Imagine working in a factory. What would you do if a manager insisted that the employees could handle more orders than they could really handle? Would you work overtime to help your coworker get caught up, or would you refuse?

In this story, one employee is in this situation, and she doesn’t want to work overtime. The only probably is that her coworkers are mad at her for not helping out.

Now, she’s wondering if she made the wrong decision by being unwilling to help.

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for refusing to “help” my old department and causing mandatory overtime

I work in a factory, I used to be an order picker in the warehouse but now I do assembly.

People have been ordering alot of stuff so shipping dept is really busy especially the pickers. It doesn’t really affect other departments much, not yet at least.

They were so busy that upper management put a block on accepting orders after they get to a certain amount.

Meet Annie.

Thing is the manager of that department “Annie” is very type A and particular about things that aren’t a big deal. She makes the job harder than it needs to be.

She’s sorta a kiss up and expects people to be just as dedicated as she is, willing to stay late and take work calls when off work.

When I was in the department she had a list of everyone’s numbers so we could call people not working to ask questions.

Annie messed up.

So after management put a block on incoming orders she told them to allow more orders through because they could handle it.

Then (I heard) she got on everyone about production times, even if they were meeting their mandatory time she wanted them to go faster.

A lot of people quit, new people work a week or so and just stop coming in.

OP is not about to get involved in this mess.

Annie is there all the time from 4 or 5 am and leaves at 7pm (she claims).

I don’t know why she did that, if she was trying to prove something or thought she’d get promoted because of it but they’re getting backed up and can’t hire people fast enough. The department is a mess.

They asked me to “help out temporarily”. Annie asked a manager to ask me.

They asked Tuesday and I said no. We have a union so I don’t think they can force me.

OP’s old coworkers are mad at her.

So now I’m enemy number one because they’re doing mandatory overtime for shipping on Saturday’s. Annie apparently told them that I was asked to come back and declined so that whole department is blaming me.

A couple people have made weird remarks like “I can’t help out” or “I’m too good for shipping ” and “I don’t want to give up my production incentive”

That one’s true, I’m paid more in assembly because I get incentive for meeting my production.

I know it’s not MY fault they have to work overtime now it’s Annie’s, but AITA for not helping them out?

Annie, and only Annie is the problem here. OP can and did say “no.” “No” is a complete sentence.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who homeschooled during the day and worked at night, only to have her employer try to change her schedule.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This is a good point.

Oh, it’s definitely Annie’s fault.

Nobody thinks it’s OP’s problem.

The employees are blaming the wrong person.

I wonder if there’s a way to report Annie to HR for turning the employees against OP. She’s intentionally causing them to misdirect their anger. Annie is making OP look bad when really Annie is the reason they’re so overworked.

It’s awful when managers try to blame employees for their problems.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who is told to work a holiday without overtime pay, and how they ended up getting their money.