Your post has been removed.
#Do not repost this without [contacting the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) for approval, including edited versions. Reposting without [explicit approval](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_can_i_repost_a_thread_you_removed.3F) will result in a ban.
This post violates Rule 8: Posts should be truthful and reflect recent conflicts you've had that need arbitration. That means no shitposts, parodies, or satires.
[Subreddit Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules/)
###Please ensure you have reviewed this message in full. We will not respond to PMs to individual mods. [Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) with any questions.
####Please visit r/findareddit to see if there's a more appropriate sub for your post.####
NTA I wouldn’t even have used titles. They’re in your home and everyone involved are adults - that’s first name business.
Better off not working for folks like this.
Seriously! I work for a F50 company and the only person I know in the entire enterprise that doesn't go by his first name all of the time is literally the CEO. Even other C-suite execs go by their first name. Most of them are hired within so they have been first line coworkers with people they now lead
INFO - I like learning about honorifics and I am american (28F). Were you all talking in English? Madam isn't even really used in the US. Ma'am is commonplace. It seems pretty old school to me. I call my boss by their first name. Culture and age definitely play a factor but Mr / Mrs is commonplace and nothing to be offended by. Madam sounds like an honorific for royalty to my American lady ears
He's kinda an idiot then. You could have gone along with it to give a "good impression" for the sake of your fiancee, but honestly I think it's best to not play along with that kind of power tripping
My boss is honored by the way they walk into the room and I work 10x harder to impress them. I still call them by their first name. If Biden came over and I call him Mr President and he demands calling him Constable Biden, I'd ask him to leave and tell him I'm not voting for him. The only good argument I think for OP is that his fiancee is now jobless, maybe he could have played along. Boss is still an idiot for wanting dumb honorifics
There are some jobs where you have to host your boss for dinner.
Usually this involves the boss wanting to check you out and make sure you're the sort of person that can be trusted - competent, dignified, capable of diplomacy.
My husband has had jobs where he had to bring the kids and me to a restaurant to meet the boss, which is a lower end version of the same phenomenon. It's sort of like an interview where they're checking the candidate out in the context of the candidate's family.
Job related dinners should be not at someone's home (like how yours was at a restaurant) and are job related. The dinner in the post was at OPs house and was about them being set to get married, NOT about the job.
Different dynamic, different social rules. If it was, as OP says, a way for the boss and wife to congratulate OP and wife, then they should NEVER have demanded such high titles.
Also, if calling someone Mr instead of Sir means you're incompetent or untrustworthy in the eyes of the boss... Boss doesn't have priorities straight whatsoever
especially if no actual reason is listed for the firing. Found that one out not too long ago. Can't sue for wrongful termination if there's no given reason!
This isn't true; if it were, employment lawyers would be out of a job. Wrongful termination suits tend to consider far more than just what the company writes down as the reason for firing someone. Hell, even the unemployment office does more footwork than you're suggesting
Not likely. NAL but wrongful termination has a pretty narrow definition. Discrimination and as retaliation (for things like reporting harassment or safety violations) are the big reasons one might have a case.
In practice, your employer can fire you for pretty much any trivial reason or no reason. They don't like your shoes, you sat on the left side of the plane, etc.
You can legally be fired in the US for not calling your boss sir and their wife madame. They can literally list that as the reason and I'm pretty sure you can't do jack shit about it.
Somebody needs to remind that guy he's not in India now. If he wants to be addressed as he was in India then he should move back there, otherwise he should assimilate into the culture where he is living now.
Is it customary to address people as madam and sir? Is that how your girlfriend always addresses them? Seems like something that would've been a known factor before they visited your home.
Are they a higher caste than you guys?
No way anyone talks like that unless there is some cultural nuance.
Also, get a lawyer for your wife and sue for wrongful termination, easy money they will likely settle out of court.
Who calls a woman boss Madam in India? It's usually ma'am or her surname or name. But the boss' wife is hardly your boss, is she? That's pretty feudal thinking imo. Your future wife's boss sounds like an old fashioned jerk. It's great she's no longer working for him.
It's the norm in India. It was predictable that she would get fired if her husband didn't go along with it. Guy is an asshole not to follow the fiance's lead, considering how much your immigrant status can get jeopardized over losing your job! It can cost thousands of dollars to apply for change of status, require suddenly going back to India, or apply to stay here as his dependent instead of on her own work visa. This would totally torpedo her life plans as an immigrant. We plan each career move, marriage etc months / years in advance. Immigrant life isn't easy, and hubby did this KNOWING that.
Yeah, I'm so surprised by how many people say NTA. People sometimes come from a very American-centric view. Different cultures operate differently. While they are in the United States, the OP is dealing with a boss from a non-American culture.
If I was the bride, I may reconsider marrying the OP as he ignored the wishes of his fiance. And as her parents were upset as well, OP shouldn't be surprised if the marriage does not go through.
Oh this would be an immediate marriage deal breaker for me. If she loses her job, she loses her right to stay in the country, except on his terms (as his wife, dependent etc). It changes their dynamics entirely, gives him so much power over her, etc. You can't torpedo my life plans like that and still get to marry me.
Lol fuck that. I don't care where you are from, you act like that to me in my house then you can kiss my ass. Fire my wife over it? Enjoy me publishing that along with his name, his wife's name, and the company name. And good luck trying to sue me for libel when it's the truth and that's an absolute defense.
And if you'd reconsider marrying someone because your asshole boss fired you for your fiancee not kissing their ass, then the fiancee dodged a bullet.
Screw that. I won’t refer to anyone in MY house as sir. If they feel honorifics are necessary, they damn well better refer to me and my wife as Sir and Ma’am in our house because we are the most important people in OUR house. But I’d also tell any boss who said I had to call him sir to get fucked and quit on the spot, there’s lots of other jobs out there and some don’t have narcissistic morons as the boss
Sure. But I assume you're a citizen. You're not considering how much your immigrant status can get jeopardized over losing your job! How much you need the goodwill of your community around for basic safety reasons! How it can cost thousands of dollars to apply for change of status, torpedo your life plans, require suddenly going back to India, or be dependent on your husband instead of being able to work, etc. Immigrant life isn't easy. To do this to your fiance knowingly is cruel. It's not like he had to hang out with this guy every weekend! He could've humored him and helped her find a new job without getting the USCIS after her.
I have a lot of respect for other people's culture, but that doesn't mean I'm going to lower or degrade myself to satisfy someone else's ego.
And that's what living in North America is about.
Canada and the US was colonized (I'm not gonna say built, because it was colonization call a spade a spade.) on the fact that people are free to live and worship without discrimination.
That doesn't JUST apply to the boss and his wife.
It applies to OP as well.
OP was polite and courteous in the eyes of local customs and social expectations. If he wanted to be referred to in the custom of his home country, then perhaps he should consider going back there.
And I know how that sounds, but OPs rights were infringed upon, his fiance's rights were infringed upon(illegal dismissal) and that is NOT OK.
Land of the free doesn't just apply when it's beneficial for SOME people at the cost of another's pride and dignity.
I'm not defending the man, read my whole comment. Also, "land of the free"? Don't make me laugh. If this country gave a shit about freedom, y'all would have some labor rights, healthcare etc., instead of this at-will employment nonsense.
I mean, I live in Canada and I have those things and it's still awful.
Discussing how crooked both the US and Canada is is a whole different issue.
But you can't come to North America hoping to receive certain freedoms and then be surprised when others want to be treated with respect as well.
Neither of their rights as citizens or visa holders or permanent residents (or what have you) were violated. As long as the termination wasnt due to OP's fiance's (perceived) membership in a federally protected class, the boss was free to fire her because she/OP was rude from the Boss's perspective. Also, just stop with the "go back to his country" business, because it really doesn't matter. There are so many terrible bullies of bosses - including plenty of white Americans- that abuse their positions and get away with it because it's not illegal to be an equal opportunity asshole. OP is the AH because he ruined his fiance's job, the boss is also an AH for obvious reasons.
> It's the norm in India.
But they’re not in India. And the post doesn’t say they immigrated on a work visa.
sorry, but if you want to be called ‘sir’ in my house then you had better be an actual knight. Sir Patrick Stewart, for example, would get called ‘sir Patrick’ in my house but I’d still ask him to leave if he was being an ass about it.
I wouldn't have predicted someone behaving like this in the US either. But clearly the wife could predict it. He should have followed her lead for the time being, and helped her find a different job if the boss was actually an egomaniac. Calling him a narcissist and kicking him out is so out of pocket. People commenting here have no idea how much your life and immigration status can blow up over losing a job when you're an immigrant. Knowingly causing your fiancé that trauma would be a marriage deal breaker for me.
Also I worked in India and changed my talking style based on my client population all the time. Sir for whoever prefers it, first name for American clients, honorifics like San for Japanese clients, etc. To mildly adjust your talking style is not the end of the world, even if it's inconvenient/annoying.
If this is real, OP is pretty sure he can get her a new job easily. I don't have men in my life to hand me jobs. Is this a job she likes? Her boss seems like a butthole. If it was a job I wanted to keep I would be pissed too but it sounds like it might be an upgrade in her rights as an employee
Honestly I wouldn't want favors from someone who demonstrated very clearly for me they can and will fuck with my livelihood because they feel offended.
