When you are at work, you should be focused on doing your job, not engaged in any self-serving activities.

What would you do if one of your employees joined an MLM scheme and began trying to push essential oils onto the customers who came into your store?

That is what happened to the manager in this story, so after trying ot tell her to stop several times, he fired her. Unfortunately, several other employees are now mad at him for firing her, so he wonders if he did something wrong.

I don’t think it could be any more obvious that he did the right thing, but read through all the details below and see what you think about it.

AITA for firing a person who was ‘just trying to make a living’?

I (30M) a general manager at a big box retailer (think Walmart, Target, Best Buy) and have been for about a year, though I’ve worked here total 5 years.

These MLM companies can be problematic.

I’ve had this employee who has been great, I’ll call her Sam. Hard worker, been with the store for 3 years.

But recently, she’s joined some sort of MLM. Don’t remember the exact one, something like Terrad? Idk, some essential oils company.

Hopefully, this will be the end of it.

Anyways, I’ve been getting complaints from customers and other employees, saying that she’s been pushing her oils while helping and talking to them.

I had a talk with her about it. She apologized and said she wouldn’t do it again.

She can’t be trying to sell her own products while at work.

That was about a month and three talks ago. The complaints haven’t stopped, so I talked with the store manager (big boss). Last week, and we let her go.

Well, since then, other employees have complained to me that it wasn’t right, that she was “just trying to make a living”.

The fact that their store is a competitor makes this even worse.

While I understand that, it’s strictly against our policy to run a side business while you’re working (and to my knowledge, it’s that way with most stores).

Plus, we sell essential oils, so by doing this, she’s directly interfering with our business.

AITA?

Honestly, I’m surprised that they let this go on for as long as they did. Her behavior was unprofessional, and she deserved to be fired.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This person sums it up nicely.

She can do her MLM outside of work hours.

There is undoubtedly a policy that prevents this.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who decides to mute her boss’s number after he insists on calling her at home after hours.

What she was doing hurt his business.

This person says that the MLM is very shady.

What she was doing was against store policy and downright stupid. She definitely deserved to get fired.

If the other employees don’t like it, they can leave as well.