New BF who is also "the boss" and an accidental FB slur

[HellyBelly38]

This question is for a friend of mine, she asked me to post a question for her as she knows I use MN to answer my own dilemmas.

She is 37, works for a company with offices all over the place and she was employed by a very old friend of hers who owns the whole company.

Hence she was friends with the big boss (let's call him Mr D) , as well as many of the smaller bosses long before she was an employee of the company and is also friends with them on FB.

She started work there about a year ago, and then a few months ago starting also (quite casually but also quite promisingly) dating Mr D, who she had always been great friends with.

She is quite a lippy girl who often makes sarcastic jokes and she made a quip on the FB page of one of her bosses, let's call him Mr Tubby (tee hee). She has been friends with Mr Tubby for a long time and the joke (admittedly a bit off regarding his weight) wasn't intended to offend as pretty much everyone on the thread was commenting on his weight in a similar way and it's a bit of a running joke.

For whatever reason, Mr Tubby, who is both a very old friend of hers, as well as a boss of the company she works at (several rungs above her though) got offended and un-friended her on Facebook and sent her a pretty horrible email (I saw it).

She responded very nicely with an email to apologise, to say she had not meant to offend and to say she hoped they could resume their friendship.

Mr Tubby responded with an absolutely vile email which said something on the lines of "I am no friend of yours, I am a friend of Mr D" etc.

My friend is due to go and stay with Mr Tubby on a vacation trip with Mr D as his girlfriend and she now (obviously) does not want to go.

She let Mr D know what had happened and he advised her to ring Mr Tubby and apologise again to smooth it over.

I personally thought Mr Tubby's emails to her were absolutely scathing and completely out of proportion with her jokey FB comment. I am also supervised Mr D is not defending her and seems to blame her entirely.

Can I get the advice from the MNers for her?

Is it best to wallow her pride and suck it up?
Should she still go on the trip to stay in the house of this man who has been so rude to her?
Should Mr D be standing up for her a bit more?

Thanks

Op you sound like a over protective mum who's outraged because someone's told your little darling off.

The fact You posted on her behalf , the arse kissing about her on this thread , to the point she sounds like mother Teresa , and your insistence this guy is bullying her , all these things suggest to me your friendship is toxic. You sound silly being so adoring of her , your too involved and it sounds unhealthy.

Not many people like sarcasm, nor personal insults. If the pair of you don't get that you've got a problem. Perhaps you need to kiss her arse to avoid being on the receiving end of her sarcasm and personal comments ?

Maybe Mr D has realised her lack of boundaries and poor choices make her a liability in his personal and professional life? It's all very nice having an affair and travelling to meet up then returning to normal life but now she's thrown a massive spanner in the works and insulted his friend and doesn't really see what she did wrong.
There could be more trouble ahead for your friend. She needs to take a critical look at her behaviour and you need to stop telling her how wonderful she is.

You calling him Mr tubby isn't funny either. You said yourself your also over weight. Would you find it equally funny if people on this thread referred to you as miss piggy ? Fatso ? Course you wouldn't.

I couldn't be arsed wasting my Friday night posting about my friends falling out. Honestly , you sound far too involved.

I'm cringing just imagining it. A few close guy friends bantering about each other's weights, then one of their girlfriends drops in and calls one of them fat. Oof. Imagine the gender-reversed version, the guy would never be forgiven!

What was the sort of thing in the emails, OP? You're making them sound terrible but haven't mentioned anything in them other than that he said he was her boyfriend's friend, not hers, which is pretty reasonable.

You keep saying the e-mails he sent her were vile, but you don't say what he actually said to her.

You need to tell us what he said, for us to gauge if they were actually vile or if you are biased.

I personally think that you apologise once, sincerely. If that's not accepted, then you just have to accept it and move on.

No, you have the scenario all wrong.

She knew Mr T for a long, long time before she dated Mr D or worked with either of them. She has always been the way she is, always had the same banter with the pair of them, and the reaction was diferrent and new. He knows her extremely well, they have holidayed together before. He gives as good as he gets. She is not the girlfriend piping in out of nowhere. They comment on her page too in a similar sarky fashion.

