Have you ever fallen for a get rich quick scheme? If you did, would you announce the news to your entire office when you finally realized how badly you messed up?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he doesn’t keep it a secret. His wife works for the same company, and they are both loudly upset about what he did. In fact, they’re so loudly upset about it that one employee can’t concentrate on her work over the noise.

If you were in her shoes, would you mind your own business and try to find a way to tune out the drama, perhaps with noise cancelling headphones, or would you speak up and admit  that you can’t concentrate on your work over the noise?

Keep reading to see how the employee in this story handled it because she isn’t too confident that she made the right decision.

AITAH for telling my supervisor’s sobbing wife to leave the office?

I (29F) recently scored a nice job at a real estate small business. Everyone is very friendly and I like it there a lot.

Unfortunately, my supervisor (mid30s?M) is….shall we say “problematic”. Let’s call him Gene.

I’ve had several small issues with Gene involving language, particularly about our other pregnent coworker, but that’s beside the point. Point being, he’s kind of a jerk sometimes.

Gene really messed up and is understandably upset about it.

So yesterday, Gene got some bad news.

After very loudly screaming at someone on the phone for over an hour, he goes out into the hallway and tells me and another coworker (also loudly, he is NOT hiding this) that apparently he leant a VERY large sum of money (5 figures) to his dad who told him he would invest it in what was basically a get rich quick scheme.

To no one’s shock but Gene’s, said scheme didn’t work out, and now Gene is SIX figures in total debt.

At this point I say “man that sucks!” and go back into my office because I am behind on my work.

But she wasn’t able to focus on her work.

This is where the sobbing wife comes in.

My office shares a wall with Gene, and the walls there are paper thin. I can hear everything, no matter how quietly people talk. Not that “quiet” meant anything here, as while I was attempting to catch up on work, I start hearing Gene breaking the news that he messed up to his wife (who also happens to be recently hired by our business, hired by Gene, funny that).

The wife is, understandably, audibly upset, and she starts crying.

This makes Gene angry, and he starts yelling at her to suck it up and calm down because “he’ll deal with it and she never has any faith in him”, which makes her cry harder, and meanwhile I have been staring at a very important email about to be sent for the past 3 minutes, unable to concentrate due to sobbing woman a horrible man.

She tried to be polite about it.

So I got up and knocked on his door.

Opening it revealed a crying woman and Gene, to whom I very quickly rushed out “I’m really sorry, I know you’re going through stuff, but can you PLEASE take this somewhere else?”

I was talking directly to Gene, but his wife seemed spooked and a little offended and ticked off.

They both quietly skedaddled, and I didn’t see her for the rest of the day.

She doesn’t feel bad for Gene.

I hold absolutely zero sympathy for Gene – he was an idiot who wasted his money on get rich quick schemes doomed to fail, doing so while knowing he has a wife & two young kids to care for.

He’s barely been at this job for longer than I have (my real actual boss is a really cool dude), and my overall vibe from Gene is pretty rancid.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a carpenter who was shocked to find the police waiting for him after his last day of work.

Let’s see if Reddit thinks she was wrong to barge into Gene’s office.

This is a good suggestion.

Another person makes a good point.

Here’s advice to look for a new job.

I couldn’t agree more!

I understand that the supervisor was upset about losing all of that money, but it was really inappropriate and unprofessional to vent about it with his wife in his office. He probably should’ve waited to tell her until they were home.

It seems that he was so upset about it that he needed to vent. That’s the only reason I can think of that he would announce the bad news to anyone in earshot.

No, I don’t think OP did anything wrong. She has the right to an office environment that is conducive for work, and a husband and wife sobbing in the office next door isn’t going to work.

While she makes it clear that she doesn’t feel bad for Gene, it does seem that she has some compassion for the wife. I don’t think the wife blames her for asking them to relocate their conversation. She was upset at her husband, which is quite understandable under the circumstances.