He Was Only Supposed To Work Weekends At His Brother’s Restaurant While In School, But Constant Extra Shifts Led To A Breakdown
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Working for a sibling can be great since you know them so well, and in many cases, they may even give you some type of preferential treatment.
What would you do if you were working for your brother’s restaurant while you wanted to go to college, and you were supposed to only work on the weekends, but he kept calling you in throughout the week because he urgently needed someone to cover?
That is what was happening to the young man in this story, and eventually he had a breakdown at work and stormed off, and now he hasn’t talked to his brother since it happened, and he wonders if he was out of line.
The only thing he did wrong was not setting firm boundaries on how much he can work and sticking to them. Read through the full story and see what you think.
AITA for crashing out after brother called me to work last minute for the billionth time?
My parents and I moved in with my brother and his wife two years ago.
It is great that they are able to help his brother out.
The reason why is because he needed my mother as a nanny for his daughter (at the time 2 months old, now 2 and a half years old), since he was opening a new restaurant with his wife.
At the time, I lost my part-time job because I was studying for my medical entrance exam, and luckily I got in, at the cost of burning out for a whole month, but that’s another issue.
He is being taken advantage of.
Long story short, my dad started working as the head chef, while I became one of the waiters, and I still am. At first we were all fine, I had a part time job, which I thought was restricted to weekends only, and got paid too, while my brother had a waiter who could help on weekends, amazing!
However, what I didn’t expect was how often he would call me in even when I was not supposed to be there, and sacrificed a lot of time that could have been used to study, so I told my mom and she told my brother to call me in when it was absolutely necessary, which was okay (but not really to me), so the last minute call ins didn’t stop, but they were greatly reduced.
They are overworking him. He needs to put his foot down.
I then worked the whole summer the first year I was here, and got quite sick because I tried working full time and studying for a whole month and a half (as a waiter who does 10 hours a day when doing full time, that was horrendous) at the same time.
Brutal, but it got me enough money to survive the upcoming year. But then….my brother’s wife got pregnant and they told me a few months in advance that they would need me to cover for them at the restaurant for a month, which just happened to be in the middle of exam season, but whatever.
It is time to set firm boundaries.
I then told my brother that I could no longer come in because I was busy with university, and he seemed to understand.
Unfortunately, things happened and for a WHOLE CONSECUTIVE WEEK, he called me last minute and I was already exausted and desperate with university.
He has had enough.
My last straw was about two weeks ago when he told me to come in because a colleague of mine was going to be absent for half a day.
Something in me snapped and I started throwing a tantrum in the middle of the night, and the day after. “Luckily” my brother’s wife came in by the time we finished cleaning and were to open the restaurant.
This is not a mature way to handle it.
And my brother starts telling me how we’re a family, and that if I really couldn’t come in, that I should have just told him, except that I TOLD HIM and he just either forgot or pretended to.
I got so angry and started crying and went home, locked myself in my room and kind of destroyed about half of the things that were in my room.
Setting boundaries and sticking to them is the only option.
I then had a talk with my mom, but suddently it’s me who’s made things awkward, and I haven’t really talked to my brother ever since.
I’m also dealing with some burnout but no one seems to really care soo.
He really needs to set some firm boundaries with his brother and refuse to bend. Let him know what hours he can work, and work only those hours, no matter what.
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Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say.
Boundaries are essential in this type of situation.
Here is someone who says he was awful to himself.
This person says he needs to just say no to his brother.
He needs to learn to put his foot down.
Why would he destroy his own things?
His real issue is that he doesn’t know how to set boundaries.
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