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Imagine sending an email to a coworker with a question. If the coworker didn’t get back to you and several weeks had passed, would you follow up with the coworker to try to get an answer to the question, or would you contact the supervisor?

In this story, one employee chooses the second option, and now, he’s rethinking that decision. He thinks he might’ve really messed up, and he’s not sure how to fix this mistake.

Is he overreacting, or did he really mess up?

Let’s read the whole story to decide.

AITA for following up with someone’s supervisor after no reply for ~3 weeks

I asked someone at my job, in a different unit, a technical question via email.

Roughly: “If we want you to change such-and-such small but important thing about the part of the user interface that you control, is that technically possible? Would asking you to do so be a reasonable request?”

They never replied.

I forgot about it until today, when my team had a meeting where we would’ve liked to discuss that possible change. I said how about I just follow up with the supervisor in that other unit, which I did this morning.

Now, he’s regretting that decision.

The supervisor wrote me back this afternoon. Roughly, “Yes, [original email target] brought us this question and we’re still trying to find an answer. Thanks for your patience.”

AITA for escalating without giving the original email recipient a chance to speak for themself? They could’ve just said, “No idea, I’ll see what I can find.” But I also could’ve followed up with them directly.

I’m also thinking I should (informally) try to catch the supervisor, thank them both, and try to reduce the throwing-under-the-buss effect in any case. Yes?

I think he’s overthinking it. It doesn’t seem like the supervisor was upset.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person thinks he should’ve followed up with the coworker.

Another person agrees that it would’ve been better to follow up with the coworker.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who gets revenge on his company after they fire him and try to steal his custom program.

The coworker probably forgot to respond back.

But I agree with this comment. It’s not like anyone is upset.

Sure, it would’ve been better to follow up with the coworker. It also would’ve been nice if the coworker had responded back to the email. Regardless, it’s not a big deal. Nobody is upset. The coworker got the email, and the supervisor is aware of the question. He’s creating drama where it doesn’t exist.