When you have a family, maintaining a clear work-life balance becomes even more important. For both parents, protecting family time should be key, to allow their children to actually live their lives as children, with parents that they can depend on for more than just financial security. And that can be hard at times, but there is no doubt that it works out for the best in the long run, with bonded families and well-rounded adult children as a result.

The mother in this story is doing her best to give her kids the best upbringing possible. She is homeschooling them during the week, and in order to support them financially she is working night shifts at a hospital while they sleep. It’s a demanding lifestyle, but it is one that she is dedicated to.

So when her employers began messing with her shifts to account for a colleague’s commitments outside of work, she was naturally upset. However, she gave them the benefit of the doubt, and penned a polite email to them reminding them of her working hours. But she was never expecting the strongly-worded response she received.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for not working my coworker’s Sunday shifts once a month?

I am a 42-year-old woman, and I started working at my hospital job about 18 months ago. I work part-time nights and I homeschool my two children.

My schedule is forty per pay, including one weekend out of every four, and three holidays per year.

A coworker, who was hired after me, is full-time Sunday to Thursday, but is also in the national guard and so is required to have one weekend off per month for his drill duties.

For the past year, the man who does our schedule has asked me if I can cover this other employee’s Sunday on his drill day, and with maybe two exceptions, I’ve covered them all.

But recently, things have got a lot less polite.

Recently I noticed the schedule for next month has me working his Sunday, but no one ever asked me. So I sent a kind email to the employee who manages the schedule stating that I didn’t remember agreeing to that date and asking if it was a mistake. I also said I could work it if he needed me to, but I requested the next Friday off to keep my hours at part time.

He sent me a curt email reply stating he HAD asked me, and that he would make the switch in days. Now, I am POSITIVE he didn’t ask me, which was why I sent the email.

Yes, I could work that day, but I didn’t want him setting a precedent that I would work all of them without being asked.

The next day he sent me an email asking about Sundays across the following two months, and then stated “moving forward, I do not think it’s too much to ask for you to work one extra Sunday per month. Part time employees are meant to cover days off and vacation for the full time crew.”

Yikes. Let’s see how she is feeling about his responses.

I’m kind of livid about it. First, it’s not too much to ask. He HAS been asking, and I have been working them all almost without fail. Two, he’s obviously mad that I called him out for not asking for Feb even though he says he did ask. I think my worry that he was just going to start scheduling me without asking was spot on.

Thirdly, I was hired for one weekend a month, not every other. And they do NOT pay a weekend differential to make it worthwhile to pick up all these weekends!

Also, the assumption that I can just be put wherever or whenever on the schedule to “fill in” is not what I was hired for. I have a set schedule that, yes, does get messed up frequently when I agree to cover for my coworkers. However, I feel like that is me being a team player and not my obligation to work whenever they need me. I am part time because I have other obligations.

Now I’m stewing and don’t know how to reply to this email. Am I wrong for not picking up the extra weekends since I’m the only part-timer on my shift?

AITA?

It seems like the guy who does the scheduling has very different expectations from the part-time employee than is set out in her contract or employment conditions.

Asking a mom to work an additional weekend day per month is a lot to ask – especially when it is simply assumed, rather than asked.

It’s clear that he’s annoyed for being called out and is taking it out on the woman whose contracted hours he isn’t respecting. And that’s not acceptable at all.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this post about a hardworking employee whose management refuses to give them one single break.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person came up with a clear solution for the problem.

While others warned about being too available and willing to help out beyond your contracted duties.

Meanwhile, this Redditor explained how she could reply to the rude email.

If a key responsibility of part time staff members was to cover for full time colleagues, then this needed to be explained in her contract or during the hiring process. This is the first this woman has heard of this apparent requirement, so it’s no wonder that she’s feeling quite taken aback by it all. Not to mention the sheer rudeness of the scheduling guy simply expecting that she would be happy to move her personal life around in accordance with company requirements, without being asked.

If her working hours are set out in her contract, as it seems like they are, then those are the days and times she should be working to enable her to continue with her homeschooling commitments to her children. After all, she is working part time, with her kids’ education her full-time focus and priority. And while the scheduling guy might not know the intricacies of her situation, he should know better than simply assuming that employees would be happy to work on dates that they’re not usually expected to work on.

Perhaps the fact that she has covered her National Guard colleague plenty of times has ended up backfiring on her. But she was just trying to do her best. They shouldn’t be taking advantage of her as a result.