AIBU to expect a party invite for DS?

[Blueskiesarenice]

My DS has a best friend, they’ve been best friends for approx 4 years, in the same class at school and always having play dates, sleepovers etc.

Due to their friendship, his mum and I have became friends and just over a year ago she came to work for my business. Shortly after she joined I went on maternity leave. She took on a senior role with the view of running / growing the business whilst I was away.

Towards the end of my maternity leave it became clear things weren’t going well at work. I was told the business would make a loss next year if nothing changed. The senior team proposed a restructure and a number of redundancies. My friend was part of these discussions and knew her job was at risk.

Though I’ve not been at work when things went downhill and I wasn’t responsible for the restructure, I did approve it as it seemed the only option for the business and therefore my friend was made redundant.

She has taken this very badly, even her husband has sent me horrible messages.

But what’s shocked me most of all, is her son told my DS at school that he’s not allowed to have a play date with my DS ever again and he’s not allowed to have my DS to his birthday party. Both her son and my DS ended up crying about this in school.

Turns out my ‘friend’ has already invited all the kids in the class to her son’s birthday party and excluded my DS. My DS is heartbroken. Sounds like hers is too.

What do I do? AIBU to expect her to invite my DS to the birthday party?!

I thought we could sort this out without involving the kids. I get that she’s upset about the job but I don’t feel I had any choice and I don’t believe it’s my fault.

Look after your son, give it a little time and then invite her son to a play date. She just needs a bit of time to feel less upset.

If you've appointed her to a senior role it seems safe to assume she left a pretty decent job. Did she?
I know you were on mat leave but how could you go from 80 hours a week never being off even when you were on holiday to taking such a huge step back from your own business after investing 250k that it came to that? Did you do no check in? No report back? Nothing?
It is very wrong that she's excluded your son but you're not entirely blameless here. The COLC has been a thing for longer than your mat leave and you should have had a bit more foresight into the effects

I think reading your replies, that you have no idea how the decisions were made - even from her point of view, you haven’t reached out to her to have a meeting - even a professional one to discuss the upcoming redundancies, you haven’t offered any help or assistance to find another job, even a decent reference.

You have no idea the impact of her losing her job, she could lose her home, she may have bills to pay that she wouldn’t have taken on had she not worked for you etc.
say a new car loan or holiday.

Maybe she needed a friend? And you weren’t there?

I think you have treated her poorly and acknowledged the COLC for the business but not for your friend.

She lost her job, her confidence, and god knows what else and you lost one party invite for a 2 hours play date.

Inviting all the kids in the class to a party except your ds is not OK. Especially as your kids are close. It's vindictive. She should not have done that.

This thread should be a cautionary tale on how not to run a business.

I’ve reached out multiple times. Both as a boss and as a friend. Been pushed back / ignored / verbally attacked.

I almost lost my business, Ive lost a lot of money, Ive lost a friend and my son has lost his best friend and is devastated. I’ve lost my confidence, my love for my job and my mental health has been impacted - this is all causing me and my family a lot of stress and upset. I now have to deal with the financial impact for my family (I’m the breadwinner) whilst trying to juggle a new baby (and other kids). I’d like to leave and have a fresh start like I’m sure she will, but I have to stay to save my business and continue to support the employees that are still working for the company.

She has refused to communicate with me and is now seemingly airing her grievances to her child and trying to destroy the children’s friendship / hurt my DS to get back at me.

Could you answer the question you've been asked several times about the job she left?

She left a job she was very unhappy in and which paid a lot less. This was a promotion with a significant pay rise - approx £10K. The reason this whole thing came about is she said to me how unhappy she was where she was working and so I invited her to apply for a role I had.

Yes, I'm not sure why that poster said all you've lost is a party invite.

Totaly
I think reading your replies, that you have no idea how the decisions were made - even from her point of view, you haven’t reached out to her to have a meeting - even a professional one to discuss the upcoming redundancies, you haven’t offered any help or assistance to find another job, even a decent reference.

