Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Today's question comes from David in West Virginia. I've recently learned that a couple of my employees mooch personal money from soft-hearted coworkers and aren't paying back what they've borrowed in a reasonable amount of time, if ever. While it may just be a couple of hundred

dollars of personal money, I'm afraid of negative culture developing in the workplace. Do I have a

right to address the situation since it's between them personally and the business isn't really

involved? Do I have a right? Yeah, I think you do in the sense of these are people that

you're employing and it's now becoming an issue that is going, it's not a gossip issue. This is a

fact. At least you're outlining in a way where you know this is a fact and it's

rising up to you. And this affects the actual team dynamic. And I think talking to the people that

are loaning the money is probably where I would start. I think anytime you've got a situation like

this where you've got people just with bad behavior where I would start. I think anytime you've got a situation like this where you've got

people just with bad behavior where they're loaning, I mean, they're borrowing basic small amount of

money and not paying it back. That's just irresponsible. And to me, that's a sign that they shouldn't

be working for you. So I would be addressing that issue, not so much getting into all

these details. I would kind of end around it instead of sit down with these people like

their little kids. I may be wrong on that. You may have a different approach, but I would probably

address the fact that there's a character problem here, and it's been made aware to me that's a

character problem, and I don't want people working for me that have character problems. Yeah, yeah. You don't have a right, you have an

obligation. That's, yeah. You are, you are in charge of what happens there under your leadership and

crap is happening under your leadership. And if you don't do anything about it, you suck as a leader.

So you've got to do something about it. Now then the question question becomes, how heavy-handed are you? Yeah, that's what I'm struggling with. And what is it that you do? So if it's a couple hundred bucks, I'm probably starting with the two people loaning money. I'm going to give them both a total money makeover book, pay for them to go to financial peace university and here's your

two hundred dollars back and don't ever loan anybody money again as long as you work here if

you do i'm going to fire you i like that approach and just make them whole yeah and then shut that

shut down the source then i'm going to the two or the couple of people whoever it is that

...