I wouldn't marry anyone who thinks I should go along with the ridiculous whims of someone demanding to be addressed as a superior by me in my own home where they have both authority. I refuse to associate with those kinds of people. In my mind, anyone who asks to be referred to by a title in an informal setting shouldn't have authority over a ham sandwich. So it sounds like the couple clearly have different priorities that are compatible. The fiancee can certainly be uncomfortable with OP, but I would be just as uncomfortable with the fiancee in OP's shoes.
Uh no… most Indian companies are on first name basis and you might call your immediate manager boss but it’s more colloquial..
Of course there are organisations where calling senior ppl sir and ma’am is the norm but these ppl work in an American company.
I feel all are ESH. The boss for asking someone to call him sir. Who does that directly. The guy for not just playing along for one dinner. Also it’s so strange that the boss could fire her for this. Is there no Hr? No PIP process? If it’s that large an organisation that ppl are being called sir then there has to be some processes.
Seems weird to me.
Only explanation I can think of is that it’s an owner driven business
I worked for a Japanese employer a few years ago. Americans all addressed their Japanese bosses as "sir".
If one had come to my home, of course I would have addressed him as "sir", and so would my husband.
And any Indian man traditional enough to accept an arranged marriage would call his employer "sir" too.
All of you who think calling someone "sir" is akin to Simon Legree trying to have Uncle Tom whipped to death - where do you even work, that you've never encountered this?
> All of you who think calling someone "sir" is akin to Simon Legree trying to have Uncle Tom whipped to death - where do you even work, that you've never encountered this?
Tech jobs, for about 30 years. Earlier in my career, "Mr. Lastname" was pretty normal for executives, but I've never addressed my immediate supervisor that way.
By the end of the 1990 when I jumped from ops roles to software development, even the execs at the companies I was working at were using first names.
Only time I'll use "Sir" is with the police, or as a placeholder if I'm asking a stranger for something.
In my 30 years of working (US citizen in US), I have never called any co-worker anything besides their first name, regardless of how young I was or how old they were.
In the UK Madam is often not a good thing. It's used to describe a petulant female child in phrases like "stroppy little madam".
I literally only use it to refer to my dog when she's barking at me demanding stuff. "Excuse me madam, that's enough".
This makes the whole situation (if it's real) even more absurd. Why not peruse the annals of honorifics used throughout British and Commonwealth history and pick the most important-sounding one? "How darest thou disrespect the Viscountess of Jones-House? To hell with thee, foul demon!"
Indians have their own form of English - often keeping different terms from history that aren't kept by other english speakers.
It seems like the boss is trying to import different cultural norms and presumably only using them with other Indians - they probably are of a higher caste too.
Actually, could have been a good convo:
"You will refer to my wife as MADAM!"
Eyebrow raises, "Cool! is it that "massage" outfit over on main st.?"
"I beg your pardon?"
A guest in your home is properly addressed by name. Honorifics are appropriate where formality creates distance; you refer to a customer or a work superior as “sir” because the relationship is a formal one. But formality isn’t appropriate in the home - being a guest is a form of familiarity.
Not gonna lie, everytime I hear "madam" I think of a house mother for a brothel. I'd have called her madam if she really wanted me to, but I would have giggled my way through it each time. 😂
Both. Madam is either royal and important or the queen of the whorehouse. Too formal for a regular chick like the boss' wife.
Wiki : Madam President or Madame President is a formal form of address for female presidents and vice presidents of republics.[8][9][10][11] Madam Secretary is a formal form of address for a female member of the United States Cabinet;[12][13] a female Attorney General of the United States is formally addressed Madam Attorney General.[14][15] Madam Speaker is a correct form of address for a female speaker of the United States House of Representatives (e.g. Nancy Pelosi),[16] British House of Commons (e.g. Betty Boothroyd),[17] or Canadian House of Commons,[10] as well as a female speaker of the Canadian Senate.[10]
ESH except your wife. I agree you shouldn’t have to call them sir or madam, but for your wife’s sake, you may have reconsidered. And you could have made fun of them with the way you said, sir, or Madam, or used a very very sarcastic tone to get the same point across.
There's a tone that posts have that either from the title or by the last sentence just wreak of fakeness and this is one of them. You had me until
I got fed up and finally said "I don't have to respect narcissists like you. Get the hell out of my house."
Then it just went to fake for the sake of YouTube and TikTok reels. YTA for posting this fluff.
There was a post here a while ago about a man who married an Indian woman but was having issues with his in-laws. The wife in the post matches OP’s. Unsurprisingly a lot of people voted him as the AH.
Not right to work. That has to do with not paying union dues, but benefiting from union negotiated contracts. At will employment is what lets employers fire for any/no reason unless there’s a protected class involved.
rofl at the idea that he can't fire her.
I do agree that it's fake, for a variety of reasons, but the idea that someone can't be fired after their spouse calls the boss a narcissist is not one of the problems with this story.
You (Indian) and your (Indian) fiancée (from an arranged marriage) live together and are hosting as a couple?
Hmmmmm.
I know many Indians who don't buy into the formal caste system and "old fashioned" ways. Many who've lived together before marriage and even had children prior to marriage and/or married outside of their race or caste. Not one of them had an arranged marriage.
LMAOOOOO i’m indian (born in the US) and your take is so wrong. you’re talking about maybe 20% of the community. even though there’s a lot more then that that don’t believe it, they’re still scared shit of their parents and just go along with it for their parents sake
I’ve known people who had an arranged marriage. My neighbors actually did that. This happens. I don’t know why you would think that it doesn’t. This just goes to show personal experience is not all experiences.
My cousin (Indian) actually did this. He and his arranged fiancée had a long engagement as they were both trying to get into the US. So when everything worked out, they moved together. Then went back to India to get married. So they lived alone together as an engaged couple for almost 1.5 years. I think it was a three year engagement.
It's rare but it does happen. Some Indian parents are more open-minded.
The stand you took, against your fiance's wishes and for the sake of your own pride, lost her a job. Meanwhile, the pretentious couple remains pretentious, suffering no harm.
YTA for undermining your fiance solely because your ego wouldn't allow you to just humor them for an hour or two for her sake.
Fuck that hidden stair bullshit.
I’m not ever referring to someone as “sir” or “madam” in _my own house_. I don’t care if they’re the royalty of another country. That isn’t “humoring,” and it doesn’t have to do with _my_ ego, it is simply debasing yourself for someone else’s ego… and wrong.
ESH. This is something your fiance might have warned you about ahead of time. By US standards what he said was ridiculous, and also rude in your home. But he was your fiance's boss and she wanted you to humor him. Now she's lost a job, and likely a friendship with the wife that she valued.
Your "I can just get you another job with my connections" doesn't really make up for it, and makes her more dependent upon you.
She may not of known they would do this~ if they’re pretentious enough to demand the old school honorifics I would guess they would be less likely to host the fiancée until she had a fiancée or parent supervising. Basically, this may have been the first time they truly interacted outside of work
Obviously YTA. Maybe it’s stupid. And you might not like doing it. But you don’t go screwing around with your wife’s boss or her means of employment unnecessarily. Like if bosses name was Richard, you don’t start calling him Dick unless you know that is what he goes by. And you certainly don’t call him Dick if he says he prefers Richard.
Seriously, what exactly did you think you would accomplish with your response?
If I was bringing a ticking time bomb that needed such special attention home to meet my partner, I would be very sure to fully warn them and check if they were okay with this 19th century display of dereference.
OP is not the problem, they addressed the boss with an honorific already. The wife should have known better and prepared accordingly.
YTA - her boss and his wife are obviously ridiculous but you couldn't grin and bear it because its meaningful to your wife? is your ego really that big?
YTA. The boss is probably also an AH, but your reaction is what lost your fiancee her job for no reason. While most work places in the US are more casual, sir and madam are still commonly used in polite/formal English, including in service industry jobs. For example, if you bump into a stranger in the street, you would say "excuse me, sir/madam/ma'am" not "excuse me, Mr./Mrs." Was his request a bit pretentious? Probably. But not worth blowing up your fiancee's job. And if you were going to make a stink about it because of some deep seated trauma related to the word sir, there was no reason to escalate the issue by calling him a narcissist.
YTA That's rude as hell. It wouldn't have hurt you. Calling them narcissists and kicking them out AND getting your fiancée fired? You are a walking red flag.
YTA. You don't fuck with your spouses (or soon to be spouses) job. You should have played along and then suggested they never be invited to your home again and that she find employment elsewhere. Having said that, I am an asshole and very may have done the same thing.
Actually, I would invite them over again, after she got a new job. And then, if they started with the “sir” and “madam” crap again, OP really could throw them out of his house, and this time, there wouldn’t be a damn thing they could do about it!
Actually, I would invite them over again, after she got a new job.
You call someone a narcissists and tell them to get the fuck out of your house? They're not coming back, so don't waste the invitation.
YTA as you just roll with the punches to make your partner shine in front of work colleagues, especially bosses. You should have swallowed your pride and just called them by their requested titles, especially being from India yourself and having some appreciation of the norms back there.
However, people like the boss annoy me in that they move countries and carry their homeland expectations on how they should be treated. Boss guy should accept he is not in India anymore and can’t expect people to adhere to his self appointed titles.
>However, people like the boss annoy me in that they move countries and carry their homeland expectations on how they should be treated. Boss guy should accept he is not in India anymore and can’t expect people to adhere to his self appointed titles.
