When you are a manager, you do your best to hire great employees, but not all of them work out in the end.

What would you do if you hired a great employee’s wife to work at your shop, but it turned out that she was terrible at the job?

That is what happened to the manager in this story, so he ended up firing her. Unfortunately, not long after she was fired, she passed away, and now her husband blames the manager. Of course, the manager feels bad about it, but he doesn’t think he did anything wrong.

Personally, I think he handled a very difficult situation as well as anyone could. Read through all the details of what happened, and see what you think.

AITA because an employee passed after I fired her?

I manage a retail shop in a tourist city. I hired an applicant named Bruce.

He had a fulltime job, but he was perfect for the 16ish hours I was looking to cover.

Months later I was looking for seasonal help. Bruce recommended his roommate, a woman with a medical assistant background named Sally.

Great, things seem to be working out well.

Around the holidays a lot of people step outside their chosen fields to earn more money.

Sally’s references checked out and I hired her.

Sally’s training period was uneventful.

During that time I learned she had Type 1 Diabetes. We worked out a break schedule so she could eat/test whenever she needed. It wasn’t a hardship to accommodate her.

Yikes, you can’t have someone doing that at your business.

Her performance was disappointing.

When asking for ID with credit cards she would make comments like “You gained so much weight since this picture” “This says you’re blonde, your hair is blue, I can’t accept this.”

She would argue about tasks saying she’s a cashier and isn’t paid enough to sweep the floor or tidy up merchandise (the job role specified both tasks).

She didn’t accept feedback gracefully.

I told her her employment was in jeopardy.

Good for them. I hope they are happy.

Bruce calls me: They are are now married. They sped up the relationship because she needed the health care and he needed her to be on the lease of his apartment.

On my end, all I had to do was have them sign liability waivers and schedule them apart.

He couldn’t ignore the customer complaints.

A few weeks later I get a customer complaining Sally denied him service because she didn’t like his tattoos.

A 2nd customer calls to complain that not only did Sally deny service because of tattoos but she pulled down her pants to show him a tattoo on her backside.

On camera I find Sally mooning the customer.

Wow, he really had no choice but to fire her.

I typed up a termination notice and fired her.

She refused to sign it or take a copy.

I treated the situation as any other, stuck to “She is no longer with the company.” if asked.

Now she is lying about the situation.

Bruce didn’t quit. But he got angry at me not long after: Sally had applied for a hospital job and was denied because I gave a bad reference.

NO ONE had called me for a reference.

Sally told him I fired her for being “messy” and “combative about breaks”.

Honestly, this isn’t his problem anymore. Bruce can accept it, or quit.

This is not true, but I can’t tell Bruce that. Unless Sally signs a disclosure I can’t share any details of her employment/termination with anyone.

I called the hospital that denied Sally. The HR department told me that they had an application from her but had not reached out for references as she was not being considered.

How terrible. This is so sad.

What I infer from this is: Sally lied to Bruce about why she was fired and then when she the job search went bad she told Bruce I was ruining her prospects.

Soon after Bruce calls, he’d been trying to call Sally but she didn’t answer. He went home from his other job and found her dead, complications from diabetes.

He is grieving and lashing out. I would just give him space.

Bruce quits.

He says he says she would still be alive if I hadn’t fired her or sabotaged her, that I am the reason his wife is dead.

I didn’t tell him she lied to him. I don’t see anyway that would help him with his grief.

AITA?

Not even a little bit. This guy handled a very difficult situation perfectly. He couldn’t keep her employed, but he also refused to talk badly about her. What more could anyone ask?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who works fast and helps her coworkers, but is met with disapproval from her supervisor because of this practice

Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say about this story.

I don’t think this is a good idea, at all.

Bruce is in mourning; just give him space.

She would have died even with the job.

What does the healthcare system have to do with this?

People are irrational while grieving. He should just give him space and let him mourn. Of course, this manager did nothing wrong, but I’m not surprised that he feels bad anyway.

Sometimes, life just isn’t fair, and bad things happen. Hopefully, once Bruce has gotten through this, he will realize that he was wrong, because it really wasn’t this guy’s fault. But for now, that doesn’t even matter, and he shouldn’t question himself.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who just let clients complain after her boss refused to approve overtime.