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Comment by chernevik | Hacker News Reader

If I work for you, and you don't fire him, I quit. That we're even discussing this has me looking at the door. I'm not sure you can do anything to redeem not having already fired the guy.

If you won't stand up for yourself here, I don't know when you will. I certainly don't know when you would stand up for me.

Get a lawyer and do it right. But fire him.

ALSO: Maybe more important. Get yourself into therapy of some kind. Immediately. Get screened for depression and pyschological disorder.

That you are even asking this question suggests that your priorities and self-image have departed from normal ranges in unhealthy ways. Never mind the goddam business. You aren't even living your life. Something is seriously haywire. If you don't go to work on it you are going to end up a very sad and strange story.

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That he's thinking about this situation this hard and is trying to find a safe path through this emotional minefield makes me respect him more than if he had simply fired his employee out of passion. I don't agree that firing his employee outright would show the same strength of character, though I understand your point of view.

You're implying some pretty serious things here, and entirely it's entirely unwarranted. This kind of armchair analysis is really disturbing to read, it's the same with anything legal, when all it becomes amateur hour at the law.

Getting screened for depression and psychological disorders is just rude and callous. You've not factored into your analyss the wife's role in all this or what might have motivated her to have an affair with this employee. All factors which you've completely neglected to consider...

It's even more sad that this is the top comment. All these chest banging alpha make wanna bees

No, those are good advice. Boss Man has just suffered a massive psychological shock, and needs to manage his mental state properly.

Not talking to a psychiatrist would be crazy.

Talking to a psychologist is not a panacea. The sane thing to do, is to talk to the employee and tell him that the __minimum__ you expect from the guy is to hand in his resignation and leave within the hour. Failing which I would have fired him.

Psychologist or psychiatrist. The latter is a rather serious turn of events...

That this sort of psychobabble internet diagnosis is the top comment disproves all theories supporting the wisdom of crowds.

Dealing sensibly with a spouses sleeping around is not a pathology. Neither is dealing sensibly with a friend or colleague who participated.

The OP: "every time I see his face, I feel like that just kills me inside."

We are discussing a situation as postulated. That postulate is a deep betrayal of trust and enormous emotional damage. Maybe _your_ reaction would be different, and those are your values, and that's fine. If I worked with you and knew your sexual mores were such that this was no big deal for you, my reaction could well be different.

But that isn't the case here.

What if the boss had said, "I just found out a favorite employee is gay. Now every time I see him, I'm terribly upset because I know he's going to burn in hell. I feel so betrayed that someone I trusted is so immoral. Should I fire him?"

The two aren't even remotely related. Being gay is a strictly individual choice that has no effect on the employee's performance or that of other employees. Sleeping with the spouse of a co-worker immediately and intimately involves the co-worker and is devastating to them. I don't even begin to see how you could compare the two.

Sleeping with someone's spouse is far more of a choice than being gay.

That too. I didn't bring that up because comparing the two is completely illogical and doesn't merit discussion.

The boss has learned something about you and now he doesn't like you. Your work performance has not changed. Should the boss fire you?

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

"The boss has learned something about you and now he doesn't like you. Should the boss fire you?"

Like has nothing to do with it. Are you seriously suggesting that the matter under discussion is one of a boss not _liking_ an employee? "Oh, he slept with my wife, I really don't like that guy."

I'll take your question at face value and give you some examples.

If the boss doesn't like you because you are gay/introverted/unsocial/not into sports/don't make a good drinking partner/refuse to perform sexual favors - no, the boss shouldn't fire you.

If you slept with the boss's wife or a co-worker's wife, then you have no place on a team and yes, you need to be fired.

There is a specific segment of the enginerd crowd which, in reaction to the realization that they've been passive victims in their own lives, throw the lever all the way to the other side. They become wannabe "alpha males" who reactively criticize any sign of male weakness in others (but not in person, only online) That is, when they're not riding their racing motorcycles in their full body gear, or doing squats. Psych! I mean deadlifts!

What these tough guys don't realize is something which Margret Thatcher best put to words: being powerful is like being a lady; if you have to tell [or show] others you are, you aren't. (paraphrased, from memory)

Dead right. If I'm an employee and you don't fire the guy I'm following the ex wife out the door.

well said

If your co-worker sleeps with your wife, can you ask your boss to fire him?

Just because he's a manager and makes hiring decisions based on technical abilities doesn't give him the power to exact revenge for personal problems.

Actually, in any at-will employment state in the U.S., he certainly does have the power, just because he's a manager. I'd go so far as to say that in all the U.S., he has a right to fire the guy; he just might have to give him severance because 'fucking my wife' isn't 'for cause'.