I haven't put in the contents of the emails but it was on the lines of "let me make it very clear to you. Apologising isn't going to fix the friendship. Mr D is my friend, you are no friend of mine. When you write on my page people send me messages saying who the fuck is ___ and this is what people think of you "

It was just very, very nasty.

She was trying to fix it and apologise genuinely.

There was no question in her mind whether her comment was wrong. She knew it was. She apologised. The question was about how to fix the situation, whether sucking it up was best, whether she should still go on the trip or bow out and whether Mr D should be supporting his GF (who was spoken to much, much more rudely than she deserved).

No one, not even me, is saying she did the right thing making the comment. She knows, and I know, that she cocked that up.

And by the way, after all this, she spoke to her BF and has agreed to telephone and try and apologise again but to wait a few days until he;s settled so it does seem to be resolved or at least understood how to try and best resolve it. Thanks all for the advice, even if it was given in a pretty harsh fashion at times there. I did think I needed an outside perspective which is why I posted.

I still, even after reading everything you wrote here, think he would have been better served as a grown man to discuss it like adults instead of reeling off insults and un-friending her. Perhaps I see it differently because I know her and if you knew her you'd know it would be impossible for anyone to think she was being malicious.

When she is an arse, I tell her she is an arse. She's not scary, she's actually the opposite of that.

I have had friends post insults on my FB business page before and I sent them a quiet message to ask them not to because it wasn't appropriate. I have had friends post sexual things on my page, I have had friends make jokes I didn't find funny. I've either ignored it, deleted it or talked to them about it. Maybe not the same as jibes about weight but even so, I
personally think the way he behaved was over the top and childish.

But I bow to the wisdom of the crowd.

I don't think what he said was that bad.

And panda I completely agree with your post. I am 100% sure if she had been a man he'd not have reacted the same way.

That message doesn't sound awful - just truthful. He doesn't like her, maybe never really liked her and this has been the breaking point. Mr T is mortified by her behaviour-she has publically embarrassed him and his real friends (who interestingly enough do not know your pal, despite her "long" friendship with Mr T) think she is very rude. It must hurt to see yourself as others see you, but maybe this is a valuable lesson for your friend.

Most people seem to agree she was in the wrong, Mr T's reaction is understandable and that she's more than capable with her lippy mouth and sarcastic remarks of fighting her own battle - unless she's finally met someone who will stand up to her antics instead of thinking she's wonderful? Maybe she got what was coming?

I'm open-mouthed at how she can even consider going on holiday to Mr T's house when he's told her she is not welcome. That really says a lot about her. And none of it is good.

Fact of the matter is she joined in and insulted someone. It's not on.

The way he behaved may have been OTT and childish, but he was probably hurt, ashamed and defensive of the fact she thought it fitting to rip into him. She isn't very mature herself by the sounds of things.

She obviously also had a misconstrued idea about her friendship with 'Mr Tubby' - horrible name btw.

Her BF is asking her to still go. She does not want to go. Obviously.

Anyway, the question has been settled. Thank you, but I am going to leave the chat now to go to sleep and seeing as it's resolved with a very definitive answer I'll try and mentally move on from an afternoon spent on this.

Genuinely...thank you all.

I agree Katie. Maybe he's never liked her but has tolerated her over the years. Maybe she thought they were friends but he didn't see it that way at all. Maybe people see her in a different way from the way you see her.

The example you posted of his email is by no stretch what I would consider vile. Probably hard to read as the recipient, but I was expecting a tirade of abusive language, rather than frank talking from Mr T

"Unfriending" on FB is the mature way to deal with insults etc. I'd certainly not put up with anyone posting sexual remarks on my page and would "unfriend" them in a flash.

Why does this bother your friend so much? Does she need to demonstrate how popular she is by having as many FB friends as possible?

Did it occur to you that your friend would have been better to behave like a mature woman in the first place and not post insults on FB, instead of putting the blame on Mr T's reaction to her inappropriate behaviour?

if you knew her you'd know it would be impossible for anyone to think she was being malicious.

there is something very wrong here. You told us Mr T has known her for a long time and he does think she is malicious. And with good reason.

TBH Hellybelly if I got a message like that from someone in the scenario you described, I would suspect that they'd been harbouring an immense amount of resentment about me for a long time and that I'd been completely mistaken about being their friend. Or that Panda is right, she's got involved with a male losing face thing she didn't realise she was mixing in, and of course his male pride is more important to him than a friendship with a mere woman.

