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Last year, my coworker, a single mom, needed help. Her baby needed essentials, so I lent her some money. I thought I was just being a kind person, but she still hasn\u2019t paid me back. Meanwhile, I see her buying things for herself\u2014Ugg boots last month, concert tickets recently. It\u2019s hard to watch when you\u2019re the one who helped out.<\/p>\n
Beyond the money, I\u2019ve covered so many of her shifts. The reasons were always the same: \u201cI\u2019m exhausted,\u201d \u201cbabysitter issues,\u201d or \u201cI have to take the baby to the doctor.\u201d Even when it felt unjustified, I said yes because I felt bad for her situation.<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks ago, the tables turned. I asked her to cover for me just once. She said she couldn\u2019t. Then, last night, she begged me to cover for her again. This time, I finally said no.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I opened the work chat and my stomach dropped. She had posted: \u201cI guess some people here don\u2019t understand what it\u2019s like being a single mom.\u201d She then listed a bunch of dates I\u2019d supposedly \u201crefused\u201d to help her, including some that weren\u2019t even true. People started replying with sad emojis and sympathy. My face went hot with anger and embarrassment.<\/p>\n
I typed out a long reply. I explained how much money I\u2019d lent her and attached our repayment agreement, pointing out she\u2019d only paid back $100. I listed exactly how many shifts I\u2019d covered for her and mentioned how she wouldn\u2019t help me the one time I asked.<\/p>\n
Before things got even worse, our supervisor jumped in. They stated that schedule coverage shouldn\u2019t be handled in the group chat and told everyone to message them directly. The chat history was cleared, and she and I haven\u2019t spoken since.<\/p>\n
Now, she\u2019s telling everyone I\u2019m cruel, claiming I\u2019m \u201ctaking money from an innocent baby\u201d by asking for my loan back. The drama has become so uncomfortable that I\u2019m genuinely thinking about changing jobs just to escape it. Am I overreacting, or would I be right to leave this all behind?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last year, my coworker, a single mom, needed help. Her baby needed essentials, so I lent her some money. I thought I was just being a kind person, but she … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1306,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readupdatemystory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}