She Cycled, Commuted by Train, and Did Manual Labor for Hours. When Exhaustion Forced a Day Off, Her Aunt Called Her ‘Lazy.’
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Whether you’re working your dream job or a stop-gap career while you work your way there, let’s be honest: there are some days that are truly gruelling. It doesn’t mean you’re not working hard or not appreciating your work, because of course you are. But sometimes things just take a lot longer or are a lot harder than others – and there are thousands of reasons why that might be the case.
But we get through those days just like we get through the good ones, doing our best to earn some money to subsidise our lives outside of the workplace – the homes and families that we love, the vacations and meals and books and video games that we dream of. It can feel hard at the time, but it’s worth it in the end – for the most part, at least.
The woman in this story was working hard moving priceless artworks and installing them in wealthy people’s homes. It was tiring work, especially with an arduous commute on top of that. And one week she had to work extra hours, so was allowed to take the next Monday off – but when she explained this to her aunt, the woman absolutely flew off the handle.
Read on to find out why.
AITA for saying I worked forty hours a week?
This happened a little while ago, but I cannot stop going over it in my head. I (24, female) was living with my aunt (female, sixties) while I worked a temporary job.
The job, and the circumstances surrounding my employment, were very physically challenging: I was working in warehouses and on trucks, handling, storing, delivering, and installing all manner of artworks to homes, companies, museums, etc., in NYC.
Every day, I had to wake up at 5am, bike a mile to the train, ride the train for an hour into the city, then take the subway for another half hour, then walk ten minutes to the company’s warehouse, and repeat this to get home.
I did not mind the work at all, nor did I mind the commute, but it was exhausting. I usually worked anywhere from eight to twelve hours a day, and overtime was calculated bi-weekly – meaning, if I exceeded eighty hours of work over a two week period, I would start earning overtime pay.
But this all led to a dramatic run-in with her aunt.
One week, I was sent to LA to help with the company’s warehouse there. With flight and travel time included, I was paid for about fifty hours, so I was not assigned to any jobs on Monday the following week.
I was explaining this to my aunt that Sunday over breakfast, and said that I had off because I “worked more than forty hours last week.”
She cut me off and said, “You did NOT work forty hours!” and proceeded to tell me how she and her two sons slave over their desk jobs, regularly working sixty-plus hour weeks.
I was kind of taken aback, and explained that it doesn’t really matter because I was an hourly employee and not salaried like they are.
And her aunt didn’t stop there.
She raised her voice at this point and told me I was being disrespectful, which I apologized for, and just said that I’ll be home tomorrow either way. She got up without a word and started cleaning up.
This was one of many instances where something like this happened between us. We are low/no-contact now, not solely because of this, but it did play a part in it.
Now, I really don’t think I did anything wrong, but I may have been insensitive in my surprise.
AITA?
Honestly, this is the weirdest thing – this aunt had no right to be so rude about the job or the hours that her niece was working.
Whether it’s a white collar/blue collar thing or simply some sort of jealousy, the fact that her aunt blew up the way she did tells you a lot about her.
It’s just a real shame that the niece has been left feeling like she did something wrong, when she absolutely, unequivocally did not.
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Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.
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This person agreed that the aunt seemed really condescending.
While others thought she was being old-fashioned.
Meanwhile, this Redditor explained exactly why the woman was right about her hours.
People like this woman’s aunt really need to take a reality check and realise that yes, they do work long hours behind a desk and that is gruelling work. It’s tough motivating yourself to go to an office five hours a week, and work really long hours in the same position, doing the same thing, for years – or even decades – and keeping your spirits up at the same time. And no one is questioning that fact.
But the job that her niece was doing was gruelling too – not just for the mind, but for the body. Day after day she was doing manual labour, after waking up super early and commuting by both bicycle and train too. It’s important work and needs to be done with extreme focus and care – after all, without these things one of two terrible things could happen: an expensive artwork could get damaged, or a worker could get seriously injured.
There’s no doubt that these long hours of careful manual work are taking their toll on her mind and her body, and that’s why she wasn’t scheduled to work the day after this very long week. And the fact that her aunt argued with her about it? She’s either super snooty or horribly jealous.
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