Either way, I would write the friendship off and wouldn't think I'd lost much. And if I felt any pressure to apologise from my boyf, I'd consider very carefully whether I wanted him to be my boyf. She's admitted she was wrong to post the "banter", it's not actually reasonable to expect someone to stay with someone who has made it clear that they have no respect or liking for them, irrespective of whether they have overstepped a mark or not.

Good night.

His email doesn't sound that bad. He was obviously very annoyed but it's not particularly insulting - more a 'who the fuck do you think you are' sort of vent.

She's his boss's girlfriend, so it must have been the straw that broke the camels back.
OP - of corse Mr D wants her to go on holiday. They're having an affair and live in different countries so this is a great way to hook up. But it's a terrible idea and sounds like he just wants her for the obvious reasons. Almost guaranteed to make Mr T even more angry with her.

They're having an affair

Where did I miss that either Mr D or the friend is married?

I thought they were both single and started dating recently.

So she comments on her bosses weight 'in a jokey way' (and you snigger at your use of calling him Mr Tubby - are you 12?), gets pulled up on it, deleted as a friend, sends a email to say sorry, thinking that will fix it & is surprised that he sent one back, pretty much stating he is not happy?

Is she 12?

and the joke (admittedly a bit off regarding his weight) wasn't intended to offend as pretty much everyone on the thread was commenting on his weight in a similar way and it's a bit of a running joke. Not only that, but his weight is a running joke in the whole company & she thinks it is funny to add to that? Just because others joined in, it doesn't she wasn't being offensive.

I assume that she thinks she is allowed to make 'jokes' about her boss, because she is dating his boss and friend. This just makes me think she is taking advantage of her relationship with the company boss to insult those around her, which isn't on. And just shows how pathetic she is.

If my employee & partner was being insulting to my friend, who was also an employee, I would NOT be pleased & I would expect them to apologise & take what they deserved.

What if your friends boob size/arse was a running joke within the company & he made a comment about it on fb 'in a jokey way'

Would she be laughing then?

it doesn't mean she wasn't being offensive.

has known Mr Tubby for a lot of years who frequently makes jokes about his own weight.

It is one thing making jokes about your own weight, but another when someone else starts in on that. Me making jokes about my weight, doesn't mean that my colleagues can too & I certainly wouldn't expect my employees too, either.

The contents of what he sent her I had to get her to read back to me 3 - 4 times for it to sink in that anyone could be that nasty.

Yet she herself is nasty enough to make jokes about someone's weight? People who are not usually nasty, who fire off a nasty email after being the butt of office jokes, usually do so because they are fed up with being the butt of the office joker.

Your friend WAS horrible & nasty. Just because she isn't usually, doesn't mean she wasn't on this occasion.

As you said, she is usually quite lippy, so I would be interested to know how much of her lip he has had to put up with since she became the big bosses gf. I am pretty sure4 she is using her position to be rude to wards this guy, knowing she can't get sacked. Which is a foul abuse of a position.

I would want Mr D to be more supportive and tell Mr Tubby that it isn't the way to speak to his girlfriend/partner. Which will just reinforce to her that her name calling & 'joking' at some one else's expense are OK. It's not. It's bullying, workplace bullying & people can be reprimanded for it. I also think it will just reinforce her belief that as the bosses gf, she can do what she likes.

but believe me the emails he sent were personal attacks And joking about his weight wasn't?

My advice, by the way, is that your friend should apologise unreservedly to the man she publicly humiliated on Facebook. Exactly! At least he had the decency to bawl her out privately.

On reading the part you posted from the email it was neither

a] nasty
b a personal attack

He was right to react how he did.

As has been mentioned up thread, there is stuff going on here that your friend knows nothing about. Mr T's response seems to be out of proportion, and there's a reason for that.

Your friend's remark was stupid and mean. She has apologized. She can apologise again, but he won't accept it because it is not about the comment. It's about something else.

She can try to work out what it is and resolve it, or she can distance herself from Mr T as much as possible. Personally I'd let it go. He just doesn't like her, and this was his chance to let her have it with both barrels.