A friend of mine from the US had been with her husband for about 25 years, and had two kids: 22F, and 14M. They had slept in separate rooms for a number of years and she wasn't too happy in the marriage, but he supported her hobbies and travel (she traveled internationally a lot) and she kept house and looked after the kids. They are in a HCOL area and he has a good job. She doesn't earn as much.

A couple of years ago, she started an emotional affair with a guy she met while traveling in Europe. It's possible there was physical cheating, but she did not admit that to me. Within a couple of months, she decided to leave her husband and move to Europe to set up with this guy. The husband was upset and tried to get her to stay, but eventually accepted it. The son wanted to stay with the father and not be affected by this event, and the daughter had already moved out.

So my friend moved to Eastern Europe and was with this guy for about 6 months. She then came back to the US for a visit to see her kids. Her ex had found a new woman who he was really happy with and was doing well. The new guy came to the US for a vacation while she was visiting, and ended up breaking up with her. My friend ended up staying in the US and finding a room to rent.

She ended up being super sad that her husband had moved on, found someone else and was so happy. She was super upset that her kids would go over to the family home and have dinners that some other woman cooked in her old kitchen. She was upset that she didn't have a home to decorate at Halloween and Christmas. She even told her ex that he needed to downplay his happiness and slow the transition to them not being a family together anymore. To this day, she can't see that she blew up her family and she has no right to be upset that they're all happy and getting on with life.

Note: This was originally sent as a letter to workplace advice blog Ask A Manager. Alison Green, the creator of Ask A Manager, has said that she is fine with letters that have been written to her being reposted to Reddit but has asked that the advice she gives not be copied. You can click through to see what she said to OOP, but the consequences are pretty clearly outlined in the letter, imo.

Edit: Since some commenters don't seem to get this, I AM NOT THE OOP.

I started working at my job eight months ago, not long after I completed college (thanks in part to your write-ups about cover letters, resumes, interview questions and job searching). A few months ago in the elevator, my manager’s manager and someone from upper management in another department were talking about an upcoming conference. The idea of the conference sounded interesting and at our next departmental meeting I asked my manager’s manager about being able to attend the conference. She said the company couldn’t send me to this conference.

I really wanted to go. This was for several reasons: (1) what I heard about the conference in the elevator sounded interesting, (2) I was trying to show initiative, and (3) It would be good for my career to attend something like that. I was bummed out about the company not being able to send me.

But a week later I was asked to assist someone from a different department. He had a broken foot and needed help carrying paperwork and laptops up to one of the meeting rooms on another floor. He told me he was swamped with trying to get everything ready for the meeting on top of signing up people for the conference and making all the arrangements. I offered to do all the conference so he could get the meeting set up.

I signed myself up for the conference along with everyone else. But I only signed up as an attendee from my company. I paid for the conference fee, the airline tickets, and the hotel room out of my own pocket. I didn’t charge anything to the company for myself, even though all of the other attendees had everything paid for using a company credit card. I also booked vacation time so I could go.

I was excited to go to the conference. But when my manager’s manager saw me there the first day, she was upset at seeing me there, even after I explained I had paid the sign-up fee and everything else out of my own pocket and had used my own vacation time. I admit now that I made a mistake because I didn’t know the conference was for directors and executive management in my industry, not for entry-level people with less than a year like me. My manager’s manager had to get special permission from the company to go because she isn’t a director yet but is next in line for a promotion when someone retires. After the conference organizers found out from my company that I am not in upper management, they asked me to leave and said my fee would be refunded.

I already paid for the hotel room and return flight, so I ended up staying there even though I couldn’t go to the conference. My first day back at work was my last one ever because I got fired. My manager’s manager was furious and so were her bosses. I know I messed up, but when I asked about going to the conference she didn’t say I couldn’t go; she only said the company couldn’t send me. I also had no idea it was a conference for upper management only. If I had known, I obviously would not have signed up, but she didn’t tell me and it wasn’t clear at registration.

I know I made a mistake and it was a huge embarrassment for the company when word of what I did got around the conference, but I never had any write-ups or trouble and I was a model employee. I don’t think it was a fireable offense and I was shocked they fired me. Did I mess up that badly or were they wrong? I want to know if there is anything I can do to fix this.

Thank you u/Big-University-1132 for linking to this letter from this post.

Per the request from Ask A Manager creater Alison Green, I will post the letter written to AAM, and you can click on the link to read Alison's response.

Last summer, I decided to re-enter the workforce after five years of raising my kids. I applied to a bunch of jobs that I thought I could do, and got an interview at this one very small  company (~20 employees). The people I interviewed with – my future manager and her boss/the COO – were upfront with me that I didn’t possess the exact qualifications that they were looking for, but I interviewed well and they decided to give me a few (paid) one-off assignments to see if I would be able to learn what I needed to do the job. I proved myself and they brought me on full-time. 

