'I am doing more babysitting than my actual job': Employee brings toddlers to office constantly and expects female coworker to watch them all day

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 28, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

One worker's life hack for free babysitting is driving his coworker up the wall. 

Sometimes your personal life can really get in the way of your work life. There are family emergencies, or perhaps you're dealing with your own health issues, or maybe your babysitter quits on you, and now you're stuck with your kids all day while you scramble to find a new one. At times, you might feel guilty for the burden this puts on your coworkers, and hopefully you work with your manager or HR to resolve the situation as quickly as you can. 

For this guy, his personal life is not only impeding on his work life, but it's deeply bothering his coworker. As a woman in a male-dominated field, she feels singled out by this dude. He keeps bringing his young kids into the office. And to be fair to him, he's dealing with some awful circumstances. But still, when this woman has a whole job to do, you can't just dump your children at her office and expect her to spend all day watching them for free. Luckily, commenters agreed with the original poster, and told her that she wasn't overreacting at all. It seems like her management and coworkers are trying to guilt her, but if they were in her shoes, they'd have the exact same complaints. 

After that, have a laugh at some of the funniest anonymous suggestions people had for their hospitals, like one person who thinks it'd be fun to "allow patients to vote each other off the ward." 

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    Cheezburger Image 10420705024
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    AITA for complaining about my coworker bringing his toddlers to the office?
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 03
    My office reopened a few weeks ago. One of my co-workers has 2 toddlers and he lost his wife during the pademic. They were a two income family and he told me that they were struggling a bit financially. especially after all the medical bills prior to his wife's death (may she rest in peace).
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 04
    Due to på demic, our office layout has changed and everyone required to come to office were given rooms to use instead of the cubicles we usually use. When my coworker requested in the team meeting to be allowed to bring his kids to work, none of us objected. We were sure that he would get a big office and it would not disturb us.
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 05
    I work in a male dominated field and there are only 3 female employees and I am the only one in our floor. My coworker constantly leaves his children with me for hours. I feel like I am doing more babysitting than my actual job. He doesn't even ask permission. he just asks the kids to go to my office. The kid just says "my dad asked me and my
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 06
    brother to stay with you". When I confront him he says that he is in a meeting or he needs to concentrate etc. The last straw for me was when I found out that he left the kids with me and had gone out for lunch with few of his office friends. I went to HR and complained about this.
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 07
    He confronted me and told me that because of my complaint he was told by the HR that he can work from home if he wants but he cannot bring his children to work anymore. He said that only reason he went to lunch was to gel more with the manager so that he is on their good side and to make sure that he will recieve hikes/bonus/promotion.
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 08
    He said that he would never be able to finish his work, hit his targets and get bonuses if he works from home and he is gonna lose a lot of money with babycare if h decides to come to the office (he is not wrong. It is ver hard and slow to wfh. work gets done much easier and faster from office).
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 09
    Now, everyone (edit: except my team and manager) are pred at me for complaining against a struggling father and grieving widower. AITA for directly going to the HR?
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 10
    I requested him several times not to send his kids to my office unannounced. But I never warned him that I would go to HR if he kept it up.
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 11
    Edit: For the sake of transparency, he has never lied to me. He does send his kids only when he has important meetings or deadlines. He is more client focused, so he has more meetings than me. My work is more internal and I rarely have meetings. His manager is known for taking it personally if people do not attend outside office activites such as lunches or dinners or weekend potlucks etc (he labels such people as "poor team players").
    via u/justwantedtoexplore
  • 12
    [deleted] ΝΤΑ You're not a babysitting service. It's especially insulting being left with the kids as a female. While his situation is unfortunate, it's not your responsibility to fix.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 13
    Jedi_Mind_Chick NTA. He has absolutely no business sending his children to your office w/o permission, as if you don't. have work to do, yourself. If you told him to stop multiple times, you had every right to go to HR. It's disturbing your work and is unprofessional. He needs to find child care.
    via u/Jedi_Mind_Chick
  • 14
    NiteGrimwood NTA "I understand that you are having a hard time but I am not your female replacement for watching your kids, do it yourself." Id. go to HR as well because this is not ok.
    via u/NiteGrimwood
  • 15
    ForzaA84 Ok, I was absolutely ready to call you the AH based on the first two paragraphs.... But then the actual issue showed up - it's not that he brings his kids, it's that he dumps his kids on you.
    via u/ForzaA84
  • 16
    Going to HR is absolutely the right call. What would happen if, god forbid, one of them had gotten into any sort of trouble (pulled a cable and got a shock, something dropped on them) while they were either "on their way" to you, or in your "care" (that you neither agreed to, nor, presumably, trained for) NTA
    via u/ForzaA84
  • 17
    (there's also the obvious. issue of your work being significantly impacted that you need to CYA for, but even without that...)
    via u/ForzaA84
  • 18
    Academic_Sno... NTA this is sexism in action - why didn't he leave his kids with his male coworkers?? Because: Sexism. 1. He did not ask you. He assumed. 2. He did not even tell you. He acted entitled. -
    via u/Academic_Snow_7680
  • 19
    3. You are not paid to be his babysitter. He never acknowledged to your workplace that you were helping him out. 4. He sabotaged your job by dumping his kids on you. He valued himself more than you BECAUSE YOU ARE A WOMAN. 5. He did all of this because you are a woman.
    via u/Academic_Snow_7680
  • 20
    This just showed the double standard and sexism at this workplace. If I were you I'd get myself a (female) labor- lawyer to guard your best interest. Do not accept this. Ask your coworkers why they didn't take care of his kids. Ask them if they would have liked to be dumped on like you were. Ask them why you specifically were targeted.
    via u/Academic_Snow_7680
  • 21
    Ask why you should let your job and the company suffer in order to help him out when nobody else was doing that. Play hardball.
    via u/Academic_Snow_7680

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