Agreed. Nothing here adds up at all. Sounds to me like the author was let go for different reasons entirely (and this was just an easy excuse for management), or that something else is missing here.
The number of mentions about Apple providing the service "for free" makes it sound like the author perhaps actually charged their elderly friend, and honestly that would be a huge violation. I don't know exactly what the author's job was (can't find it on the site), but if their job is servicing Macs, it's very normal for their employment contract to forbid making money servicing Macs outside their job -- it's literally having your own employees compete with you.
But if the author didn't charge... then there's got to be a separate "real reason" they were fired.
The number of mentions about Apple providing the service "for free" makes it sound like the author perhaps actually charged their elderly friend, and honestly that would be a huge violation. I don't know exactly what the author's job was (can't find it on the site), but if their job is servicing Macs, it's very normal for their employment contract to forbid making money servicing Macs outside their job -- it's literally having your own employees compete with you.
But if the author didn't charge... then there's got to be a separate "real reason" they were fired.