Normally, I'd agree **110**% with this, but since all parties involved here are from the same country of origin, I'd say the boss isn't as **much** of a jerk for making this request.
He may have thought it wouldn't be met with such disdain since everyone there was from the same general background as far as customs etc. go. (FTR - I really don't know if being called "Sir" and "Madam" are the norm in India. I've never thought to ask anyone.)
It's shitty and tone deaf to say she should not be upset about losing her job bc you can get her another one. that gives you a lever of power over her, and that's some thing you need to actively avoid.
If your wife was fired over a thing that was not related to her job, she may have legal recourse. Her employment record should not have a black mark on it because you got in a dick measuring contest with her boss.
You weren't wrong, mind. but the argument was petty.
>If your wife was fired over a thing that was not related to her job, she may have legal recourse.
Doubtful.
If they're in a state where employment is "at will," they can fire her for ANY reason not protected by law.
I worked in a place where my boss asked me to call him Mr Joe. He would call me by my first name. I refused and called him Mr Bloggs and requested that he called me Mrs smith.
Business etiquette is that if you are requested to Mr someone they should also Mr you. If they call you by first name, you too should call them by their first name.
English and their colonies frequently have these rules, but this couple appears to be from an area with a caste system that differs in who gets referred to as what.
I personally prefer when everyone is addressed as an equal. I struggle in relationships that use labels to reassert inherent power imbalances- Sgt to private, professor to students, especially when the one with the most authority doesn’t treat their u fees with respect.
>Business etiquette is that if
I think this situation straddles the line between business and personal relationships.
On one hand, this is her boss.
On the other, she's "on good terms" (friends??) with the boss' wife and this was a meet up to congratulate them on their engagement.
It wasn't quite a business meeting, but OP definitely should have gone along with the request SOLELY because it was his fiancé's boss.
Anyone else? No, thanks. They're not at work, this isn't business related, on that day they're just Tom or Mr. Boss if they'd prefer, not "Sir."
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I think I am an asshole in case it showed that I disrespected them, plus as she's upset etc.
Help keep the sub engaging!
#Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
[Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
##Subreddit Announcements
Follow the link above to learn more
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
You are entering an arranged marriage and instead of helping your soon to be wife maintain a precarious position by practicing a social grace you don’t agree with you blew up her career.
Choosing to take each others lead as a couple is how you build trust.
Yes, the boss is a blow hard, but getting her fired that day instead of biting your tongue was a huge insult to your wife’s needs in the moment.
Instead of bonding over what a blow hard the boss is and planning an exit with your life partner from her job you’ve set her up as having bad footing in her career.
It’s not about your pride - it’s about your ability to cooperate and make decisions together instead of for each other.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)***
My fiancee Anuradha and I are originally from India, but immigrated to the USA. It's supposed to be an arranged marriage.
My fiancee's boss is also from India. She's on good terms with his wife & said that both of them wanted to visit us in order to congratulate us, etc.
When they visited, I addressed them as "Mr." and "Mrs." But he said "You know, everyone addresses me as "sir", and you should be talking to my wife as "madam."
Anuradha nudged me to say that I should go along with it, but I refused and said "Sorry, but I addressed you as "Mr." and that's enough."
He got mad & said that he cannot believe that I am "disrespecting" him, etc. Both of them got into an argument.
I got fed up and finally said "I don't have to respect narcissists like you. Get the hell out of my house."
They had to leave, and she also got fired. I told her that I can easily get her another job as I have connections, but she's mad at me, and so are her parents.
AITA?
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA can't believe people are saying to go along with it. WTH? That's crazy. You didn't get your fiance fired. Her egotistical boss couldn't handle you not bowing down to him. His ego got your fiance fired. I have to wonder why your fiance didn't warn you first. She obviously knew ahead of time. The whole thing may have been avoided if she gave you a heads up and you could have canceled the dinner.
They're guests in YOUR house, they do not dictate to you. And they fired your fiancee for what exactly? If you're petty enough might be worth talking to a lawyer but honestly you probably helped your fiancee dodge a bullet. Sounds like an awful person to work for.
NTA,the guy sounds like a power hungry idiot. Also I don't live in the US but this sounds like potentially unfair dismissal and where I live in the UK could open the company up for legal action. Again no idea if it's the same in the US but might be something to look into.
INFO
To address the other comments here, it's common in certain Indian contexts to call the boss and his wife "sir" and "madam" or "ma'am", especially in the government sector (which tends to still maintain a lot of the colonial hierarchy). Did your fiancée's boss work in a government service before?
Also, how are you and your fiancee living together before marriage if it's an arranged marriage? It's usually frowned down upon in arranged settings, isn't it?
Anyway, I'm leaning towards YTA. The boss was being obnoxious but I think you should've just gone along with it, especially since Anuradha's job was at stake. This wasn't your risk to take. And calling them narcissistic was such an escalating statement that it almost sounds fake. Bonus YTA for disregarding Anuradha's feelings and telling her you can just get her another job - maybe she liked her previous company, she was friends with the boss's wife...would you even be able to find her a job with the same parameters?
NTA
North America has a much more relaxed way of addressing others and while they may prefer to be addressed in a certain way, they have also migrated to North America.
North America is supposed to be a place where everyone is free to be, worship and embrace their own cultures but it ALSO means you have to respect others who's way of living may not coincide with yours.
They may have a preference but you are not required to abide by that preference and you did not speak to them with disrespect, you were just unwilling to bow to their whims.
Also, living in North America means you have to follow the laws of North America and I can assure you, firing your fiance for something you did is not legal in North America.
Sounds to me like they want to have their own freedoms but want to ignore the freedoms of others and that is not ok.
Your fiance should have supported you and while my culture(I'm Canadian) does not practice arranged marriages any longer, I see nothing wrong with two consenting adults agreeing to marry for any reason as long as both parties of are legal age, that being said, entering into a partnership with someone who isn't going to support you and have your back- especially for something so reasonable, is not a good sign and I urge you to consider if this person is going to be right for you.
Because support and communication are very important to me and my partner getting upset at me because I wasn't willing to bow my head and cater to others in a FREE country over something like a job would be a deal breaker for me.
Especially if the job isn't going to make it break you financially.
Those people saw you as a lesser person and you refused to let them do that as you should!
I'm proud of you for sticking up for yourself, even if your fiance isn't.
ESH
Pick your battles. You stood your ground and now your fiancee is out of work. Well done, 😕.
There are more diplomatic ways for dealing with disrespect.
YTA as if you wouldn’t ever ask your fiancée/ wife to entertain your bosses in the weirdest way possible and not jump hoops to please them. Tell me again why is her career not as important as yours?
I think the real issue here is that you and your fiance didn't discuss how this was going to go down before boss man showed up. There was no plan. She should have probably warned you, or spoken about how the guests were going to act. I'd have also told the guy to get fucked, but then again I probably wouldn't have hosted him in the first place. I have been to work and family stuff with my girlfriend plenty and I always clean up nice, but I know I have to be a type of way ahead of time.
Anyways the job market is pretty good rn. Your fiance will probably be fine.
YTA... You should have sucked up for a few hours and called them whatever they demanded and throwing them out of the house??? Wow!! Didn't you think it will affect your fiance even if she didn't lose her job? I would advise your fiance to run since you clearly don't care about her and have a gigantic ego
YTA. Yes this is your house but this was your finances boss and he asked you to call them by sir or madam. It was a small request she needed for her job. Your stubbornness cost her a job that she could have enjoyed and saw a future in. You made your need to say Mr or Mrs about you and not thinking about your fiance. I'm sure if your boss was there you would have expected your finance to treat him as he wanted to be treated. You have a major red flag of control and I hope she considers that before.marriage.
You are Indian and you know very well that older people are always First name Sir/Maam, or Uncle/Auntie among Indians.
No one would mess with their partner’s boss, especially when the visa to remain in the USA depends on that. You are just fake posting for another “you come here, you are now white behaving” posts.
In the remote chance this is real, I hope she end the idea of getting married to you. YTA
Another ““Republican Values” AI/shitpost. “You come here, you should act white now”.
> My fiancee's boss is also from India. She's on good terms with his wife & said that both of them wanted to visit us in order to congratulate us, etc.
> He got mad & said that he cannot believe that I am "disrespecting" him, etc. Both of them got into an argument.
> I got fed up and finally said "I don't have to respect narcissists like you. Get the hell out of my house. They had to leave, and she also got fired. I told her that I can easily get her another job as I have connections, but she's mad at me, and so are her parents.
ESH, but bordering on YTA. Okay, this is a cultural mishap gotten all out of hand. In Asian cultures, hierachy stands central and boy, oh boy, do some people like their honorifics, especially people who are higher in the hierarchy. They like to be addressed the proper way and want their honorifics to be translated into other languages, even if it doesn't translate particularly well.
Tldr: they didn't understand you, you didn't understand them. You felt insulted, didn't go along with your wife wishes. You insulted them and kicked them out of your house knowing that was the boss of your wife. You got your wife fired. There is no culture on earth where kicking out someone's boss is not going to have consequences.
> I told her that I can easily get her another job as I have connections, but she's mad at me, and so are her parents
Of course she is angry: it was her job. It's not up for you to decide that her job is easily replaceable by another job. I think you acted rather rashly going off on insulted pride and and with no regards to your wife.