You have no idea the impact of her losing her job, she could lose her home, she may have bills to pay that she wouldn’t have taken on had she not worked for you etc.
say a new car loan or holiday.

Maybe she needed a friend? And you weren’t there?

I think you have treated her poorly and acknowledged the COLC for the business but not for your friend.

She lost her job, her confidence, and god knows what else and you lost one party invite for a 2 hours play date.

This is ridiculous. OP reached out to her friend but the friend has rejected contact.

If you take on a new job and don’t perform well, you can’t expect to be kept on indefinitely. It should be obvious to everyone that with a small business negative consequences bite much quicker since a small business will generally have a smaller cash reserve and certainly much less credit than bigger companies.

You talk about the friend like she is a clueless new graduate, rather than a smart woman who took what she thought was a good opportunity. Don’t project your own worldview onto her.

It didn’t work out. That sometimes happens. I’m sure OP is analysing her own decisions and working out what she could have done differently. It’s unlikely only one person was responsible here.

I'd report this to the school as bullying/exclusion. My DC's school (and the other parents there) would take a very dim view of this sort of behaviour.

As a business owner you can't really take that much of a step back and leave people to it. You have to keep an eye on it. I made that mistake for only a couple of months after I had my first ds and business profits plummeted. Never again. With my last ds, I was working from the next day after birth, as sales would have plummeted. Keeping an eye on everything would have been better.
Anyway back to your thread, no she shouldn't have taken this out on your DS, that's not fair and very petty

I think you have had a bit of a hard time on here, OP. I completely recognise where people are coming from in saying that this situation ultimately is a result of a business decision that you made and that your (ex) friend is now facing the consequences of this. However, I don't think either your son or her's should be punished for this. I think play dates would be awkward and understand her not wanting to continue these, but it has been taken too far by excluding him from a whole class party. I would be hurt for my child too, if this happened. In the school I work at, we don't actually allow invites to be handed out on the school premises unless there's one for each child in the class to reduce this sort of thing from happening.

Really hope that time will help to resolve this.

I’m so sorry you’ve been struggling mentally, it’s not how you envisioned this whole scenario to end. I imagine your DF has also been struggling mentally too but to take it out on both of your DS is just awful, it really is. How old are they?

Agree with this and honestly OP her behaviour has demonstrated that she was absolutely the right choice for your business to cut ties with

Promotion
Significant payrise
10k is a lot.
Was she experienced enough?
Qualified enough?
All of this was your decision

Exclusion is a form of bullying. She's bullying a small child.

Exactly this. The nastiness towards her own child and his friend has been ignored by some in an effort to castigate @Blueskiesarenice

I am sure her boy has cried at home too but it seems his Mum is determined to make him suffer in order to punish @Blueskiesarenice through her son. What next? Why would you do that to your own child? OP's son will be supported by his parents but who will support the other boy?

The thing is, the op asked if she was being unreasonable to expect a party invite for her son. Of course she is, it would always be unreasonable to expect an invite, let alone in the circumstances she describes!

Everything else sounds awful for all concerned, but she is still unreasonable to expect an invite!

Seems everyone thinks as a business owner, I shouldn’t have taken the maternity leave, but sometimes there are things in life that feel more important and sacred than business / making money.

gently, OP, they are right. It is VERY different being the owner. You ought to have been in touch at least weekly, reviewing the monthly figures after month end and at least having half an eye on what was going on and with a finger on the pulse.

It has been a harsh and expensive lesson to you.

Agree with @unbelieveable22

I am sure her boy has cried at home too but it seems his Mum is determined to make him suffer in order to punish @Blueskiesarenice through her son. What next?

She is also making her own son miserable. The whole thing is really difficult for all of you. I don't think she is thinking about a potential closure of your business. All she can think about is being made redundant.

No. It was the ex friend's decision to take the job. And to end her own job. And to cause her own son to suffer.

None of it was OP's decision beyond offering her a job and agreeing to what her team put forward when they'd run the company into the ground.

OP made friend redundant

I meant decision for the company

Hardly ‘squabbles’, interesting word choice.