A workplace where professional and personal lines often blur can be a nightmare for any conscientious boss.

In this story, a new hire disrespected one manager’s desire for privacy by catfishing them into accepting their follower request on social media.

What started as a breach of privacy quickly escalated into an issue that divided the whole workplace.

Read on for all the details!

AITA for writing up an employee who catfished me?

I’m a manager in a work environment that’s rather casual where employees get close and spend a lot of time together outside of work.

I’m a little traditional when it comes to employer/employee relationships.

I do participate in some activities to build morale and camaraderie (i.e. happy hours after work, attend weddings if invited, etc.).

But this manager has their clear boundaries, which they’ve expressed to their team.

I do not participate in social activities where things might get out of hand (i.e. going to concerts, clubbing, just going to someone’s house to hang out, etc.).

This is a personal policy that I also extend to social media where I keep my profiles private and do not add or accept employees on all platforms.

I just like to keep things private and don’t want them to see where I spend my time, who I’m dating, etc.

One day, their boundaries were tested with a new member of the team.

Recently a new hire asked me for my account, and I kindly let her know that I like to keep things private.

I thought that was it, but she went ahead and made a fake account to follow me (going as far as to post fake photos and write a fake bio to look like we went to college together).

Soon, the manager’s worst fears were confirmed.

I found out because after I accepted her, she took screenshots of my photos and shared them to other colleagues.

Thankfully there wasn’t anything off base on my accounts, but she did share photos of a new boyfriend I haven’t introduced yet, as well as photos of a new designer bag I purchased and “jokingly” asked everyone if he was my “sugar daddy”.

The manager felt violated by the new hire’s actions.

It was a huge breach of my privacy (her comments also embarrassed me).

I ended up writing her up (which is a semi-serious offense at our workplace that can lead to termination).

The incident made huge waves throughout the workplace.

Since then, it’s caused a huge drama at work with some employees thinking I can’t take a joke and that I was taking things too far while others came out to support me.

I hate that it’s split up the team.

They’re now conflicted if they did the right thing.

Upper management supports my decision, but some employees have mentioned that I could have just verbally warned her first and that it was my own fault for falling for her catfish.

AITA?

This manager will have to screen all their requests more carefully moving forward.

What did Reddit have to say?

You can’t just do something problematic then disguise it as a “joke” when you get called out for it.

It was an awfully bold move for someone so new to the team.

Her candidacy for the job should be called into question.

How would she feel if the roles were reversed?

Unfortunately, upholding boundaries came at the cost of team unity, but it was what had to be done.

Though the fallout was uncomfortable, it reinforced the idea that drawing clear lines between your work and you personal life is important.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.