Being privy to office drama is an inevitable experience of workplace life. Usually, it’s centered on who had too much eggnog at the holiday party and whether Janice from accounting is the break-room lunch thief. Occasionally, however, it’s a whole lot more salacious, and when it is, it can have dire consequences. Case in point: a CEO admitted that she fired two of her employees, not for any performance- issues, but because they were both involved in some over-the-top office drama that she refused to stand for.
In an interview with Steven Bartlett on his podcast, “Diary Of A CEO,” CEO Natalie Dawson of Cardone Ventures, a business management company, insisted that after finding out that two of her employees were having an affair with each other and stepping out on their respective partners, she quickly took measures to ensure that they would never be working at her company again.
While speaking with Bartlett, Dawson explained, “As soon as I found out about it, I terminated them both immediately. One of the things I’ve gotten so much criticism of online was when I publicly shared a TikTok about firing somebody because I found out that she was cheating on her significant other, and the other person also had a significant other.”
Dawson continued, saying that as soon as she caught wind of the affair, she didn’t even have to think twice about it before she decided to let them go. She claimed that she couldn’t have that kind of behavior in her company, especially when they both worked closely with her.
She insisted that, in her position as CEO of the company, people are supposed to be able to trust her, like they would trust any leader to help bring them success. She pointed out that critics would tell her she shouldn’t care what her employees do in their free time once they leave the company, especially since it didn’t happen at work, but Dawson strongly disagreed.
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“If they’re gonna cheat on the person they’re supposed to spend the rest of their life with, do you think that they’re cheating on their work? That person is a liability to the environment,” Dawson continued. Bartlett pushed back, explaining that the things people do in their personal lives don’t always affect their work, and therefore, it isn’t any of his business.
Yet, Dawson stood firm in her decision, claiming that it was her business because the type of person her employee is in their personal life will directly affect their work, as they are the same person on the job, too.
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“I don’t wanna be the government of your personal situations. As long as it doesn’t show up in the office,” she said. “I can’t bifurcate and put in two separate buckets what somebody’s doing at home and think that what they’re doing at home and the confusion and the distraction isn’t going to bleed over into our environment.”
The consensus after Dawson’s admittance was split down the middle, with some people claiming that it really isn’t any of her business what employees do in their free time, while others agreed with Dawson’s reasoning, saying that if they’re willing to cheat on their spouses, then they are most likely to do shady things at work as well.
Most employees would be deeply uncomfortable knowing that their boss judges their personal lives and uses them to determine whether they can keep their jobs. Dawson had zero idea about the circumstances surrounding her two employees’ cheating, but still made the executive decision to terminate them.
But aren’t employees entitled to a separation between their personal and professional lives? While the workplace is a type of ecosystem, it shouldn’t be a place where your boss gets to be the moral police. It definitely opens up a whole can of worms as to what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to the relationship between an employer and their employees.
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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
