Helping an unemployed friend find a job is something many people do.
But vouching for someone can backfire if they do badly at the job. And a bad friend can exploit the friendship to get out of work or to shirk responsibility.
A woman turned to the “Am I The A**Hole” (AITAH) subreddit for feedback after a friend she helped made her workplace miserable.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However there are no official voting acronyms and no final judgment given.
Background_Brick_927 asked:
“AITAH for telling my coworker she’s the reason I resigned?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I (female, 27) recently resigned from my university job. People assumed I did so because I want a more stable job—work in government. But honestly, the real reason was a toxic coworker who used to be my close friend.”
“I actually helped her get her job. I shared materials, teaching tips, and record-keeping techniques so she could adjust. I even went out of my way to talk to each person we work with to help her adjust. I really wanted her to succeed.”
“People saw her on her phone all the time, doing TikTok and Facebook. It affected me, because it looked like I’m not giving her any work. I was her superior at work.”
“A few months in, rumors started that she was an ‘other woman’ of a married colleague. People warned me about her, but I defended her and stood by her even when it made me look bad.”
“I didn’t know what they were doing to be labelled as having an affair. She denied it to me until the very end—saying he was just like a brother. So we will never know.”
“Things changed when she snapped at me after I suggested a better way to organize her records. After that, I stopped involving myself in her tasks. From then on, she avoided her assigned office and didn’t complete simple tasks I gave her, like shelf reading and reshelving—we work in a library.”
“This year, I assigned her the semestral inventory because I was busy with an upcoming evaluation and visit. She acknowledged it in a meeting, but the semester ended and nothing was done.”
“During summer, she used ‘Teacher’s Leave’ as an excuse not to do the semestral inventory assigned to her earlier. She said she could if she’s allowed to work during ‘Teacher’s Leave’, so she asked me to draft a letter asking her for work, later I found out it was so she could earn service credits.”
“I was called by our admin and told she’s not allowed to work because she’s on leave. I later explained that it was a task assigned to her earlier, and I only wanted her to finish it.”
“She was also paid extra for the upcoming evaluation and visit prep, but her outputs had errors. When I asked her to correct them, she dismissed it and again cited her leave.”
“Later, I learned she told her program head I was ‘forcing’ her to work. It escalated to admin, and I felt like they believed her side more than mine.”
“That was my breaking point. I couldn’t continue working with her. I looked for another job, applied, got accepted and recently, I resigned.”
“Before leaving, I told her to her face that she was the reason I resigned. She looked upset, almost crying, but I honestly felt relieved finally saying it.”
“She’s been my friend since we were in college and I saw her do her best to graduate. I just couldn’t wrap my head around how she could do something like this to me. Heck, I even made her papers in college so she could pass some subjects.”
“Later, she insisted she never said I forced her, just that she asked about her workload. But considering how far things escalated, I still don’t fully believe that.”
“So, AITAH for telling her directly she was the reason I left?”
“Or should I have just kept quiet and let people assume it was all about marriage and stability?”
The OP summed up their situation:
“I helped a friend get hired, defended her against rumors, but she neglected her tasks and later made it look like I was forcing her to work.”
“Before resigning, I told her she was the reason I left.”
“AITAH for being that honest?”
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not wrong to be honest (NTA).
“NTA, you sound like you have a good heart, but maybe some difficulty seeing the bad in people. Even when they hurt you or go against you, you still want to make excuses for them.”
“I hope that this experience helps your perspective a little bit, some people really are not worth that kind of effort. Frankly I’m proud that you had the guts to say it to her face.”
“She’s probably hurt because most people don’t tell her the truth, they just quietly disappear from her life or something. Seems like you did a lot to help her and be a really good friend with little reciprocal generosity, and in my opinion you handled this perfectly.” ~ Aggravating-Vast5016
“NTA. Sounds like she never would have gotten that job on her own merit. At least you learned a lesson on how much to evaluate a situation before committing. And never put more effort in on a friend than they give back.”
“No offense intended, but you sound like you tend to people please like I do and jump to helping people anytime they ask. This can be exploited, as this friend did.”
“I highly doubt she had too much work and she most likely was slacking off and trying to make you do her job too, since you had done so previously. Since you were doing it, it looked like she was doing her work.”
“Once you stopped, she stopped looking good and it looked like it was related to you assigning her work. She was able to turn it around because of the timing and twisting the story.”
“This is why you don’t give them enough rope to hang you with. If they cannot do their job, they shouldn’t have it. So be careful how much you extend yourself in the future.”
“You don’t have to stop being nice, but you can be careful about not giving more than you are capable of doing. I hope you have a happier time in your new job.” ~ PsychologicalAd6029
“Keeping any contact with her is a risk to you. Move on in peace, NTA.” ~ AlwaysHelpful22
“You’ve got to protect yourself first. It’s hard, but cutting ties is probably the best move for your peace of mind!” ~ Shadow4summer
“Just move on. I had someone do this to me, only I nearly got fired over her bad behavior. I’m lucky that my bosses believed me over her. Just move on, you won’t get closure, she’ll never admit she was wrong.” ~ MusketeersPlus2
“What’s interesting, OP, is your coming around to who she really is, is quite classic of people who want to insist that their ‘friend’ ‘wouldn’t do such a thing’, even when everyone else around her is saying what she is.”
“This is classic sh*tty friend has good friend gaslit to defend their sh*tty friend. It’s only until it affects you that you finally see.”
“Well, I’m glad for that. NTA for telling her to her face why you quit. People like that don’t deserve the courtesy, compassion, and consideration they never showed you when they sh*t all over you.”
“NTA, OP. I’m really glad you finally got to see her for who she is. I guarantee you she’s always been like this, you saw the red flags, but made excuses because she was your friend. It’d be a good exercise for you to think about those times, so you can see she’s always been sh*tty.” ~ hdmx539
The OP provided an update:
“Thinking back, yeah, it’s always been me doing things for her. In college, until now.”
“After talking with my husband, he told me I gave her too many chances. And although he loves that about me, I should still be able to accept that not a lot of people should be given those chances, one being that ex-friend.”
“Thank you for understanding the situation and my perspective. Some of those here didn’t really understood and that’s fine.”
“Right now my admin is trying to get me to stay—offering me a better offer, but I declined because of her—because he knows how good I am at my job. Managing the office alone for how many years, with evaluation and visits every year, and never failing is a legacy I left.”
“If you work in a starting university, there’s a lot of compliance to do to stay afloat, to have a budget, etc… I was only called in the office twice, and those times were all because of her—once when she cried after I confronted her about being someone’s mistress, and second is the one in my post.”
“We have 6,000 books at most—that’s why I assigned the inventory to her in the earlier part of the year, and she had help in that even! Meanwhile, I’m handling the 11 parameters for an evaluation visit. And that’s not only paper, I also have to prepare the library itself.”
“But I’ll acknowledge I failed as her boss when I didn’t ask her to write reports, because I didn’t want anyone finding out she keeps failing at the simple tasks I gave her. At the end, I protected her again. And ultimately, that’s where I failed.”
Sometimes working with a friend is a great experience. Other times, it can destroy the friendship.
Unfortunately for OP, her ex-friend chose to make her workplace a nightmare.