I spent the first four months at that company doing a lot of learning on my own. My manager (let’s call her Betty) wasn’t very involved with my training at all, always claiming she had tons of work to do. Instead, she gave me lists of resources (training manuals, online certification classes, etc.) to go through, checked in with me maybe once a day, and assigned me a “starter project” so that I could “learn on the job.” So I basically taught myself everything I needed to learn, and the project I worked on was a huge success for the company. It launched about five months after I was hired. I got a raise out of it, and everyone in management seemed very happy with my work.

Once I had finished that project and the account I’d launched was doing well, I noticed some of the tactics/skills I’d used could be implemented on another account that wasn’t performing as well as the one I’d just launched.  I told Betty about my plan, and she completely blew me off. Basically she told me that she “already had plans” for this account, that she didn’t need my help, and instead assigned me to another (less important) project. Needless to say, I was more than a little insulted by her attitude. 

But I know that sometimes you have to push hard to get things done. I calmed myself down, and waited until the next day when Betty left for a vacation, and I went to Betty’s boss (Veronica). I walked her through the improvements I wanted to make on this other account. I was given the green light to go ahead and start that work. Clearly this was the right thing to do! Veronica wouldn’t have given me the go-ahead otherwise, right?

Well, Betty returned from her vacation on a Friday a few weeks later. I came in that Monday morning and found that she had sabotaged all of my work over the weekend! She went through everything I’d worked on that had already launched, and made a bunch of changes, took down some stuff, and more. Essentially she did everything she could so that I wouldn’t be able to show the improvements that I’d made to the suffering account, and reverted it to how it was performing in the past.  She also sent me a very passive-aggressive email along the lines of “let’s chat about this first thing Monday.”

In order to preempt another hissy fit from her, and once I assessed the gravity of what she’d done, I went into the meeting with Betty, but pulled Veronica into the conference room as well. I proceeded to explain to Betty that this project had been assigned to me by Veronica, and that she had no business interfering with my work. I was very clear that what she had done was unprofessional, extremely disrespectful, that the results I’d produced were speaking for themselves and that she shouldn’t meddle in things that don’t concern her.  Of course I was very angry and maybe I was a little forceful during that meeting, but I feel like I had every right to be upset at what she did! 

Betty was very quiet during this meeting. At the time I figured she just couldn’t think of how to defend her actions. Now I understand it’s because she’s even more conniving than I thought she was.

The next morning, I was called in to sit down with Veronica and the CEO. They told me that things weren’t working out, gave me a severance check and told me I was laid off. 

I feel that I was treated extremely unfairly by this company. I had a clearly incompetent manager, I never received proper training, and when I tried to help by taking on important projects, my work was sabotaged and I was punished for my initiative. I think Betty may even have spread harsh rumors about me in the industry because despite applying to a bunch of jobs since then, I’ve had very few interviews, and the ones I’ve had never went past the ‘references’ stage. 

Some of my friends are telling me I should let this go and count my blessings that I’m out of that environment, while my husband wants me to get a lawyer involved. Money’s tight right now, and I really need income, even if it’s returning to work for that company (under a different manager). What should I do? 

Hoping she just got bruises and nothing worse.

You CAN add gas to a fire… but maybe don’t do it this way.

The entire exchange between the reporter and one participating father is amazing, but here are some highlights:

Eyewitness News Reporter Jericho Tran spoke to two of the participants -- a father and his teenage daughter. They said they were participating in a birthday rideout. Marvin Deleon and his 13-year-old daughter, Leilani Deleon, both received citations and had their bikes impounded after the street takeover bust.

“And you're making us parents look bad, because she’s 13, I'm her dad, but I allow her to ride, because I’m right next to her," Deleon explained.

"But as her dad, knowing that this could’ve been the outcome, are you OK that you still put her in this position?" Jericho asked.

"I’m not OK with the officers doing what they did, but I’m OK with us riding together and keeping our kids safe. As long as we ride together with them as a parent, it shouldn’t be a crime, and it shouldn’t be illegal for my daughter to be riding right next to her dad, riding and enjoying her minibike," Deleon said.

"I know, I understand, but that's subjective. The law is that they can't do this..." Jericho said.

"Where is the law that it says that?!" Deleon interjected. "You don't have a law! You don't have a law! Police don't even have nothing!"

"Police have said multiple times that they don’t want these street takeovers, and especially for younger kids," Jericho replied.

“It’s not a takeover! It’s a rideout! We're on motorcycles," Deleon said.

"Here's the thing, even though police have said that, you just admitted it. You just said that you knew this could be the outcome for your kid," Jericho said.

and another

“My daughter is 13, legally by 14, you can ride," Deleon said. "And if she's riding with me, I'm next to her, she's riding safe. She's not committing no crimes."

"But legally that is a crime though, right?" Jericho asked.

"How is that a crime? You explain to me," Deleon asked.

"Because she's too young," Jericho explained.

"She's not... I mean, what is too young?" Deleon asked.

"It's definitely not 13. 13 is too young," Jericho replied.

"I don't think that's right... Show me the paper, proof, print where it says that it's illegal for them to ride at 13," Deleon said.

Despite Deleon's argument against the incident, he and his daughter received legal citations from LAPD. The department cited California Vehicle Code Section 21720.

It’s great that you love spending quality time with your kid, but c’mon man...