And on a practical level, no one could reasonably expect him to continue working with, let alone managing someone who'd done this, in this small a company.

I believe the supreme court of Iowa recently ruled that an employer (a dentist I believe) was not wrong to fire an female employee to whom he found himself irresistably sexually attracted. According to court docs, his wife wanted her fired and he did so. [0]

Dentist had made some pretty dumb comments that could probably count as a hostile work environment but he wasn't liable for wrongful termination. Obviously doesn't apply anywhere but Iowa but interesting nonetheless.

[0]: http://www.iowacourts.gov/Supreme_Court/Recent_Opinions/2012...

This isn't about revenge. It's about dealing with a breech of trust and a massive conflict of interest.

I don't want my business depending on someone I can't trust, especially if that someone is going to be on the opposite side of a massive legal battle (divorce, in this case).

The owner of the company would be irresponsible to allow his employee to continue while the situation is unresolved; at a minimum, he'd be suspended until after the divorce proceedings complete.

Frankly, I'd get rid of him on the deception and dishonesty alone, because keeping that kind of employee around is a disservice to the rest of the company.

It's never that simple. Was the husband an asshole and the other guy was the wife's shoulder to cry on? There are plenty of scenarios where the employee would feel justified in his actions. That's not a breach of trust. It's the messy world of relationships.

Regardless of whether the husband was an asshole or the employee feels justified, no one is ENTITLED to sleep with the dude's wife without repercussions.

It doesn't matter if the husband was an asshole. If she divorced him and later decided to start a relationship with this guy that's one thing. There is no scenario where it's ok to screw another man's wife, and you have to be a real idiot to be screwing your boss's wife. It is most definitely a breach of trust.

Indeed I would point out that the marriage contract was between the husband and wife. It was the marriage contract that was broken and it was the wife who broke it. The employee had no contract with the husband regarding who he had sex with. Assuming the employee was unmarried he broke no contracts with anyone.

Would the employee be fired for adultery with anyone else? Would other employees be fired for it? Ultimately the employee is guilty of moral turpitude, and the employer should apply the same rules on everyone regarding it.

At one of my old jobs, a co-worker who was also our bosses best friend had intimate relations with the bosses wife. Now, obviously it's inexcusable. But then it's complicated. My boss worked and traveled a lot, leaving his stay at home wife alone and lonely in a city where she didn't have many friends and was also pretty young. And my coworker had been friends with both of them for a long time and was also quite lonely. My coworker ended up leaving the company, while my boss separated from his wife for a few months before reconciling things and moving back into together. Trust is a hard thing to regain after its lost but they seemed to have worked it out. Prior to that incident I had a very black and white view of adultery and to some extent I still do. But now I understand circumstances can be very tough for some, and I can't judge them for the vulnerabilities that afflict humans.

If your coworker sleeps with your wife you go to your boss and say "it's me or him, but I can't work with him".

I would love to hear people's response to that situation at a startup.

Yes you can. He doesn't have to, but I suspect I'd say it's either me or him as working together isn't a good option for anyone. It's bad for both employees, and also bad for the company. Either I quit, or you fire him.

Firing somebody in the UK is very difficult. No matter how aggravated he is, if the law is not on his side then there's nothing he can do.

Firing people in Portugal is also hell, but loopholes exist in every law; I'm sure it's not different in the UK. My favorite, which also appears applicable to this case is: promote him into a top managerial position, then fire him for breach of trust (top managerial positions require trust from shareholders, the board and the CEO)

Speak to a lawyer, though. IANAL, obviously.

> My favorite, which also appears applicable to this case is: promote him into a top managerial position, then fire him for breach of trust (top managerial positions require trust from shareholders, the board and the CEO)

You can't retroactively apply "breach of trust" in this situation though, and promoting him with the intention of firing him (which would be obvious) won't help your case.

I am not familiar at all with UK law, in California you can show someone the door because they hum out of tune if you want, its the other side of the 'right to work' thing.

But if you, or someone reading, knows UK law, is there anything that prevents you from renting an separate office with a telephone and re-assigning him to work in that office? Still pay him and all but just keep him out of the way where he can't do any more damage.

The UK has restrictions on why you can fire people (unlike CA which is at will), but they're largely quite fair (IMO). See https://www.gov.uk/dismissal/overview

According to that link you can be fired for "Gross Misconduct", which seems about right in this case.

I don't see how screwing around has anything to do with professional conduct.

> in California you can show someone the door because they hum out of tune if you want,

Really? So you can show them the door for anything then? In California, can you fire someone for their racial background? For their gender? For their age? Religion? Family status?

