% raise (what the person before him was making), and he’s been flourishing in it. Awkward part about that is Sarah just found out he was promoted from a mutual friend and is livid with me.

She gave me an earful as did my parents and now im feeling pretty conflicted. I feel like personal life and professional should be treated separately but my family is saying this is different…

Edits:

They were never married or engaged, just living together.

Timeline goes like:

2 Years ago: Hires Josh

Day one: Old employee takes short leave

-Josh fills in temporarily at first

Couple weeks later: This all comes out. Josh is still filling in and doing great work

3 weeks later: Old employee shares he will not be coming back due to health reasons

-All my other employees tell me how great Josh is doing and how much they like working for him, business is booming, and they tell me how much they think Josh deserves the promotion offically

2 weeks later:

I have to make a decision so I give him the promotion purely for performance reasons

Couple weeks after that Sarah finds out and that was in the last week

This is what people had to say to OP:

facinationstreet said:

personal stuff shouldn’t be used against him at work. This is correct. NTA.

KerrieJune said:

This one is really hard. I’m going to say NAH (except, obviously Josh).

I can see why Sarah would be hurt that you promoted someone who treated her so terribly. I would be hurt too. At the same time, you originally hired Josh as a favor to her and he’s objectively doing good work. As an employer it’s a bit odd to play the morality police and hire/fire based on choices someone made in their personal life that, while crappy, aren’t illegal and don’t impact the business.

That said, I don’t envy the spot you’re in bc I would have a hard time looking at the guy knowing how crappy his actions were.

And Adulting2020 said:

YTA. I’m not saying you should’ve fired the guy, especially if he’s a good employee, but did you have to promote him? He cheated on your sister with her best friend and impregnated the friend. I’d probably have to stop talking to you for a while if you were my sibling, my feelings would just be pretty damn hurt.

And BirbBrains said:

NAH between you and sis, I guess. Pretty sweet deal for him, really. He got this job from nepotism basically and didn’t even have to be loyal to the family that got him there. It’s not wrong of you to want to keep a good worker, but it’s interesting that his family situation got him the job but won’t cost him it.

A week later, OP shared this update:

I got a ton of feedback from my original post so I wanted to put an update here. its not super juicy but figured i’d let people know. Saturday night we had a family dinner where my parents and Sarah are living. We didn’t talk about the subject of the last post during dinner but Sarah was being noticably short with me to the point that my sons noticed. After dinner I asked her to speak in private to which she obliged.

I reiterated to her that my actions with Josh were purely about business and had nothing to do with her. She told me she know that and she was embarrassed at her reaction, its just been a few really sh!tty months for her.

Basically she told me she hates her job, is now single and missing her (former) best friend. And now she’s having some anxiety about never finding someone before she’s too old to have kids. And meanwhile everything just keeps seeming to get better for her Ex. I have to say that really was sad to hear from her.

I told her Im always here for her and asked her what ideally she’d like to do work wise. Well as it turns out without getting too specific, what she would ideally like to do is something that one of my best friends has a business and needs someone to do that function. That friend owes me some favors for a jam I got them out of in the past so I told her I’d see what I could do. Well they connected Monday and really hit it off.

They offered her a full time position that she will now be starting in 2 weeks. She’ll be making more money, with better benefits, doing something she’s always wanted to do. Also on sunday we actually went to the amusement park with my kids and her and had a bit of a family day.

She said that was great therapy for her and what she needed was to get out of the house my parents are living in as she was just feeling sorry for herself there. She’s looking at apartments this week and is hoping to find one near me as she loves hanging out (Im not talking free babysitting) with her nephews.

Sorry this isn’t the juicy update some people who were saying she’s going to go absolutely No Contact with me were expecting but it was a happy update nonetheless. Im really excited for her to start her new job as I think she’ll be much happier there. And she has alot to offer so Im sure she’ll find someone as soon as she’s ready to start dating again.

TL;DR: Talked it out with my sister, helped her get a new job and we are all good again.