Employee Gets The Heat After Lying To Avoid Driving Disabled Coworker Home

Office drama never gets old.

Jesse

• Published in Interesting
• March 10, 2023

Working in an organisation often involves working with other people. For many, this can be something they look forward to doing daily, while others find it downright upsetting.

To a large extent, how a person feels about their coworkers has a lot to do with the behaviours those people exhibit towards them. 

Some people are lucky enough to make friends at the office, while others find out all too well the meaning of the saying, “your coworkers are not your friends.”

While you can have a great relationship with your colleagues, it’s also possible to get entangled in some messy situations with them.

One Redditor found herself in one such situation after lying to get out of driving a disabled co-worker.

She shared on the AITA subreddit that an autistic older man started working at the retail store she worked. 

According to her, his mother usually picked him up after work, but when she couldn’t come in one day, OP was stuck with the responsibility of taking him home after a game of “not it.”

She felt uncomfortable and lied that she couldn’t take him home. 

The next day, she told another coworker the truth, and it got to her manager, who wasted no time expressing her disappointment at OP’s actions. This led her to ask the critical AITA question.

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The story in detail

OP explained that she has an autistic coworker who's mum brings him to work and drives him home regularly

Unfortunately, last week, Frank's mum delayed to pick him up. And even after the manager tried to find a solution, no one was willing to drive Frank home, including OP.

Interestingly, OP had to lie to get off the hook. But her manager found out and threatened consequences if such an act were to repeat itself

A little insight

We gathered some comments from the Reddit community below:

"NTA - you have absolutely no obligation to drive somebody who is practically a stranger to you home"

Boss at work, not the boss of my life

"If your manager thinks Frank needs to be driven home then she as the manager making manager pay can do it"

"NTA. Nobody is obligated to provide transportation to their coworkers, disabled or not."

Why didn't the manager just do it herself?

"Your boss is not your friend. You do not owe them anything outside of work."

"Your manager cannot require you do favors for others."

"You don’t have to be alone in your car with ANYBODY you don’t want to."

"..'Being your coworker’s caretaker' is nowhere in your job description."

"Stand tall and tell your boss you aren't driving anyone home. And walk away."

"If the manager wants someone to "step up" if there is an issue, that's her job."

"If you work in a tiny little mom and pop that doesn't have HR, tell the owners, but in any case I'd probably just be prepared to walk."

From the comments, it's clear that OP has the overwhelming support of the Reddit community. They could understand why she was uncomfortable with a stranger in her car and being forced to cater to someone else when she needed care for herself.

However, some people highlighted her mistakes as telling her coworker the truth and lying instead of saying it. Probably, she should have just said "No."

Be the judge. What do you think OP should have done in this situation? Let us know in the comments below!

Jesse