Imagine being in the military and being deployed for multiple months, but you have a cat. If a coworker agreed to watch the cat for you while you were away, would you assume they were doing this for free as a favor, or would you expect to pay them as if you were boarding the cat at a pet boarder?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she thought her coworker was doing it as a favor. When she got back, she realized that wasn’t the case.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not wanting to pay my friend $2K for watching my cat?

Hi, I 26F was deployed for six months.

My male coworker who I thought I was friends with agreed to take care of my cat while I was gone.

No money was agreed or promised before I left.

She still offered money to be nice.

During the time I paid for her expenses as he told me them. And when I got back I picked her up I gave $300 because I considered this a favor from a friend.

They did not like the amount given and wanted $2K.

In their words the pet care center (nearest boarder) costs $20/day or $100/week so they should get $10/day because of the effort involved in taking care of my cat.

It wasn’t a huge inconvenience to watch the cat.

She stayed at their house with their other pet during the time so they didn’t have to travel to take care of her.

So AITA for not wanting to pay $2K?

I obviously realize now this person is not a friend and I no longer will consider them as such and treat them only as coworker.

If no money was discussed ahead of time, no, she does not need to pay $2000.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks $2000 is a lot to expect.

The coworker really should’ve brought up money ahead of time.

Another person thinks the coworker is asking too much.

But this person thinks $300 is way too little.

It’s always better to discuss payment in advance.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.