Imagine working with someone who is new at their job and messes up once in awhile. If you knew they made a mistake, would you tell them and try to help them out, or would you mind your own business and let them discover there are consequences for doing your job poorly?

In this story, one man is in this exact situation. He tries to help the coworker at first, but when she is ungrateful for his help, he decides not to warn her next time.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

AITA for Watching My Co-Worker’s Career Burn When I Could’ve Stopped It?

I (30M) work using the end-products from my co-worker, let’s call her Sammy.

When she’s unable to do her work, or gets it wrong, I end up being unable to do my work or at least unable to finish it completely because it’s missing things from her.

Now, I have the skills to just fill in the missing parts, for example, if she forgets to add an order for our client, I can just do it for her. However, she’s relatively new to the job so I figure it’s better to tell her she forgot something, and show her how to do it so she won’t repeat the mistake later on.

BIG MISTAKE

It seems simple enough.

The interaction is brief, like 5 seconds. This is the first time I’ve ever corrected her for anything.

Me: Hey Sammy, when we get this request from our client, you have to add this order in.

Sammy: Oh, right…

I hand her the request, she fixes it, and gives it back to me later. No big deal.

But she must think it’s a big deal.

Later on, at lunch, my buddy tells me she’s been talking badly about me behind my back. I figure that sucks, screw her then.

Afterwards, she seems to be learning her job well and doesn’t make many more errors. The PROBLEM IS she’s still talking badly about me behind my back.

I have different people telling me to:

Leave her alone OR 2) People telling me she’s talking crap behind my back.

She’s still pretending like she’s not upset.

I go to her and ask if there’s anything she wants to say to me.

She says no.

I ask if she’s sure.

She says yes.

I say alright then.

The trash talking only intensifies, and apparently I’m harassing her at work now.

Drama ensues, only a few people are sticking by me, which kinda makes me sad but at least now I know who I can depend on.

She messed up again.

Now comes the day when I see she makes a small mistake but could lead to a large inconvenience for our client. Nothing that would destroy lives but would delay our client’s schedule and would make them very unhappy.

This mistake went past her, her co-workers, her supervisor, and apparently nobody noticed the problem before it got to me.

So… I send an e-mail to her supervisor about the issue, which is standard protocol but the supervisor is gone for the day and they should (but don’t) bother reading their e-mails after they leave.

The client noticed the problem right away.

The next day the client personally shows up and asks about this issue because he arrived in the morning and his people can’t get to work because they were missing critical components for their operation.

Our boss smooths things over, gives them a discount on the order, and promises to take care of it himself.

The client is satisfied, and leaves with no fuss.

Sammy should’ve been more receptive to OP’s help.

Boss finds out Sammy was the one who made the initial error and fires her, everyone else gets warnings except the supervisor, who said she read my e-mail and was trying to fix the issue.

Boss leaves, supervisor thanks me for catching the problem (she probably doesn’t realize I could’ve fixed it myself since it’s not actually my job to, and everyone else was too scared to say anything).

AITA for Watching My Co-Worker’s Career Burn When I Could’ve Stopped It?

Why help someone who is talking trash about you when you try to help? Her bad attitude and her ineptitude are what cost her her job.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

She really had nothing going for her.

All he tried to do was help.

This is a good point.

Nobody thinks she deserved his help.

It wasn’t his job to fix her problems.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.