Entitled coworker keeps volunteering employee for extra work, she finally confronts him: 'Oh, Sarah can take that, she’s great with client calls!'

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Nov 3, 2025 4:00 PM EST

In every workplace environment, there is an overeager coworker who likes to volunteer for extra responsibilities no matter what. 

Oftentimes, this person wants to be considered valuable and worthy of a promotion. It's understandable, unless it comes at the expense of making other folks on the team look bad. It can also be frustrating when this type of individual goes out of their way to suggest extra work that, as a result, affects the workload of other unwilling participants.

In this instance, we're dealing with a totally different kind of coworker. Instead, we've got someone who goes out of his way to volunteer other employees for various projects.

No, he's not the boss. No, he's not doing this out of the goodness of his heart. In fact, he likely wants to shirk any responsibilities of his own by throwing other folks under the bus. It's about as unbecoming as it gets, and yes, if you somehow want to make enemies out of your coworkers, then it's worth following this guy's lead.

Keep scrolling below to see how this author stood up to his unnecessary entitlement!

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  • Two young business colleagues working together on a new project with a laptop computer in the office
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  • Thankfully, it seems that after a much-needed confrontation, this dude may have actually learned his lesson. For whatever reason, he thought he was successfully spreading the wealth so that everyone had a relatively equal amount of work on their respective plates. However, in reality, he kept volunteering the author (and the author alone) for all these extra projects that kept coming up. It wouldn't be until after being called out about it that he finally took several steps back.

  • "My coworker keeps volunteering me for things I didn’t agree to"

    I work in a small marketing team, and we have one coworker, Ben, who's the definition of "helpful to a fault." Except... he's helpful with my time, not his.
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  • Example: our boss asked who could handle a client follow-up. Before I could even respond, Ben goes, "Oh, Sarah can take that, she's great with client calls!"
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  • Another meeting: someone mentions needing someone to update the internal newsletter. Ben: "Sarah's already really familiar with that process." (I wasn't.)
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  • He's volunteered me for four separate things this month, none of which I agreed to or had time for.
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  • I finally confronted him and asked him to stop speaking for me. He looked genuinely confused and said, "I just thought I was helping show initiative for our team."
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  • So I told him: "If you want to show initiative, volunteer yourself."
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  • Now whenever someone asks for a volunteer, he looks at me, smiles, and says, "Not this time, I'm learning." Progress, I guess.
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  • LeaJadis 20h ago . You are missing an opportunity here. The next time he volunteers you, make sure you thank him and tell him he is being too modest and he is so much better at that. You know he is a much better fit.
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  • Two modern businessmen discuss work in the office.
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  • Strict-Secretary-... • 20h ago Classic coworker move: team player when it's your workload, solo act when it's theirs.
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  • Unpopularbelief1x • 15h ago . Speak UP. Say: Thank you, Ben, for the kind words, but I am NOT available/don't know that/whatever. I decline at this time.
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  • TapNo99 17h ago. Why is no one else asking if that's ok for you?
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  • Petty_Paw_Printz • 14h ago I had this same issue with a coworker last year. I had to confront and correct her every time something came up before it finally stopped.
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  • Its crazy I had to do that and in the same boat you had to say anything to this guy. Its alarming how many people don't have even a basic
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  • don't have even a basic grasp of boundaries and need other people to reign in their foolishness. Hopefully he continues to improve.
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  • A_Reddit_User_1... • 16h ago I would have made a huge scene in the middle of the meeting, and screamed "unless the words come from my mouth, do not volunteer me for more work, my plate is full with the work I was hired to do!"
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  • Two young business colleagues discuss work while sharing a desk.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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terrible coworkers workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace job work coworkers entitled coworker company toxic-work-environment
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