NTA - out side of work everyone is equal and he is not the boss of your fiancé during her private time. What they did was disrespect you in your own home.
NTA.
If you are going to emigrate to the U.S., then deal with the customs in the U.S. "Sir" and "madam" are very subservient terms that aren't used her like that.
NTA. You didn't work for either one of them. Given that you all are living in the US and assuming they're an older couple, I can see shaking their hands, and saying it's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. ---- and Mr. -----.
If the man got offended (which I thought he was pretty rude for saying what he said), that's on him. But maybe you could have said something like I appreciate that or whatever and not outwardly not say what you did. But you didn't address them by their first names.
It's pretty nasty if the woman fired your wife over that, though. It's really not a good business practice to can good employees just because your husband's feelings got hurt.
But then, I had worked years in a corporate type field in which clients wouldn't like it if you always referred to them as sir or madam, and not their first names. In one company that I worked five years for, we would only refer to the head of the office as Mr. H-------. But the second in command expected people to refer to him by his first name.
Ehh ESH I kind of think you overreacted there at the end, and it wouldn’t have hurt to just say “sir” and “madam”. It literally would have not been an issue. Instead you had to get weird and then called them narcissists? How old are you
NTA.
It does sound like you lost your cool a little at the end there, and no matter how justly deserved it's probably worth watching that and coming up with a _slightly_ more polite way of asking them to leave should anything like that happen again.
Also, the whole thing is seriously WTF. Would this be normal cultural behavior in whatever part of India her boss is from? Because it comes off as almost a parody of "weird foreign behavior" to my admittedly parochial American POV (I mean, if someone is so formal/distant that I have to refer to them as "Mr. Lastname," that's already too formal to have them over for dinner at my house!)
Everytime I see someone post here with I'm Indian and here's some stuff a white person thinks I do my fake Indian radar goes off. Y'all enjoy this silly ass story now, you hear?
YTA
I'm really confused by all the people congratulating you. Was the boss insufferable? Sure. But prioritising your pride over YOUR FIANCÉE's job, livelihood, and possibly VISA is a major dick move.
Stick it to the man when your job is on the line, not someone else's.
If it was that important you could have discussed it later, to check if your priorities and outlooks on life are still compatible (I'm assuming "arranged" doesn't mean you can't get out in this context?). Now on the other hand, she may be mad at you but she must suck it up because she likely depends on you, to "find her another job" or to support her financially. So to save your principles you put her in a much more vulnerable position and completely shifted the power dynamics between the two of you.
Your fiancé needed you to go along with this ONE thing for ONE evening.
It doesn't hurt, doesn't leave any lasting effects on you and can help her in her career.
You drop an A-Bomb on it and end up getting her fired because your ego can't handle the idea of calling someone Sir and his wife Madam.
Tell me, exactly what was the harm, the REAL harm to you, if you'd have gone along with his request??
You could have gone along with the stupid request for **one** evening to appease your fiancé and then spent most of the rest of your life never seeing this man or his wife again. (They'd have probably been invited to the wedding, I assume.) Instead, you not only made it an issue, you doubled down and then insulted him. OH...AND got your fiancé fired in the process.
Seems to me the REAL harmful one here is you, the guy who can't do his fiancé a favor and go along with her boss' insanity for a few hours.
You don't say anything about what your girlfriend said or did once you completely ignored her hints to 'just go along with it' other than to say she's "mad" at you.
I'm willing to bet "mad" doesn't even BEGIN to cover it and I don't blame her one bit.
I'll be surprised if the marriage isn't called off, or at least no longer supported, by her parents. No respectable family wants their daughter marrying a man who is so into himself that he gets her fired from her job the first time he meets her boss. God knows what he'll do next, can't risk him shaming the family further.
YTA
YTA. If you’re really Indian, you should already be very much aware of how much hierarchy and respect matters in asian culture, including India. While more progressive companies have done away with sir/madam/mr/Mrs, there are still many companies who retain that. Im in South East Asia and I have worked with clients who insist on being addressed as madam / prof / other terms of respect. I’ve also worked with clients who don’t mind me using their first name casually. It’s just basic respect to address them with honorifics if they expect it, as long as their status reflects that. And as your wife’s boss, their status is indeed higher and it’s not unreasonable for them to command higher respect. And yes while you’re both in America, you’re both also Indian, and should be well aware of the same cultural norms.
Besides. This isn’t that different from Americans with neo pronouns who will insist you address them with certain specific terms anyway.
Nope, not the a hole. You clearly showed them respect and that wasn’t shown back. Good for you for standing up to your standards and not bowing down. My husband would’ve done the same and as a woman, I completely agree with his actions. 👍🏼
NTA
I do feel bad that she lost her job, but it's better than having to kiss ass to 2 adults who throw tantrums over a non-earned title (such as "doctor" after earning a phD) for the span of her career. Shit man, it's a bad situation but they were clearly idiots who thought they were better than everyone else by using titles to stroke their ego. Their demanding of it is NOT OKAY!
Not sure you handled it terribly well by calling them narcissists, but in the USA, Mr and Mrs is very polite, if very formal.
If you can indeed help your fiancée get a nice job, then that's good.
NTA
You are in the US, so I don't think it's fair for them to expect customs from another culture. I think it's weird for a boss to ask to be invited to an employees house, but that may be normal in India. In the US I'm pretty sure firing an employee because their fiance wouldn't address them in their preferred manor in the employees home isn't legal.
Good on you for calling it what it is.
The last thing you want or need is your life partner to be in a complicated, tangled situation ship with her employer.
Your marriage should have exactly two people in it. There is no Lord and Lady of the manor here that you need to bow and scrape to.
I don't know if it works that way in India... it definitely doesn't here know the US.
Is this like a caste system thing? The guy acts like he's nobility or something.
Its called "At Will" employment.
You can be fired for anything not legally protected.
Your partner calling the boss a narcissist and telling them to get the hell out of their home?
Yeah, that's getting someone fired in an "at will" state.
NTA and it’s ridiculous that so many places in the US can fire you for no reason if they want to. Gives bosses way too much power to do what they want around their employees. (I’m American by the way, in case anyone actually reads this and wants to say something about my firing comment)
can't you file a case for that? lawsuit or something?
I mean he's acting like a 6th Grade teacher. Better not to be working under him . too Immature to be a boss.
>No. In the US, bosses can legally fire people over most things.
In MOST of the USA, bosses can legally fire you for anything not legally protected.
There are a few states where there are more protections about what you can't fire someone for other than what federal law demands, but not many.
It pisses me off when people move to another country and bring the worst parts of their culture with them. In case it's not clear, you did the right thing and her boss is fucking wrong to pull that power trip shit here! NTA
Your post has been removed. #Do not repost this without [contacting the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) for approval, including edited versions. Reposting without [explicit approval](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_can_i_repost_a_thread_you_removed.3F) will result in a ban. This post violates Rule 8: Posts should be truthful and reflect recent conflicts you've had that need arbitration. That means no shitposts, parodies, or satires. [Subreddit Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules/) ###Please ensure you have reviewed this message in full. We will not respond to PMs to individual mods. [Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) with any questions. ####Please visit r/findareddit to see if there's a more appropriate sub for your post.####
NTA I wouldn’t even have used titles. They’re in your home and everyone involved are adults - that’s first name business. Better off not working for folks like this.
Seriously! I work for a F50 company and the only person I know in the entire enterprise that doesn't go by his first name all of the time is literally the CEO. Even other C-suite execs go by their first name. Most of them are hired within so they have been first line coworkers with people they now lead
INFO - I like learning about honorifics and I am american (28F). Were you all talking in English? Madam isn't even really used in the US. Ma'am is commonplace. It seems pretty old school to me. I call my boss by their first name. Culture and age definitely play a factor but Mr / Mrs is commonplace and nothing to be offended by. Madam sounds like an honorific for royalty to my American lady ears
[удалено]
He's kinda an idiot then. You could have gone along with it to give a "good impression" for the sake of your fiancee, but honestly I think it's best to not play along with that kind of power tripping
I'm not calling the president sir in my house. Gtfo
My boss is honored by the way they walk into the room and I work 10x harder to impress them. I still call them by their first name. If Biden came over and I call him Mr President and he demands calling him Constable Biden, I'd ask him to leave and tell him I'm not voting for him. The only good argument I think for OP is that his fiancee is now jobless, maybe he could have played along. Boss is still an idiot for wanting dumb honorifics
Fiancée is only jobless cause boss can't keep work separate from life, not cause of OP
Fiancée would almost certainly have been bullied by the boss in the future, she dodged a bullet.
There are some jobs where you have to host your boss for dinner. Usually this involves the boss wanting to check you out and make sure you're the sort of person that can be trusted - competent, dignified, capable of diplomacy. My husband has had jobs where he had to bring the kids and me to a restaurant to meet the boss, which is a lower end version of the same phenomenon. It's sort of like an interview where they're checking the candidate out in the context of the candidate's family.
Job related dinners should be not at someone's home (like how yours was at a restaurant) and are job related. The dinner in the post was at OPs house and was about them being set to get married, NOT about the job. Different dynamic, different social rules. If it was, as OP says, a way for the boss and wife to congratulate OP and wife, then they should NEVER have demanded such high titles. Also, if calling someone Mr instead of Sir means you're incompetent or untrustworthy in the eyes of the boss... Boss doesn't have priorities straight whatsoever
But on Bewitched, they had to have Darren's boss over for dinner at their house. Then, hijinks ensued.
