'I left Melissa in the dust': New optometry worker clashes with employees' "niche" preferences

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    AITA for being petty and not helping struggling coworker? 1 (23F) started at a new job a couple of weeks ago at a small optometry practice. I had lots of prior experience and quickly became comfortable and got into the flow of things at this new office. My coworkers are a super nice and the owners/doctors are really chill.
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    The problem I'm running into is that all my coworkers have their own "niche" that they prefer to do, and for some of them that's ALL they will do. For example, "Andrea" prefers pre testing patients before they see the doctor, and if the phone is ringing off the hook and there's no one to answer she will let it go to voicemail because it's "the front desk job." I've asked the owners if there really are that rigid of
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    positions, and they said they want everyone cross-trained and jumping in to help where needed. Anyway, today was a little rougher. I'm 38 weeks pregnant and have been incredibly sore and slow today. Usually it's not an issue, but for some reason today my body is not having it. I was scheduled to pre test today, which involves a lot of time on my feet. After struggling through the
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    first half of the day I felt like I'm going to collapse. I asked my coworker "Melissa" (40-ishF), who was scheduled today in billing, if it would be okay if I taught her how to do the pre testing so I could trade her for an hour to get off my feet for a bit.
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    Melissa told me "I don't want to learn how to pre test. If I learn how to do it I'll get shoe-horned into it every day." (This is definitely not true, I am cross trained in all the tasks and I rotate what I'm doing daily.)
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    I was almost in tears for the rest of the day trying to do the testing. I was waddling painfully and had stabbing pelvic pain. My boss offered to let me go home after noticing my walk, but I need the money and haven't worked there long enough to get PTO yet.
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    Toward the end of the day I pre tested the last patient and got to finally sit down and chart for a bit. The pain pretty quickly started to fade after that. Nearby, Melissa was getting flooded with phone calls and patients with insurance questions. I'm trained on billing and would normally have jumped right in to help, but I was feeling kind of petty and chose not to.
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    Melissa turned to me after a bit and asked if I would take a call on hold to answer some billing questions for a really angry patient. I'm a little ashamed of this but I responded "I'd rather not get shoe-horned into billing duties all the time." Melissa glared at me and turned back to her computer. She was incredibly stressed and overwhelmed after that.
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    As the cherry on top, my boss came up to tell me I was good to leave thirty minutes early and that he'd pay me for that time, so I left Melissa in the dust. My husband says that while I was a bit petty, I'm not TA because I treated Melissa the same as she treated me. My conscience is bugging me about it and I'm stressed that I've created drama in an otherwise drama-free work
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    environment. But at the same time I don't feel like I was asking too much. AITA?
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    curly_lox I appreciate your pettiness. in this situation. It is not cool to ask for help from somebody you declined to help earlier. NTA
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    [deleted] Sometimes, when you are physically suffering and someone refuses to do even the teensiest bit to help, a dose of petty is fine. I wouldn't make a habit of this, but if your BOSS can see you are in total pain and is letting you go home early with pay? Melissa set the tone, you just followed her lead. :) NTA. (And if you
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    have to follow up with Melissa, explain to her that you were fatigued from the pain you had to deal with all day pretesting and didn't have the bandwidth for an angry customer. I don't think you need to full-on apologize, just give her the reason and let her reflect. )
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    Necessary-Treacle... NTA. You provided a learning experience for your unhelpful co-worker. What comes around goes around. She brought this on herself. If she'd been game to learn how to pre-test and swap with you for a little bit, she might have been doing that, and you might have been
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    the one getting slammed in billing and you would've - probably been happy to deal with that because at least it wasn't causing you physical pain.
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    halfadash6 NTA, karma • Really rich of Melissa to refuse to help you, then try to off an especially difficult customer on you. I'd say you should apologize to keep the peace but I can't even figure out what you'd apologize for "sorry I did to you exactly what you did to me"?
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    stacity NTA The real As are your bosses. For not having an organized flow of work and distribution. With this system, tasks/patients will start falling in the cracks. Address your situation to your boss about your workload.
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    anonymoussharka... NTA. While normally I wouldn't find too much issue with people preferring to do a certain task as there are endless reasons it may be better for them, you reached out for help at a time you were struggling and got denied that help.
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    Buster-of-Ghosts You didn't create the drama Melissa did, NTA
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    [deleted] NTA. She refused to switch with you, even though you were obviously in pain, because she prefers billing, so she needs to do the billing without asking for help if she can't pitch in. You treated her the way she treated you and if she doesn't like it, then she should reflect upon that.
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