It’s hard not to take something personally when someone seems to have something against you.

How would you feel if a coworker mentioned wanting to rehome their pet, but when you offered to take the pet, the coworker told you that they didn’t want you to have it?

Would you take it personally and wonder why they didn’t want you to have the pet, or would you brush it off thinking it’s no big deal?

In today’s story, one woman is in this situation and takes it personally.

Let’s find out what happened.

AITA for offering to take in the snake my co-worker was re-homing?

I work reception at a very small veterinary hospital that sees dogs, cats, and exotics (any standard house pet that’s not a dog or cat).

My co-worker receptionist is terrified of snakes, but loves lizards.

She went to a local reptile expo and thought a snake was cute, so she took it home, thinking she could slowly get over her fear.

She didn’t get over her fear.

A year later, she didn’t get over it, and was worried she wasn’t giving the snake enough socialization to make it a good pet.

One day when I came into work, I heard her asking a former co-worker and another current coworker about re-homing the snake, both declined.

I told her I’d been thinking for a while about getting a pet snake again, I’d had one years ago before I got into the animal care field.

The coworker seemed to like this idea…at first.

My co-worker was initially receptive to the idea, told me she was going to wait to transfer until the end of the week due to feeding schedule.

After I left work that day, she texted me that our other co-worker might be reconsidering and she had been offered the snake first.

I said I understood.

It turns out, she’s not going to get the snake.

The next day, I asked her if the other co-worker was taking the snake.

She said no, but that she had never planned to offer it to me and basically didn’t want me to have it.

She said I intruded into something that was never meant for me, and she discussed it with her husband and just didn’t feel it was right.

She and I have had some work-related conflicts lately, but things were going better, I didn’t think I had been out of line.

It’s not like they were trying to hide the conversation from her.

I certainly didn’t think her feelings about me were that bad, that I couldn’t speak up in a conversation that was in no way held in private.

Both offers happened in person about 2 feet away from where I was sitting.

In our field, when you’re looking for a new home for a pet, it’s typically “anything goes” unless you’re concerned about welfare.

She doesn’t know what happened to the snake.

I asked her if she was concerned I couldn’t care for the snake appropriately.

She said no, just that I hadn’t been part of her plan.

To this day, I have no idea what has happened with the snake, or who ended up with it.

It’s hard not to take it personally, it does seem like she was suggesting I would be a bad owner.

But maybe I was butting in, and I can understand if she’s still having bad feelings about me, not wanting her pet to live with me.

AITA?

That is a weird situation.

If she didn’t want her to offer to take the snake, she shouldn’t have had the conversation right in front of her.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

There was nothing wrong with offering to take the snake.

The coworker sounds petty and selfish.

It really wasn’t smart to buy a pet she was scared of.

Another person calls the coworker childish.

Hopefully the snake found a good home.

I’m sure they deserve it.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.