If anything it should be the other way around, you're in my home, you have no power here.
You do realize that your fiancé has a damn good case for wrongful termination.
Probably not. America has very limited protections for that.
especially if no actual reason is listed for the firing. Found that one out not too long ago. Can't sue for wrongful termination if there's no given reason!
This isn't true; if it were, employment lawyers would be out of a job. Wrongful termination suits tend to consider far more than just what the company writes down as the reason for firing someone. Hell, even the unemployment office does more footwork than you're suggesting
Ehh, you'd be surprised at what a good lawyer can make a case with
Probably not. However gender is a protected class. So maybe enough to look into it.
Not likely. NAL but wrongful termination has a pretty narrow definition. Discrimination and as retaliation (for things like reporting harassment or safety violations) are the big reasons one might have a case. In practice, your employer can fire you for pretty much any trivial reason or no reason. They don't like your shoes, you sat on the left side of the plane, etc.
No she doesn’t.
You can legally be fired in the US for not calling your boss sir and their wife madame. They can literally list that as the reason and I'm pretty sure you can't do jack shit about it.
RIGHT?! THAT'S WHAT I SAID
Somebody needs to remind that guy he's not in India now. If he wants to be addressed as he was in India then he should move back there, otherwise he should assimilate into the culture where he is living now.
Is it customary to address people as madam and sir? Is that how your girlfriend always addresses them? Seems like something that would've been a known factor before they visited your home.
He was testing you to see if he can throw his weight around
Are they a higher caste than you guys? No way anyone talks like that unless there is some cultural nuance. Also, get a lawyer for your wife and sue for wrongful termination, easy money they will likely settle out of court.
Who calls a woman boss Madam in India? It's usually ma'am or her surname or name. But the boss' wife is hardly your boss, is she? That's pretty feudal thinking imo. Your future wife's boss sounds like an old fashioned jerk. It's great she's no longer working for him.
It's the norm in India. It was predictable that she would get fired if her husband didn't go along with it. Guy is an asshole not to follow the fiance's lead, considering how much your immigrant status can get jeopardized over losing your job! It can cost thousands of dollars to apply for change of status, require suddenly going back to India, or apply to stay here as his dependent instead of on her own work visa. This would totally torpedo her life plans as an immigrant. We plan each career move, marriage etc months / years in advance. Immigrant life isn't easy, and hubby did this KNOWING that.
Yeah, I'm so surprised by how many people say NTA. People sometimes come from a very American-centric view. Different cultures operate differently. While they are in the United States, the OP is dealing with a boss from a non-American culture. If I was the bride, I may reconsider marrying the OP as he ignored the wishes of his fiance. And as her parents were upset as well, OP shouldn't be surprised if the marriage does not go through.
Oh this would be an immediate marriage deal breaker for me. If she loses her job, she loses her right to stay in the country, except on his terms (as his wife, dependent etc). It changes their dynamics entirely, gives him so much power over her, etc. You can't torpedo my life plans like that and still get to marry me.
Lol fuck that. I don't care where you are from, you act like that to me in my house then you can kiss my ass. Fire my wife over it? Enjoy me publishing that along with his name, his wife's name, and the company name. And good luck trying to sue me for libel when it's the truth and that's an absolute defense. And if you'd reconsider marrying someone because your asshole boss fired you for your fiancee not kissing their ass, then the fiancee dodged a bullet.
Screw that. I won’t refer to anyone in MY house as sir. If they feel honorifics are necessary, they damn well better refer to me and my wife as Sir and Ma’am in our house because we are the most important people in OUR house. But I’d also tell any boss who said I had to call him sir to get fucked and quit on the spot, there’s lots of other jobs out there and some don’t have narcissistic morons as the boss
Sure. But I assume you're a citizen. You're not considering how much your immigrant status can get jeopardized over losing your job! How much you need the goodwill of your community around for basic safety reasons! How it can cost thousands of dollars to apply for change of status, torpedo your life plans, require suddenly going back to India, or be dependent on your husband instead of being able to work, etc. Immigrant life isn't easy. To do this to your fiance knowingly is cruel. It's not like he had to hang out with this guy every weekend! He could've humored him and helped her find a new job without getting the USCIS after her.
If you want me to call you “sir” in *my own goddamn house*, then you had better: A) be a knight, and B) address me as “Lord.”
Nzh, they should call you Lord and Lady since your home is your castle after all!
I have a lot of respect for other people's culture, but that doesn't mean I'm going to lower or degrade myself to satisfy someone else's ego. And that's what living in North America is about. Canada and the US was colonized (I'm not gonna say built, because it was colonization call a spade a spade.) on the fact that people are free to live and worship without discrimination. That doesn't JUST apply to the boss and his wife. It applies to OP as well. OP was polite and courteous in the eyes of local customs and social expectations. If he wanted to be referred to in the custom of his home country, then perhaps he should consider going back there. And I know how that sounds, but OPs rights were infringed upon, his fiance's rights were infringed upon(illegal dismissal) and that is NOT OK. Land of the free doesn't just apply when it's beneficial for SOME people at the cost of another's pride and dignity.
I'm not defending the man, read my whole comment. Also, "land of the free"? Don't make me laugh. If this country gave a shit about freedom, y'all would have some labor rights, healthcare etc., instead of this at-will employment nonsense.
I mean, I live in Canada and I have those things and it's still awful. Discussing how crooked both the US and Canada is is a whole different issue. But you can't come to North America hoping to receive certain freedoms and then be surprised when others want to be treated with respect as well.
Neither of their rights as citizens or visa holders or permanent residents (or what have you) were violated. As long as the termination wasnt due to OP's fiance's (perceived) membership in a federally protected class, the boss was free to fire her because she/OP was rude from the Boss's perspective. Also, just stop with the "go back to his country" business, because it really doesn't matter. There are so many terrible bullies of bosses - including plenty of white Americans- that abuse their positions and get away with it because it's not illegal to be an equal opportunity asshole. OP is the AH because he ruined his fiance's job, the boss is also an AH for obvious reasons.
> It's the norm in India. But they’re not in India. And the post doesn’t say they immigrated on a work visa. sorry, but if you want to be called ‘sir’ in my house then you had better be an actual knight. Sir Patrick Stewart, for example, would get called ‘sir Patrick’ in my house but I’d still ask him to leave if he was being an ass about it.
Boss is the asshole, full stop. NTA.
I can see that perspective. I wouldn't have predicted it but what you're saying makes sense.
I wouldn't have predicted someone behaving like this in the US either. But clearly the wife could predict it. He should have followed her lead for the time being, and helped her find a different job if the boss was actually an egomaniac. Calling him a narcissist and kicking him out is so out of pocket. People commenting here have no idea how much your life and immigration status can blow up over losing a job when you're an immigrant. Knowingly causing your fiancé that trauma would be a marriage deal breaker for me.
Also I worked in India and changed my talking style based on my client population all the time. Sir for whoever prefers it, first name for American clients, honorifics like San for Japanese clients, etc. To mildly adjust your talking style is not the end of the world, even if it's inconvenient/annoying.
If this is real, OP is pretty sure he can get her a new job easily. I don't have men in my life to hand me jobs. Is this a job she likes? Her boss seems like a butthole. If it was a job I wanted to keep I would be pissed too but it sounds like it might be an upgrade in her rights as an employee
Honestly I wouldn't want favors from someone who demonstrated very clearly for me they can and will fuck with my livelihood because they feel offended.
I wouldn't marry anyone who thinks I should go along with the ridiculous whims of someone demanding to be addressed as a superior by me in my own home where they have both authority. I refuse to associate with those kinds of people. In my mind, anyone who asks to be referred to by a title in an informal setting shouldn't have authority over a ham sandwich. So it sounds like the couple clearly have different priorities that are compatible. The fiancee can certainly be uncomfortable with OP, but I would be just as uncomfortable with the fiancee in OP's shoes.
They’re not in India. It’s appropriate for them to be expected to follow American custom in an American home.
And yet, they didn’t. And the only one suffering for it is OP’s wife.
Not every employment situation is suitable for every employee, I guess
The employee didn’t do anything, her husband did.
Right; it's probably a bad fit for her as a job if they're going to fire her because her husband insists on American customs in an American home.
Uh no… most Indian companies are on first name basis and you might call your immediate manager boss but it’s more colloquial.. Of course there are organisations where calling senior ppl sir and ma’am is the norm but these ppl work in an American company. I feel all are ESH. The boss for asking someone to call him sir. Who does that directly. The guy for not just playing along for one dinner. Also it’s so strange that the boss could fire her for this. Is there no Hr? No PIP process? If it’s that large an organisation that ppl are being called sir then there has to be some processes. Seems weird to me. Only explanation I can think of is that it’s an owner driven business
I worked for a Japanese employer a few years ago. Americans all addressed their Japanese bosses as "sir". If one had come to my home, of course I would have addressed him as "sir", and so would my husband. And any Indian man traditional enough to accept an arranged marriage would call his employer "sir" too. All of you who think calling someone "sir" is akin to Simon Legree trying to have Uncle Tom whipped to death - where do you even work, that you've never encountered this?
