Oh man, I feel terrible.

Okay, so here's the story.

I was working at Iona about a year ago, and my cousin told me he was going to get a website made for my uncle's company, Peoria Siding and Window. Now, my uncle is really rich, and this project was going to be like a $400,000 deal. I told one of the salesmen at Iona that it would be a good idea to call my cousin to place a bid on the job. Iona placed their bid, but lost it to a company called Web Giant.

So, the next time I saw my cousin he mentioned that a guy named Rob that was going to do most of the work on the site through the company Web Giant. He also said that he thought it was funny, because Rob worked at Iona, and Rob placed his bid through Iona AND through Web Giant.

Anyway, I thought that Web Giant was just an outfit that represented freelancers, and since much of the production staff at Iona did freelance on the side, I didn't worry about it much.

Fast forward about a year, and Dain, the another saleman, not the one I recommended call my cousin, takes me out to lunch to discuss a new project he wants me to work on. We were talking about the production team at Iona, and how virtually all of them do freelance on the side. I mentioned that I knew Rob did, because he did the site for my uncle's company. I didn't even mention the name of my uncle's company.

A few weeks later, I hear that Rob had been let go from Iona. I didn't know exactly why, but Dain called me up and told me it was because of his work at Web Giant. Web Giant didn't just represent freelancers, they actually employed him.

Now, granted, being employed by 2 companies at the same time that are bidding on the same jobs is a huge, huge no-no. It's just not accepted. You just don't do it. He should have been let go for that, but now he's blaming me for letting the secret out.

And if that wasn't enough, both Rob and Web Giant were using Iona produced material to sell themselves and their services. That is an even worse no-no, and I had no idea about that part, so I couldn't have let the cat out of the bag there.

In any case, Rob has emailed me since out right blaming me for what happened to him. Several people from Iona have placed the blame for what happened to Rob squarely on me, even though I feel my part in the whole thing was 1. an accident, and 2. not nearly as big as people are making it out to be.

But anyway, this guy is married with 2 kids, and I feel bad for playing any role, no matter how insignificant, in his getting let go. So, I ask you, if you still worked at the company in which Rob worked for, would you have any hard feelings against me? I don't really care if Rob does or not, because the simple fact is that he was doing things that should've gotten him fired. They got him fired. No skin off my back. What I'm really worried about, and what I feel terrible about, is that now some trust is lost between Iona and me, and Iona still pays a lot of my bills. If you still worked at Iona, would you hate me and stop trusting me?