Imagine working for someone you’re friends with. If they could no longer afford to pay you, would you stop working for them, or would you be happy to help them out for free since they’re a friend?

In this story, one person was in this situation and was happy to do a little work for free, but the boss was not okay with that and told the friend to stop.

The friend seems to have trouble ignoring important emails. Let’s see how the story plays out.

Don’t check my emails

Backstory, I work for this small company and I’m friends with the owner.

He’s been overseas for almost a year and I’m pretty much dealing with all the office work, I just message him whenever something important comes into the company emails.

When the virus hit we were all furloughed due to him still being stuck overseas, but I still checked the company emails from time to time and did a little office work, pro bono because he’s our friend and landlord.

Also it’s nothing difficult.

The owner really needed to look at his email!

So an important email comes in (a court case the company is being asked to witness about) and of course I message him.

As usual days go by without him even reading it, so I give him a bigger and remind him I can only help him if he reads his freaking correspondence.

He messages back saying leave the emails alone, I can’t afford to pay you until I get back.

Might just be me but I didn’t like his tone, did I mention I’ve been doing it for free?

There was another important email.

Cue MC, an email popped in that very same day (today) asking to confirm that we want to cancel our employee health insurance plans.

This is something boss has been on me about for months (again, mainly because it takes days for him to reply to a simple query).

Don’t want me checking company emails? Fine, enjoy paying an additional 2-3 months health insurance.

Even though he’s oversees, surely he can check his email once in awhile. OP should stop checking it for him. It’s just causing unnecessary stress when he clearly doesn’t want anyone checking his email right now.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person shares why the boss may be so against OP helping out.

Here’s another similar thought.

This is what I’m wondering too!

Maybe the boss misunderstood!

Being helpful isn’t always helpful.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.