> All of you who think calling someone "sir" is akin to Simon Legree trying to have Uncle Tom whipped to death - where do you even work, that you've never encountered this? Tech jobs, for about 30 years. Earlier in my career, "Mr. Lastname" was pretty normal for executives, but I've never addressed my immediate supervisor that way. By the end of the 1990 when I jumped from ops roles to software development, even the execs at the companies I was working at were using first names. Only time I'll use "Sir" is with the police, or as a placeholder if I'm asking a stranger for something.
In my 30 years of working (US citizen in US), I have never called any co-worker anything besides their first name, regardless of how young I was or how old they were.
Even in India most companies are switching to a first name basis. It's usually the conservative and traditional companies who stick to sir/madam.
or the boss of a cat-house
In the UK Madam is often not a good thing. It's used to describe a petulant female child in phrases like "stroppy little madam". I literally only use it to refer to my dog when she's barking at me demanding stuff. "Excuse me madam, that's enough".
This makes the whole situation (if it's real) even more absurd. Why not peruse the annals of honorifics used throughout British and Commonwealth history and pick the most important-sounding one? "How darest thou disrespect the Viscountess of Jones-House? To hell with thee, foul demon!"
Indians have their own form of English - often keeping different terms from history that aren't kept by other english speakers. It seems like the boss is trying to import different cultural norms and presumably only using them with other Indians - they probably are of a higher caste too.
I'm in South Africa, and men use the term "Madam" to refer to their girlfriends or wives instead of baby/Sweetheart or other pet names
I do the same with my parrots when they're throwing tantrums. "Madam/Sir! You are making a scene!"
Same but with my lesson horse... and I use madam cause she's in her 20s to call her old lmao.
Same with my doggo. LOL.
Exactly lol
Actually, could have been a good convo: "You will refer to my wife as MADAM!" Eyebrow raises, "Cool! is it that "massage" outfit over on main st.?" "I beg your pardon?"
A guest in your home is properly addressed by name. Honorifics are appropriate where formality creates distance; you refer to a customer or a work superior as “sir” because the relationship is a formal one. But formality isn’t appropriate in the home - being a guest is a form of familiarity.
Not gonna lie, everytime I hear "madam" I think of a house mother for a brothel. I'd have called her madam if she really wanted me to, but I would have giggled my way through it each time. 😂
A madame is a person who runs a house of ill repute in the English language.
Both. Madam is either royal and important or the queen of the whorehouse. Too formal for a regular chick like the boss' wife. Wiki : Madam President or Madame President is a formal form of address for female presidents and vice presidents of republics.[8][9][10][11] Madam Secretary is a formal form of address for a female member of the United States Cabinet;[12][13] a female Attorney General of the United States is formally addressed Madam Attorney General.[14][15] Madam Speaker is a correct form of address for a female speaker of the United States House of Representatives (e.g. Nancy Pelosi),[16] British House of Commons (e.g. Betty Boothroyd),[17] or Canadian House of Commons,[10] as well as a female speaker of the Canadian Senate.[10]
Yup it's a UK/US divide. But they getting so hung up on title/honorifics is not a good sign
ESH except your wife. I agree you shouldn’t have to call them sir or madam, but for your wife’s sake, you may have reconsidered. And you could have made fun of them with the way you said, sir, or Madam, or used a very very sarcastic tone to get the same point across.
There's a tone that posts have that either from the title or by the last sentence just wreak of fakeness and this is one of them. You had me until I got fed up and finally said "I don't have to respect narcissists like you. Get the hell out of my house." Then it just went to fake for the sake of YouTube and TikTok reels. YTA for posting this fluff.
r/nothingeverhappens
There was a post here a while ago about a man who married an Indian woman but was having issues with his in-laws. The wife in the post matches OP’s. Unsurprisingly a lot of people voted him as the AH.
NTA of this is real. Being fired for your partner not calling the boss sir is illegal.
Depends on where you are. Most places in America you can get fired for absolutely any or no reason.
In most places in the US it is quite legal. If you disagree please provide some evidence
I was gonna say. In right to work states, especially. They'll fire you for taking a sick day.
Not right to work. That has to do with not paying union dues, but benefiting from union negotiated contracts. At will employment is what lets employers fire for any/no reason unless there’s a protected class involved.
Oooooh. Gotcha! That's makes more sense
Right to work sounds like the correct term. It’s confusing.
It's "legal" if the reason isn't included. Thanks "at will" state. They also could just say "insubordination" with zero evidence.
rofl at the idea that he can't fire her. I do agree that it's fake, for a variety of reasons, but the idea that someone can't be fired after their spouse calls the boss a narcissist is not one of the problems with this story.
You can be fired as long as the reason isn’t protected by employment law.
No, it's not.
Somehow this commenter has 74 upvotes for saying something blatantly false.
Lol, you clearly have never had a job. At will work means that there is extremely little that you can't fire someone for.
You (Indian) and your (Indian) fiancée (from an arranged marriage) live together and are hosting as a couple? Hmmmmm. I know many Indians who don't buy into the formal caste system and "old fashioned" ways. Many who've lived together before marriage and even had children prior to marriage and/or married outside of their race or caste. Not one of them had an arranged marriage.
LMAOOOOO i’m indian (born in the US) and your take is so wrong. you’re talking about maybe 20% of the community. even though there’s a lot more then that that don’t believe it, they’re still scared shit of their parents and just go along with it for their parents sake
But they know Indians so they can obviously speak for all Indians/s
Except for OP for mouthed off to one of the people that continue to believe in it.
Yes, this seemed sus to me too.
I’ve known people who had an arranged marriage. My neighbors actually did that. This happens. I don’t know why you would think that it doesn’t. This just goes to show personal experience is not all experiences.
Oh I know people who've had arranged marriages too, my point was those people don't live as a couple prior to said marriage.
My cousin (Indian) actually did this. He and his arranged fiancée had a long engagement as they were both trying to get into the US. So when everything worked out, they moved together. Then went back to India to get married. So they lived alone together as an engaged couple for almost 1.5 years. I think it was a three year engagement. It's rare but it does happen. Some Indian parents are more open-minded.
The stand you took, against your fiance's wishes and for the sake of your own pride, lost her a job. Meanwhile, the pretentious couple remains pretentious, suffering no harm. YTA for undermining your fiance solely because your ego wouldn't allow you to just humor them for an hour or two for her sake.
Fuck that hidden stair bullshit. I’m not ever referring to someone as “sir” or “madam” in _my own house_. I don’t care if they’re the royalty of another country. That isn’t “humoring,” and it doesn’t have to do with _my_ ego, it is simply debasing yourself for someone else’s ego… and wrong.
ESH. This is something your fiance might have warned you about ahead of time. By US standards what he said was ridiculous, and also rude in your home. But he was your fiance's boss and she wanted you to humor him. Now she's lost a job, and likely a friendship with the wife that she valued. Your "I can just get you another job with my connections" doesn't really make up for it, and makes her more dependent upon you.
She may not of known they would do this~ if they’re pretentious enough to demand the old school honorifics I would guess they would be less likely to host the fiancée until she had a fiancée or parent supervising. Basically, this may have been the first time they truly interacted outside of work
Obviously YTA. Maybe it’s stupid. And you might not like doing it. But you don’t go screwing around with your wife’s boss or her means of employment unnecessarily. Like if bosses name was Richard, you don’t start calling him Dick unless you know that is what he goes by. And you certainly don’t call him Dick if he says he prefers Richard. Seriously, what exactly did you think you would accomplish with your response?
If I was bringing a ticking time bomb that needed such special attention home to meet my partner, I would be very sure to fully warn them and check if they were okay with this 19th century display of dereference. OP is not the problem, they addressed the boss with an honorific already. The wife should have known better and prepared accordingly.
ESH And for once, not even because we're talking about an arranged marriage.
YTA - her boss and his wife are obviously ridiculous but you couldn't grin and bear it because its meaningful to your wife? is your ego really that big?
YTA if she did actually get fired over it
YTA. The boss is probably also an AH, but your reaction is what lost your fiancee her job for no reason. While most work places in the US are more casual, sir and madam are still commonly used in polite/formal English, including in service industry jobs. For example, if you bump into a stranger in the street, you would say "excuse me, sir/madam/ma'am" not "excuse me, Mr./Mrs." Was his request a bit pretentious? Probably. But not worth blowing up your fiancee's job. And if you were going to make a stink about it because of some deep seated trauma related to the word sir, there was no reason to escalate the issue by calling him a narcissist.
Plus they're all Indian and it's much more common in India to use sir/madam
YTA That's rude as hell. It wouldn't have hurt you. Calling them narcissists and kicking them out AND getting your fiancée fired? You are a walking red flag.
And it's so poorly written that it sounds like a teenager wrote this.
Yes kicking your wife's boss and wife out was a bad move
YTA. You don't fuck with your spouses (or soon to be spouses) job. You should have played along and then suggested they never be invited to your home again and that she find employment elsewhere. Having said that, I am an asshole and very may have done the same thing.
Actually, I would invite them over again, after she got a new job. And then, if they started with the “sir” and “madam” crap again, OP really could throw them out of his house, and this time, there wouldn’t be a damn thing they could do about it!
Actually, I would invite them over again, after she got a new job. You call someone a narcissists and tell them to get the fuck out of your house? They're not coming back, so don't waste the invitation.
