I would like to address the following situation with a coworker, but do not want to burn bridges.
I have a coworker who agreed to cover three, 1-2 hour shifts, for me in March. The agreement occurred in December of 2022. I offered to cover the equivalent for her prior to March of 2023. She agreed. After being prompted four times December – February for dates she would like covered, she said it was too stressful to choose and would rather just do her shifts. I then offered to take her out to dinner. She agreed.
Now I find out today that she did not cover the shifts and asked other people to do it for her, and those other people did. I would not have minded this \*that much\* but she hid this from me and I found out accidentally. Is it acceptable to be upset about this?
I originally went into this situation expecting to owe her and only her. Now I feel like I owe three other people for something she originally agreed to. I would have been totally fine if she told me ahead of time because I could have chosen the alts. I even wrote her a nice thank you card that I gave her today in person for covering the three shifts, and she thanked me for it. She never told me she had alts do it for her.
This coworker and I are relatively close. Go out on the weekends sometimes, zoom call, etc. She does not have a disability, kids, pets, or any other time consuming duties that would have prevented her from doing these things. I am not denying that there might be something mentally going on here, but there wasn’t any personal event like a death in the family to cause this. Today she told me to my face that she was doing the last shift for me. I just don’t know how to bring this up.
Extra details that aren’t totally relevant: We are PhD students that also teach. That is why its 1-2 hour shifts. At the end of the day, the shifts were covered so nothing terrible happened. I don’t know if this bothering me is an overreaction?
2 comments
I think I’d be a little upset at the dishonesty, too. I might say something like “hey, I was told by alt#1 that she covered that shift I asked you to cover. I’m a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell me you ended up asking others to cover those shifts. Can I ask you to be more up front with me in the future if you don’t want to cover my shifts?” Something like that. I wouldn’t accuse her, but give her an out. In the future, if she is dishonest about something like that then you will know if you want to continue the friendship or not.
So she agreed to cover shifts for you and then never wanted any of her shifts covered? Sounds like she was trying to be agreeable and ended up regretting agreeing to any of it. So maybe she just has a problem with assertiveness and that’s why she tried to do the favor for you even though she wasn’t really into it. And getting others to cover the shifts instead of telling you about it is another sign of lack of assertiveness. She sounds like she wants to avoid conflict.
So should you accuse a non-assertive conflict avoider of dishonesty? Erm. I wouldn’t.
In the future I’d just be more transactional with ALL of your co-workers and just say “hey, who can cover a few shifts for me, I’ll cover you back,” and see if you can get any takers. Relying on the friend puts an unspoken pressure on her to “be there for you” even if she doesn’t want that arrangement at the moment.