Imagine working at a company where your work day isn’t done until hours after your scheduled shift is over. Would you be annoyed if one of your coworkers never worked overtime?

In this story, one acting supervisor is in this situation, and he doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to ask this coworker to work a little overtime to help out. The coworker disagrees.

Let’s read all about it.

AITA for wanting my co-workers to work overtime?

I am not a manager, but I am above my coworkers in position and am acting manager when no manager is present. (so like a supervisor but it is not technically in my title)

Me and another coworker have been putting in a min of 45 hours a week and I typically end up at about 50 on a slow week, on a bad one we end up doing 70+ (we are a mon-fri place so only in 5 days).

I asked my other co-workers who typically get 40-44 ish even on bad weeks if they could ask me if they were good before leaving cuz of the amount of work (when it hits those 12+ hour days for 1 person) so that me and the other coworker are not doing almost all of the work.

The coworker could’ve just said “no” instead of blaming them.

They responded with telling me and him that if we did not mess around and stuff that we would never have to stay that late.

Well, my company can run reports on how much everyone does. And I on average do about 80% more then the people who typically do 40-44 hours, and the other coworker who stays late lags behind but the reports only show “how much you did in a specific field” and not overall everything you do. But he is still about 30% higher then the others if not more. (and he does not go as hard into it as I do cuz he has a family)

Well on a bad week I asked them if they would just say something to me before leaving and make sure we are caught up.

And they basically blew up on me saying that I am a jerk and that it is my fault cuz I am slacking that we are not caught up, and that it is my fault that I have to stay that late to finish stuff.

He wasn’t asking for that much overtime.

I really only asked for like an extra 30min to maybe an hour. On bad days. Not daily, that way I could get home before 10pm (suppose to be off by 6pm) and only cost them an hour. (they get off at 3pm and I am asking them to stay to a max of until 4pm)

I thought about just leaving at 6pm and showing them what it would be like if I did what they did to me to them.

But that made me actually feel like a jerk so I did not do it. (which on that day I got home at 11pm)

It doesn’t end well when not all of the work gets done.

A bit more context, the one time I did accidentally leave something to be done for the early crew to do I get yelled at for not doing it before I left by said morning crew, and ended up sending one of them home cuz they came at me yelling from the start. (altho that is not a part of this story and kinda deserves its own post for details. I did think it was important to include that fact)

So AITA for wanting them to put in a little extra so I do not have to put my whole life into it? If I am then what should I do differently? I really would like some feedback.

It sounds like this company is incredibly short staffed. That’s the real problem. Nobody should have to work overtime. But, the coworker could’ve simply refused instead of blaming OP and the other coworker.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this situation.

He really does have an unhealthy work life balance.

It really isn’t the coworker’s fault.

Nobody should have to work overtime.

The employer is the real problem.

He needs to take this up with management.

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.