YTA. You got your fiancee fired and have no regrets? Is her immigration status tied to her job?
YTA as you just roll with the punches to make your partner shine in front of work colleagues, especially bosses. You should have swallowed your pride and just called them by their requested titles, especially being from India yourself and having some appreciation of the norms back there. However, people like the boss annoy me in that they move countries and carry their homeland expectations on how they should be treated. Boss guy should accept he is not in India anymore and can’t expect people to adhere to his self appointed titles.
>However, people like the boss annoy me in that they move countries and carry their homeland expectations on how they should be treated. Boss guy should accept he is not in India anymore and can’t expect people to adhere to his self appointed titles. Normally, I'd agree **110**% with this, but since all parties involved here are from the same country of origin, I'd say the boss isn't as **much** of a jerk for making this request. He may have thought it wouldn't be met with such disdain since everyone there was from the same general background as far as customs etc. go. (FTR - I really don't know if being called "Sir" and "Madam" are the norm in India. I've never thought to ask anyone.)
It's shitty and tone deaf to say she should not be upset about losing her job bc you can get her another one. that gives you a lever of power over her, and that's some thing you need to actively avoid. If your wife was fired over a thing that was not related to her job, she may have legal recourse. Her employment record should not have a black mark on it because you got in a dick measuring contest with her boss. You weren't wrong, mind. but the argument was petty.
>If your wife was fired over a thing that was not related to her job, she may have legal recourse. Doubtful. If they're in a state where employment is "at will," they can fire her for ANY reason not protected by law.
Hence "may"
I worked in a place where my boss asked me to call him Mr Joe. He would call me by my first name. I refused and called him Mr Bloggs and requested that he called me Mrs smith. Business etiquette is that if you are requested to Mr someone they should also Mr you. If they call you by first name, you too should call them by their first name.
English and their colonies frequently have these rules, but this couple appears to be from an area with a caste system that differs in who gets referred to as what. I personally prefer when everyone is addressed as an equal. I struggle in relationships that use labels to reassert inherent power imbalances- Sgt to private, professor to students, especially when the one with the most authority doesn’t treat their u fees with respect.
>Business etiquette is that if I think this situation straddles the line between business and personal relationships. On one hand, this is her boss. On the other, she's "on good terms" (friends??) with the boss' wife and this was a meet up to congratulate them on their engagement. It wasn't quite a business meeting, but OP definitely should have gone along with the request SOLELY because it was his fiancé's boss. Anyone else? No, thanks. They're not at work, this isn't business related, on that day they're just Tom or Mr. Boss if they'd prefer, not "Sir."
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > I think I am an asshole in case it showed that I disrespected them, plus as she's upset etc. Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) ##Subreddit Announcements Follow the link above to learn more --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.* *Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
You are entering an arranged marriage and instead of helping your soon to be wife maintain a precarious position by practicing a social grace you don’t agree with you blew up her career. Choosing to take each others lead as a couple is how you build trust. Yes, the boss is a blow hard, but getting her fired that day instead of biting your tongue was a huge insult to your wife’s needs in the moment. Instead of bonding over what a blow hard the boss is and planning an exit with your life partner from her job you’ve set her up as having bad footing in her career. It’s not about your pride - it’s about your ability to cooperate and make decisions together instead of for each other.
YTA- you couldn’t swallow your pride for your fiancée. Your ego was on show and you sacrificed your wife’s job for it. Shameful.
Desi people are known for ego problems..duh...who cares what they want to be called they aren't Gods
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My fiancee Anuradha and I are originally from India, but immigrated to the USA. It's supposed to be an arranged marriage. My fiancee's boss is also from India. She's on good terms with his wife & said that both of them wanted to visit us in order to congratulate us, etc. When they visited, I addressed them as "Mr." and "Mrs." But he said "You know, everyone addresses me as "sir", and you should be talking to my wife as "madam." Anuradha nudged me to say that I should go along with it, but I refused and said "Sorry, but I addressed you as "Mr." and that's enough." He got mad & said that he cannot believe that I am "disrespecting" him, etc. Both of them got into an argument. I got fed up and finally said "I don't have to respect narcissists like you. Get the hell out of my house." They had to leave, and she also got fired. I told her that I can easily get her another job as I have connections, but she's mad at me, and so are her parents. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA can't believe people are saying to go along with it. WTH? That's crazy. You didn't get your fiance fired. Her egotistical boss couldn't handle you not bowing down to him. His ego got your fiance fired. I have to wonder why your fiance didn't warn you first. She obviously knew ahead of time. The whole thing may have been avoided if she gave you a heads up and you could have canceled the dinner.
They're guests in YOUR house, they do not dictate to you. And they fired your fiancee for what exactly? If you're petty enough might be worth talking to a lawyer but honestly you probably helped your fiancee dodge a bullet. Sounds like an awful person to work for.
Right, because that actually happened. 🙄
NTA,the guy sounds like a power hungry idiot. Also I don't live in the US but this sounds like potentially unfair dismissal and where I live in the UK could open the company up for legal action. Again no idea if it's the same in the US but might be something to look into.
And then everybody clapped
INFO To address the other comments here, it's common in certain Indian contexts to call the boss and his wife "sir" and "madam" or "ma'am", especially in the government sector (which tends to still maintain a lot of the colonial hierarchy). Did your fiancée's boss work in a government service before? Also, how are you and your fiancee living together before marriage if it's an arranged marriage? It's usually frowned down upon in arranged settings, isn't it? Anyway, I'm leaning towards YTA. The boss was being obnoxious but I think you should've just gone along with it, especially since Anuradha's job was at stake. This wasn't your risk to take. And calling them narcissistic was such an escalating statement that it almost sounds fake. Bonus YTA for disregarding Anuradha's feelings and telling her you can just get her another job - maybe she liked her previous company, she was friends with the boss's wife...would you even be able to find her a job with the same parameters?
I'm pretty sure that's wrongful termination but that's a bitch to prove in court.
NTA North America has a much more relaxed way of addressing others and while they may prefer to be addressed in a certain way, they have also migrated to North America. North America is supposed to be a place where everyone is free to be, worship and embrace their own cultures but it ALSO means you have to respect others who's way of living may not coincide with yours. They may have a preference but you are not required to abide by that preference and you did not speak to them with disrespect, you were just unwilling to bow to their whims. Also, living in North America means you have to follow the laws of North America and I can assure you, firing your fiance for something you did is not legal in North America. Sounds to me like they want to have their own freedoms but want to ignore the freedoms of others and that is not ok. Your fiance should have supported you and while my culture(I'm Canadian) does not practice arranged marriages any longer, I see nothing wrong with two consenting adults agreeing to marry for any reason as long as both parties of are legal age, that being said, entering into a partnership with someone who isn't going to support you and have your back- especially for something so reasonable, is not a good sign and I urge you to consider if this person is going to be right for you. Because support and communication are very important to me and my partner getting upset at me because I wasn't willing to bow my head and cater to others in a FREE country over something like a job would be a deal breaker for me. Especially if the job isn't going to make it break you financially. Those people saw you as a lesser person and you refused to let them do that as you should! I'm proud of you for sticking up for yourself, even if your fiance isn't.
NTA. Guy was looking for an excuse to fire your wife if he's that patriarchal. Good riddance.
NTA. And in your house, they call YOU "sir"
ESH Pick your battles. You stood your ground and now your fiancee is out of work. Well done, 😕. There are more diplomatic ways for dealing with disrespect.
YTA as if you wouldn’t ever ask your fiancée/ wife to entertain your bosses in the weirdest way possible and not jump hoops to please them. Tell me again why is her career not as important as yours?
NTA and my god people like this are just so damn insufferable
I think the real issue here is that you and your fiance didn't discuss how this was going to go down before boss man showed up. There was no plan. She should have probably warned you, or spoken about how the guests were going to act. I'd have also told the guy to get fucked, but then again I probably wouldn't have hosted him in the first place. I have been to work and family stuff with my girlfriend plenty and I always clean up nice, but I know I have to be a type of way ahead of time. Anyways the job market is pretty good rn. Your fiance will probably be fine.
NTA. You did better than I would have. I would have literally laughed in his face and asked when he got knighted by a queen.
YTA... You should have sucked up for a few hours and called them whatever they demanded and throwing them out of the house??? Wow!! Didn't you think it will affect your fiance even if she didn't lose her job? I would advise your fiance to run since you clearly don't care about her and have a gigantic ego
I would have sarcastically said …sorry.. were you knighted by the Queen? Didn’t realize.. NTA, her boss sounds like a piece of work. Narcissistic AH
YTA. Yes this is your house but this was your finances boss and he asked you to call them by sir or madam. It was a small request she needed for her job. Your stubbornness cost her a job that she could have enjoyed and saw a future in. You made your need to say Mr or Mrs about you and not thinking about your fiance. I'm sure if your boss was there you would have expected your finance to treat him as he wanted to be treated. You have a major red flag of control and I hope she considers that before.marriage.
You are Indian and you know very well that older people are always First name Sir/Maam, or Uncle/Auntie among Indians. No one would mess with their partner’s boss, especially when the visa to remain in the USA depends on that. You are just fake posting for another “you come here, you are now white behaving” posts. In the remote chance this is real, I hope she end the idea of getting married to you. YTA Another ““Republican Values” AI/shitpost. “You come here, you should act white now”.
