As a business owner, it can be great to bring on a family member to help them when they need work or extra experience.

What would you do if you had your niece working at your company as an intern when one of the senior employees called her a princess and was rude to her because she wasn’t pulling her weight?

That is what happened to the business owner in this story, so he fired the senior employee on the spot, but some people think that this was a little harsh.

Personally, I think he should have given the employee a warning rather than firing her. Read through all the details below and see how you think he should have handled it.

AITA for firing employee of 20+ years for calling my niece “Princess”

My niece is kind of… a useless intern at the moment.

Hopefully the internship can help he

She was super sheltered by her mother, my brother travels for work… so she has no real life skills.

I own a business and took Ally [18] under my wing. She lives in my basement apartment [I live above her] and I am pretty much building an adult from the ground up.

He is really going out of his way to help her out.

Everything from how to dress in the workplace to how to use a computer properly outside of Facebook and Instagram.

It’s working. It’s just frustrating for Ally because she should know a lot of this stuff. But her mom is very, very controlling.

This guy is a great uncle, that’s for sure.

I expect I am going to do this with my other niece Savannah when she graduates in a few years.

But it’s working out well. Ally is going to start community college in September. But until then I am having her sit in my office and do various small tasks, take an online Microsoft Word tutorial, and catch up on various life goals.

I’m sure he knows what he is doing.

I have been running my own business for six years now. I took it over from my Mother when she retired. My brother has no interest in the business, though he was offered some stake.

My mother ran the business for 37 years before I took it over. She hired a woman named Belladonna [54F] who has worked there for 24 years.

I wonder if Belladonna thinks that Ally is being groomed to take over the company (or at least the manager position).

As such, Belladonna feels she is pillar for the company and has asked to become a manager. She has tried to take on managerial roles before, but I wouldn’t give her that job if someone paid me.

She is a little snarky, but I had no issue with it. Until I caught her calling Ally “Cinderella” and “Princess.” She was also ordering Ally to get her coffee.

Firing her with no warning is a bit harsh.

When Ally said she was working on something, Belladonna told her “well, I guess you just sit down and do nothing then.”

I fired her on the spot.

Mom clearly had a great working relationship with Belladonna, I can see why she is upset.

My Mother thinks I was out of line for doing that. But I don’t tolerate people who think being older means they have a right to be snarky.

I told people what Ally was doing at the job, and that she was not an intern. She was simply my niece assisting me on stuff I needed help with.

AITA?

It is clear that what Belladonna said was disrespectful, but I’m not sure if it warranted being fired on the spot. A warning and instructions not to do this type of thing again would make more sense. Also, he should ask himself if he would have fired her if she said something similar to another employee. If not, then this is clear nepotism, which is not ok.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this post about a woman who reports her creepy coworker to HR after he calls himself her “work uncle” and leaves his number.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about the situation.

Yeah, he was really out of line. I don’t know what he was thinking.

This commenter thinks other employees will leave because of this.

Belladonna was clearly a good employee other than this one thing. Firing her with no warning is crazy.

I agree, firing her over this was excessive.

She definitely deserved a warning.

He seems to be overprotective of his niece, which is not very professional and won’t help her in the long run. Belladonna may have been out of line for what she said, but to fire her on the spot is over the top.

This whole situation screams of nepotism and it will undoubtedly cause other employees to resent both his niece and him. It is fine to hire on family members, but they shouldn’t be treated differently than other employees. He was out of line.