'AITA for refusing to cover my coworker’s shifts after she called me lazy for not having kids?'
"AITA for refusing to cover my coworker’s shifts after she called me lazy for not having kids?"
CraveHalo
I (28F) work full-time in retail, and as anyone who’s worked retail knows, it can be pretty exhausting. I’ve got a busy life outside of work, trying to balance my hobbies, taking care of my apartment, seeing friends, and just taking care of myself. You know, normal adult stuff. I don’t have kids, but that doesn’t mean I’m lounging around with endless free time.
One of my coworkers, Sarah (32F), has two young kids. She’s always asking people to cover her shifts, which I understand because being a mom is hard and things come up.
Over the past year, I’ve covered for her quite a few times when she had to leave early or couldn’t make it in because of some kid emergency. I did it out of kindness because I get that life can be unpredictable, and I wanted to help her out.
But I’ve started to notice that I’m one of the only ones she asks to help cover her shifts. It’s like she expects me to do it just because I don’t have the same responsibilities as her.
Last week, she asked me again to cover for her because her kid had a school event. Normally, I’d try to help, but I already had plans to spend the day with my sister, who I hadn’t seen in a while.
I told Sarah I couldn’t this time, and she just sighed and said, "Must be nice to have all that free time. You don’t have kids, so it’s not like you’re busy with anything important."
I was pretty taken aback. I told her, "Just because I don’t have kids doesn’t mean I don’t have a life. My time is important too." She kind of rolled her eyes and walked away, but I could tell she wasn’t happy with me.
Now she’s been telling our other coworkers that I’m selfish and don’t understand how hard it is to be a mom. A couple of them have started acting a bit distant toward me, and I overheard one of them saying something like, "She has it easy, no wonder she doesn’t get it." I didn’t realize not having kids made me less deserving of respect at work.
What really gets me is that I’ve always tried to help when I could. But just because I don’t have kids doesn’t mean my life is suddenly stress-free or that I can drop everything at a moment’s notice. I feel like Sarah doesn’t respect my time at all, and that really bothers me.
I ended up mentioning it to my manager, hoping for a little understanding, but they just said it’s a "personal conflict" and didn’t want to get involved. So now I’m stuck feeling like the bad guy because I said no for once.
I honestly don’t think it’s fair to expect me to cover her shifts all the time just because I don’t have children. I have responsibilities too, and I deserve to have a life outside of work.
But some of my coworkers seem to think I should be helping out more because Sarah’s a mom and I’m not. Am I being selfish here? AITA for finally standing my ground and refusing to cover her shifts after she basically called me lazy?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
AngelicFlirtation
You’ve been more than generous in helping Sarah in the past, and it’s not okay for her to expect you to keep covering for her. Having kids doesn’t entitle her to demand more of your time.
EducationalTangelo6
NTA. Stop helping any disrespectful bitches who think they're entitled to your time because you're worthless without kids. Make it a blanket policy, because clique-y, backstabbing women in the workplace are the worst.
I've copped this too. One workplace I wasn't allowed to take time off at all over summer for 7 years in a row, because I didn't have kids, so I (apparently) "didn't need to", but the people with kids did.
Conscious-Survey7009
I dealt with that at a workplace as well. I was scheduled the first Christmas Day we were open (a casino) and I decided I wasn’t doing it again. All the parents fought for prime summer weeks during the first round of vacation picks,
I chose Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve. bThen Christmas came around and they were bitching because I didn’t have kids and them spending Christmas with their kids was more important than what I was doing.
I told them directly to F off and informed them my mom had late stage breast cancer, I am her kid and I’m not missing her last Christmas or two for them because they wanted to go away in the summer. I left two years later and I got to enjoy (mostly) the last three Christmas days with my mom and family.
BlindMan404
"I decided to breed and I'M GOING TO MAKE IT EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM!"
Outrageous-Ad577
“Given you felt the need to go around and talk shit about me, you obviously won’t ask me to cover ever again. Just so you know that wasn’t my intention when I told you my time matters too, but it works for me.”
FlirtQueenXO
NTA .Just because you don’t have kids doesn’t mean your time is any less valuable. Sarah’s the one being selfish by expecting you to constantly pick up the slack. Everyone has a life, and it’s okay to set boundaries.
Sea-Mud5386
"Me not having kids is exactly why I was able to occasionally cover for you, but you decided to kill the golden goose with your judgmental and meanspirited gossiping." Any coworker who wants to take her side is free to cover for her. It's monumentally stupid to anger the person who was doing you favors and then double down by being a witch.