Imagine being an overachiever at work. If your boss reprimanded you for listening to a coworker vent, would you still be an overachiever, or would you stop wanting to do anything to boost employee morale?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she does not want to do anything extra at work. She’s wondering if that makes her petty.

Let’s read the whole story.

I’ve stopped doing the “fun” extra office stuff after I didn’t like the way my boss handled something, AITAH?

My job performance is exceptional.

I meet every necessary mark 100% of the time and have done so for the last ten years.

Maybe an odd month or two in there due to travel and things that would make it impossible.

She really goes above and beyond at work.

I’ve also stepped up and carried the load for coworkers when things have come up to ensure our area isn’t dinged for performance issues.

Clients get along well with me, I’ve never had a complaint filed against me, etc. You get the idea.

I also am known to do all the holiday decorating, coordinating the gifts for office celebrations, baking the desserts, writing formal thank yous from our department, and making holiday baskets to help maintain positive relationships with the other agencies we work with.

Then everything changed.

A couple months back, there was a policy change and none of us were happy about it.

I made the best of a bad situation and adapted to the change immediately.

My coworkers did as well, but they all called me to complain and vent.

This is normal. We tend to complain amongst ourselves for one good session and then just “it is what it is” and continue to work hard and not complain again.

Her boss overheard the conversation.

Here’s where the issue is, while one of my coworkers was venting my boss was eavesdropping selectively on my side of the conversation as that’s what he could hear.

I was commiserating with them, but also pointing out how it wouldn’t be that bad, it’s in our contract, how we can make it fun/less obnoxious etc etc etc.

We hung up and I didn’t think about it further, especially since neither of us really said anything that you wouldn’t expect an employee to say with the kind of change they’re wanting. It was pretty tame….

I didn’t think about it again until my boss called me in a few days later to do an employee evaluation in response to it.

The boss was really mad at her.

In every review I’ve had here I’ve always hit the “exceeds expectations” in nearly every category.

He cut me down to “meets expectations” on everything.

He reamed me for my “attitude” for not cutting my coworker off and letting them vent. Telling me I should have told them to call him. He accused me of being negative/a negative influence and that if he didn’t “nip it in the bud now it could fester and create a toxic work environment”….

I was and still am pretty mad about it. Coworkers should be allowed to vent to each other without it being treated like this.

This makes a lot of sense.

After this, as you may have guessed, I’m just not in the mood to head up everything extra I’d been doing to make the office environment “fun”.

I keep my door closed when he’s here, I didn’t bring dessert for the March birthday lunch. That lunch isn’t mandatory, but I didn’t want more problems so I went and just sat quietly the entire time.

Now there’s another “appreciation week/month” for one of the departments we work with and there’s been an email chain about cards/gifts and I’ve responded the amount I’ll put towards it and asked who I should send it to….

Everyone expects her to pitch in.

People are noticing I’m not picking this stuff up and that chain has gone in a circle for days now and I’m not budging.

I’ve had one person approach me about it.

And I just said I don’t have the time to take it on right now.

She’s wondering if she’s being petty.

I guess I’m feeling like all the stuff I did on the regular to foster a positive work environment got thrown out or was never appreciated because I lent an ear to a coworker and then got viciously reprimanded for it.

Like what’s the point if ten years of going out of my way gets thrown out just like that?

AITAH for just quietly stepping out of all of these extras due to my feelings on how this was handled? Am I being overly petty?

She was trying to boost employee morale, including her own, with everything she did, including lending a listening ear to a coworker. But her boss killed her employee morale, so seriously, why would she want to do anything extra?

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

The boss was completely wrong to get mad about employees venting.

There’s nothing wrong with saying no to extras.

It really might be best to look for a different job.

Here’s a recommendation to maliciously comply.

It’s hard to want to go above and beyond when it’s not appreciated.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.