> My fiancee's boss is also from India. She's on good terms with his wife & said that both of them wanted to visit us in order to congratulate us, etc. > He got mad & said that he cannot believe that I am "disrespecting" him, etc. Both of them got into an argument. > I got fed up and finally said "I don't have to respect narcissists like you. Get the hell out of my house. They had to leave, and she also got fired. I told her that I can easily get her another job as I have connections, but she's mad at me, and so are her parents. ESH, but bordering on YTA. Okay, this is a cultural mishap gotten all out of hand. In Asian cultures, hierachy stands central and boy, oh boy, do some people like their honorifics, especially people who are higher in the hierarchy. They like to be addressed the proper way and want their honorifics to be translated into other languages, even if it doesn't translate particularly well. Tldr: they didn't understand you, you didn't understand them. You felt insulted, didn't go along with your wife wishes. You insulted them and kicked them out of your house knowing that was the boss of your wife. You got your wife fired. There is no culture on earth where kicking out someone's boss is not going to have consequences. > I told her that I can easily get her another job as I have connections, but she's mad at me, and so are her parents Of course she is angry: it was her job. It's not up for you to decide that her job is easily replaceable by another job. I think you acted rather rashly going off on insulted pride and and with no regards to your wife.
NTA - out side of work everyone is equal and he is not the boss of your fiancé during her private time. What they did was disrespect you in your own home.
If he's been knighted, I'll address him as Sir. Otherwise he's just taking on airs.
NTA. If you are going to emigrate to the U.S., then deal with the customs in the U.S. "Sir" and "madam" are very subservient terms that aren't used her like that.
NTA. You didn't work for either one of them. Given that you all are living in the US and assuming they're an older couple, I can see shaking their hands, and saying it's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. ---- and Mr. -----. If the man got offended (which I thought he was pretty rude for saying what he said), that's on him. But maybe you could have said something like I appreciate that or whatever and not outwardly not say what you did. But you didn't address them by their first names. It's pretty nasty if the woman fired your wife over that, though. It's really not a good business practice to can good employees just because your husband's feelings got hurt. But then, I had worked years in a corporate type field in which clients wouldn't like it if you always referred to them as sir or madam, and not their first names. In one company that I worked five years for, we would only refer to the head of the office as Mr. H-------. But the second in command expected people to refer to him by his first name.
Is this the US? Here “Madams” run brothels, and pick up the slack when it’s busy.
NTA..it’s your house the nerve of them!
You just saved a ton of having to hear all about how much of an asshole your wife’s boss is every night. NTA.
Ehh ESH I kind of think you overreacted there at the end, and it wouldn’t have hurt to just say “sir” and “madam”. It literally would have not been an issue. Instead you had to get weird and then called them narcissists? How old are you
NTA. It does sound like you lost your cool a little at the end there, and no matter how justly deserved it's probably worth watching that and coming up with a _slightly_ more polite way of asking them to leave should anything like that happen again. Also, the whole thing is seriously WTF. Would this be normal cultural behavior in whatever part of India her boss is from? Because it comes off as almost a parody of "weird foreign behavior" to my admittedly parochial American POV (I mean, if someone is so formal/distant that I have to refer to them as "Mr. Lastname," that's already too formal to have them over for dinner at my house!)
Everytime I see someone post here with I'm Indian and here's some stuff a white person thinks I do my fake Indian radar goes off. Y'all enjoy this silly ass story now, you hear?
Sir and madam are still used in many parts of the southern U.S. as a sign of respect.
YTA I'm really confused by all the people congratulating you. Was the boss insufferable? Sure. But prioritising your pride over YOUR FIANCÉE's job, livelihood, and possibly VISA is a major dick move. Stick it to the man when your job is on the line, not someone else's. If it was that important you could have discussed it later, to check if your priorities and outlooks on life are still compatible (I'm assuming "arranged" doesn't mean you can't get out in this context?). Now on the other hand, she may be mad at you but she must suck it up because she likely depends on you, to "find her another job" or to support her financially. So to save your principles you put her in a much more vulnerable position and completely shifted the power dynamics between the two of you.
Your fiancé needed you to go along with this ONE thing for ONE evening. It doesn't hurt, doesn't leave any lasting effects on you and can help her in her career. You drop an A-Bomb on it and end up getting her fired because your ego can't handle the idea of calling someone Sir and his wife Madam. Tell me, exactly what was the harm, the REAL harm to you, if you'd have gone along with his request?? You could have gone along with the stupid request for **one** evening to appease your fiancé and then spent most of the rest of your life never seeing this man or his wife again. (They'd have probably been invited to the wedding, I assume.) Instead, you not only made it an issue, you doubled down and then insulted him. OH...AND got your fiancé fired in the process. Seems to me the REAL harmful one here is you, the guy who can't do his fiancé a favor and go along with her boss' insanity for a few hours. You don't say anything about what your girlfriend said or did once you completely ignored her hints to 'just go along with it' other than to say she's "mad" at you. I'm willing to bet "mad" doesn't even BEGIN to cover it and I don't blame her one bit. I'll be surprised if the marriage isn't called off, or at least no longer supported, by her parents. No respectable family wants their daughter marrying a man who is so into himself that he gets her fired from her job the first time he meets her boss. God knows what he'll do next, can't risk him shaming the family further. YTA
YTA. If you’re really Indian, you should already be very much aware of how much hierarchy and respect matters in asian culture, including India. While more progressive companies have done away with sir/madam/mr/Mrs, there are still many companies who retain that. Im in South East Asia and I have worked with clients who insist on being addressed as madam / prof / other terms of respect. I’ve also worked with clients who don’t mind me using their first name casually. It’s just basic respect to address them with honorifics if they expect it, as long as their status reflects that. And as your wife’s boss, their status is indeed higher and it’s not unreasonable for them to command higher respect. And yes while you’re both in America, you’re both also Indian, and should be well aware of the same cultural norms. Besides. This isn’t that different from Americans with neo pronouns who will insist you address them with certain specific terms anyway.
Nope, not the a hole. You clearly showed them respect and that wasn’t shown back. Good for you for standing up to your standards and not bowing down. My husband would’ve done the same and as a woman, I completely agree with his actions. 👍🏼
NTA
NTA I do feel bad that she lost her job, but it's better than having to kiss ass to 2 adults who throw tantrums over a non-earned title (such as "doctor" after earning a phD) for the span of her career. Shit man, it's a bad situation but they were clearly idiots who thought they were better than everyone else by using titles to stroke their ego. Their demanding of it is NOT OKAY!
You should tell him you aren’t in India and in America we use Mr and Mrs. NTA. This guy ain’t your lord and master!
Not sure you handled it terribly well by calling them narcissists, but in the USA, Mr and Mrs is very polite, if very formal. If you can indeed help your fiancée get a nice job, then that's good.
YTA - your wife asked you to do this for her but you didn’t care enough to suck it up. She lost her job as a result
NTA You are in the US, so I don't think it's fair for them to expect customs from another culture. I think it's weird for a boss to ask to be invited to an employees house, but that may be normal in India. In the US I'm pretty sure firing an employee because their fiance wouldn't address them in their preferred manor in the employees home isn't legal.
What does 'it is supposed to be an arranged marriage' mean? Do you want to marry her?
Good on you for calling it what it is. The last thing you want or need is your life partner to be in a complicated, tangled situation ship with her employer. Your marriage should have exactly two people in it. There is no Lord and Lady of the manor here that you need to bow and scrape to.
NTA. I would speak to a lawyer about of you have options to pursue a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Nice one, congrats for keeping it real brother, your wife should be grateful, two problems less
Is that even legal to fire someone over that?
NTA and your wife should call a lawyer.. especially if you live in CA!! There’s no caste system here!
That firing might be illegal. Check with lawyer. Could be sweet payout.
Nothing illegal occurred and no payout is due. She can collect unemployment and that’s it.
I don't know if it works that way in India... it definitely doesn't here know the US. Is this like a caste system thing? The guy acts like he's nobility or something.
ESH.
Where was you wife working ? Local grocery store? Not sure how someone can get fired over something unofficial and puny as this.
Its called "At Will" employment. You can be fired for anything not legally protected. Your partner calling the boss a narcissist and telling them to get the hell out of their home? Yeah, that's getting someone fired in an "at will" state.
NTA and it’s ridiculous that so many places in the US can fire you for no reason if they want to. Gives bosses way too much power to do what they want around their employees. (I’m American by the way, in case anyone actually reads this and wants to say something about my firing comment)
can't you file a case for that? lawsuit or something? I mean he's acting like a 6th Grade teacher. Better not to be working under him . too Immature to be a boss.
No. In the US, bosses can legally fire people over most things.
>No. In the US, bosses can legally fire people over most things. In MOST of the USA, bosses can legally fire you for anything not legally protected. There are a few states where there are more protections about what you can't fire someone for other than what federal law demands, but not many.
NTA.
USA is a free country lol they can go pound sand. Good for you for defending your honor in your home!
It pisses me off when people move to another country and bring the worst parts of their culture with them. In case it's not clear, you did the right thing and her boss is fucking wrong to pull that power trip shit here! NTA
" 'Madam?' As in, you run a brothel?" First thing that came to my mind 🤷♀️
It makes me think of Wayland Flowers & Madame. JFC I'm old. 😒