Given how much of our lives we spend working, it really helps if you like your job. Or even if your job is just fine, it can be made a whole lot better if you have good, dependable colleagues.

You might not be the best of friends, but knowing that you have colleagues who you can trust to show up and who you collaborate effectively with can take such a weight off. Then, it’s a real plus if you actually enjoy the time you spend together. Knowing that there is someone in the building who will listen if you’re having a hard time, or who will at least throw you a smile across the office when you need one is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted, because it’s rarer than you think.

The employee in this story is young, but she works hard at her job in a fast food restaurant. She’s dependable and efficient, everything that you’d want an employee to be – and she’s also skilled across many areas of the operation, with the flexibility to hop over and help on another counter when needed. But she’s recently learned that being helpful and good at your job can have its downsides too – because suddenly, no one is there to help when she needs it.

Read on to find out how this situation landed her in the manager’s office.

AITA for finally going off on someone at work for not doing their job?

My coworker (23, female) and I (19, female) have been working together for roughly a year. My frustration really started when she would clock in when I was supposed to clock out, but I can’t clock out until someone else is on the floor.

Well, she would clock in when she was supposed to, but refused to get on the floor any less than twenty minutes later, meaning I would be forced to clock out late. I tried to clock out when I was supposed to one day and got yelled at by a manager saying “you can’t leave your spot unattended.”

On this particular day, though, we were scheduled to work together for two hours. It was during a rush and we were very busy. We work at McDonald’s so you can imagine.

The person bagging the food had clocked out and the person making coffees, iced coffees, and any specialty McCafé drinks was nowhere to be found. I was working the window, handing out the food and making sure everyone had the right order.

Let’s see how this caused problems.

I was running low on sweet tea, but I couldn’t go and make any because I had to bag the food and make the McCafé drinks (which is ridiculous that anyone is ordering a frappe that late anyway but whatever) and work fries.

I was getting frustrated because everyone was hanging out in the back of the store, leaving me to do everything during a dinner rush. Eventually, this really sweet girl that works with us tried to help, but she’s new and didn’t know much so she helped work fries.

At this point, I had yelled multiple times that I needed help and no one made an effort to help me. After an hour of doing this and running literally all over the store to keep the line moving, the coworker, we’ll call her Tina, comes over.

She looked at me and told me, “you’re almost out of tea. why didn’t you say anything.”

Yikes! Read on to find out how this woman replied.

At this point I was frustrated that I was getting paid the same as people that literally don’t even do their ******* jobs so I told her, “Tina I’m not in the mood. I’ve been working by myself up here for an hour and no one has come to help. Don’t talk to me right now.”

She then got upset and started telling me that there are “plenty of people here and that I should’ve just asked for help.”

That’s when I got frustrated and left my four ******* stations to go to the bathroom.

To clarify, it’s different if we are short staffed and everyone is putting in the effort to keep the line moving. On this day, we had plenty of people that just wouldn’t do their jobs.

And management didn’t take kindly to her attitude.

I got in trouble for leaving my station, again, and they told me that being frustrated is no excuse for leaving. I should have just asked for help.

In my opinion, I shouldn’t have to beg left and right for people to put in the effort so I’m not pulling everyone’s weight. I yelled for help MULTIPLE times and no one came, because I’m not a manager so no one listens to what I have to say anyway.

Everyone told me I should apologize to Tina because I was rude for no reason and I set myself up for that situation.

AITA?

It’s completely understandable that this employee snapped – after all, she was being forced to do four people’s jobs because others were slacking off.

And this was nothing new. If it was a one-off you migth excuse it, but it’s clearly a pattern of behaviour and she’s getting tired of it.

The managers need to take a look at their staff and stop blaming the good ones.

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.

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

This person agreed that she’d done nothing wrong.

While others urged her to do her job only in future.

Meanwhile, this Redditor had had similar experiences in the past.

It’s really frustrating when you’re a conscientious worker just wanting to do your job, and you’re surrounded by folk who don’t care and are simply making your job harder. For this woman, any shift in which Tina is following her must feel like a nightmare, since she knows she’s not going to be clocking off until way past her scheduled time. Does this make this woman the problem? No, of course not – Tina is the one causing the drama here.

Little frustrations like this all add up – and quite rightly so, because it’s other colleagues showing a complete lack of respect for the woman and her time. So when she could see countless colleagues all getting an easy ride while she was working hard across four stations, it’s understandable that she finally burst. All those resentments came out, and she finally gave Tina a piece of her mind. Understandably so, since she’d seemingly been single-handedly running the floor for that time.

But the fact that she was the one hauled in front of the managers, instead of all her colleagues who were slacking off? It’s completely unfair on the one good worker on the shift.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer complaint that led to them losing their VIP status.