I suspect a lot of this thread is just a bunch of software types pretending to know what the law is (myself included). Best advice on this whole discussion: talk to a lawyer.

IANAL, but I'm fairly sure a tribunal would look quite favourably on a company which fired someone for adultery when it had destroyed working relationships. I think it would come under the 'gross misconduct' provision.

If the OP cannot legally fire this guy then it is time to depart that jurisdiction.

Law prevents the OP from just shooting the bastard, and rightly so. We surrender whatever right we may have to fight and kill on own our behalf, in return for protection from others and enforcement of just outcomes. The point is to remove our personal biases from interpretation of "just".

But if the sovereign jurisdiction won't allow this guy to fire someone who has done this, then its "law" has departed from its proper functions and can't be relied upon. I don't know what it is doing, but it isn't overseeing justice. I wouldn't wait to find out how it goes wrong next. I'd just leave.

Oh please, leave the jurisdiction? With his 30-40 employees? I'm sure he's gonna get right on that.

The guy is fireable in any country.

> The guy is fireable in any country.

Not at all. As aforementioned, you can't legally fire him in the UK (or Australia). Doing so would immediately welcome a legal battle with Fair Work (in Australia) and your chances of winning that one are slim to none.

I'm not familiar with the law in the UK. Could someone fill me in?

I'm confused as to how someone can be forced to continue to give money to someone that they don't want to continue giving money to? What if I decide I can't afford those employees because we aren't making enough money? Surely I can close down the business if I want to, effectively firing everyone?

> What if I decide I can't afford those employees because > we aren't making enough money?

Then in various jurisdictions you have to prove that. In court. See item 1 of http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/world/europe/28iht-letter.... and this sort of thing is not limited to France.

The US setup of at-will employment looks just as weird on that side of the Atlantic, I'm told, as theirs does to us.

I can't tell you what the setup is with being able to close down a business. It wouldn't terribly surprise me if there are legal hurdles to that too.

bankruptcy tourism is a thing

You can fire people, but you have to follow a certain procedure to do so, otherwise you put yourself at risk of being sued for wrongful dismissal. There are clauses in employment contracts to cover gross misconduct so that you can fire someone for stealing etc. If you can't afford the employee you can make them redundant - but there are rules about not filling a similar position for a certain amount of time thereafter to ensure that it's not used as a way of firing people just because you don't like them. If an employee does their job and does it well you should not be able to just fire them because you're having a bad hair day. To me as UK citizen, your system looks like a crazy free-for-all. To each their own I suppose. :-)

Incidentally, IANAL - the above is essentially right but I'm not an employer and only have an employee's view of things.

I prefer a law making it legal to fire at any time except for a blacklist of protected reasons like race, gender. In an at-will united state, I hope adultery can't be misconstrued as a protected reason for not being able to fire....

It wouldn't work like that in New Zealand. Outside of work, consenting adults etc. The employee could just argue that the employer was acting unprofessionally during work hours despite the employee being professional at all times during work hours. If this firing was handled poorly the employer would likely face massive costs. NZ law has UK law as its origin.

Now, I don't think employers should need a reason to fire employees. That said, I think such laws aren't such a clear cut injustice like you're making them out to be. Not everyone believes in unlimited freedom of contract, and not being able to terminate employment contracts over personal issues wholly outside the scope of employment is not an inconceivably unjust limitation.

As someone who's worked in HR in the UK (albeit 15 years ago) and hired and fired people there I can see zero reason to not fire the guy.

As someone who considered law in his teens 15 year ago, I see zero reason to consider this valid legal advice.

as someone who never claimed it to be legal advice I fail to see why you SHOULD consider it valid legal advice

doesn't mean I wouldn't fire the guy's ass because I have yet to see a plausible argument for what negative legal consequences might befall me if I did

Goddamn, created an account to reply to this. Can't believe how stupidly judgemental and absolute you're being. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking your time, thinking about this rationally and approaching it with a cool head. It's complicated, it's way more complicated than just "FIRE HIM." Your comment is ridiculous. Slow your roll. Don't just run around saying people need therapy.

You'd better also plan and execute a... "due diligence" with your business/technology, before and during termination. This fellow has to know termination is a possibility, and while he continues to work there -- and given the attitude he's already expressed -- who knows what "mines"/"bombs"/"trapdoors" he may be putting in place.

Maybe he's not that sort of fellow. But... he already slept with your wife. And... he's not willing to take the initiative and bow out gracefully, now that this is known.

This wouldn't hold at all where I am from. Also I don't get your point at all to be honest, it's completely disconnected from work. Even though it may feel like a personal betrayal I just don't see how this is work related.

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