‘I terminated both of them immediately’: This boss fired two employees for what they did outside of work, and she’d do it again

A company boss has got people talking online after she shared that she fired two workers who were having an affair with each other. People have very different opinions about whether bosses should care about what their employees do when they’re not at work.

According to the New York Post, Natalie Dawson runs a company called Cardone Ventures in the US. She talked about what happened on the Diary of a CEO podcast with host Steve Bartlett. The 32-year-old boss said she found out that two people who worked for her were cheating on their partners with each other.

When Dawson learned about it, she acted fast. “As soon as I found out about it I terminated both of them immediately,” she said. The partners of these two employees did not work at the company. Dawson said the affair had something to do with work, but she didn’t want to go into all the details about it.

Personal life and work life aren’t as separate as we think

Dawson made it clear she would do the same thing again if it happened now. It wouldn’t matter to her if the affair was connected to work or not. She thinks that if someone cheats on their partner, they will probably cheat at work too. 

“If they are going to cheat on the person they are supposed to spend the rest of their life with, do you think they are cheating on their work? That person is a liability to the environment,” Dawson said.

The podcast host didn’t agree with her thinking. “People do all kinds of things in their personal life. I don’t consider that to be my business,” Bartlett said. He said he doesn’t want to control what his workers do in their personal time. As long as their problems don’t come into the office, he thinks it’s not his place to step in.

But Dawson sees things differently. She said it is “absolutely my business” when someone who works for her has problems at home. That’s because the same person comes to work every day. She doesn’t think you can keep personal life and work life separate because one always affects the other.

The video clip from the podcast got huge attention online. More than 1.7 million people have watched it, and thousands left comments. People were split right down the middle on this. Some thought what Dawson did was “utterly controlling” and wondered if it was even legal to fire someone for this reason. One person wrote that what happens outside of work hours “is no concern to companies or corporations.”

But plenty of others thought she did the right thing. “Never do business with a cheater… If they can cheat with the most important person in their life, imagine what they’d do behind your back” – Wise Elliot,” one user wrote.

“People forget cheating isn’t just about romance… It’s a blueprint for how they move through the world,” another comment read. The strong reactions on both sides show just how much people disagree about what bosses should control.

After so many people saw the video, Dawson wrote about it on LinkedIn. She said firing workers isn’t about punishing them. It’s about keeping the company safe and making sure everyone follows the same rules. “Character is consistent. And if I tolerate dishonesty in one area, I set a new standard for everyone else watching,” she wrote. Her choice to stand by her decision publicly has kept the argument going strong.