He Wrote up an Employee Who “Catfished” Him. Was He Wrong?

The employee in this story from Reddit’s “Am I the A**hole?” page sounds like a real peach!

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m being sarcastic to the max.

But don’t let me influence you: take a look at the story below and see if you think this guy was out of line for writing up an employee.

Start now!

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

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).

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”.

It was a huge breach of my privacy (her comments also embarrassed me), and I ended up writing her up (which is a semi-serious offense at our workplace that can lead to termination). 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. 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?”