Student working retail declines to cover coworker's shift, leaving them wondering about whether or not they should be covering every shift they are requested to cover: 'They didn’t get mad, but they were clearly annoyed'

Working any type of role that relies on shift work, but especially in retail or in the service industry, relies on a delicate internal economy of exchanging shifts. 

You're never allowed to just take time off, and every time you try, your manager gives you a speech about how "Short-staffed" they are going to be and tells you that you need to "find coverage." But the schedule is never consistent or predictable, and your manager also "forgets" to take into account your scheduling preferences and restrictions, at any time that is convenient for them, and then demands that you figure it out for them

There will always, without fail, be that one coworker who always wants to give up shifts that are inconvenient for them, but is never willing to take on any extra shifts in return or repay any favors or inconveniences that they might have burdened onto their coworkers. 

It's usually either a veteran worker, too, who is older than their relatively young coworkers, whose life is somewhat in a constant state of disarray, and they seem to be wearing at the already threadbare ends of their own sanity, but can't quite see it themselves. For some reason, they've always gotten by by the skin of their teeth, with their immediate manager feeling that they have too much history together to simply let them go for reasons they might another employee.

Eventually, after going out of your way for them a number of times, only to have them bluntly refuse every time you have asked them to return the favor, you'll reach a point where you grow tired of sticking your neck out and covering for them. That, among one thousand other small cuts, will eventually lead to you reaching this point.

And, the moment you refuse to cover one shift, they get hostile and blow it up into a whole thing, and it expands into a "big deal" that involves the entire workplace. Just when it seems like things might be reaching a breaking point and someone actually is going to get fired, the manager steps in, calms everyone down, and sweeps the entire thing under the rug.  

You go on to watch them repeat this same pattern of behavior with every new hire that joins, and you start to realize that you, too, were really only one in the next in a long chain of fresh hires who will go through this same process. History repeats itself, ad infinitum, and likely will long after you leave that job.

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  • This worker found themselves facing something similar to this, being asked almost every week to cover some shift or another by the same coworker. Even if you don't mind doing this, if they're not taking one of your shifts in return, or if you are pushing simply too many consecutive shifts onto your schedule, eventually you'll find that you can't keep up, and things (your body) start to break down as all that overworking and under-everything-else-in-your-life starts to accumulate.

    Still, turning down their coworker's next request for them to cover their shift left them wondering if they had done the wrong thing, and they turned to seeking advice on the subject. See their original message below. 

  • A retail worker smiles wearily at a customer from behind the counter
    via Brooke Cagle

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

  • "AITA for saying no when my coworker asked to switch shifts again?"

    so i work part time at a retail job while im in school. it's nothing serious but it helps pay for stuff and i try to keep my schedule pretty organized. one of my coworkers has asked me to switch shifts with them a lot over the past few months. at first i didn't really mind. if i was free i'd just say yes and move things around.
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • but lately it's been happening almost every week. sometimes they'll ask the night before or the morning of and i already planned my homework or other stuff around my shift. last week they asked again and i said no. i told them i just really need my schedule to stay more stable because switching all the time has been stressing me out.
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • they didn't get mad but they were clearly annoyed and said something like "ok i'll figure it out." since then things at work have felt kinda weird and they've been quieter around me. i feel bad because i know they probably actually needed the time off and weren't just asking for no reason. but at the same time i feel like i'm always the one expected to be flexible.
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • some of my friends say i didn't do anything wrong, but one said that if i could've helped and chose not to then that's kinda shitty. now i keep thinking about it and wondering if i handled it wrong. AITA?
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: i might be the asshole because i said no to switching shifts even though my coworker needed the time off. my action was refusing to take their shift after i had done it many times before. this affected them because they then had to find someone else or possibly work when they didn't want to. from their point of view i might seem selfish or like i stopped helping without much warning, especially since i had agr
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • jdo5000 NTA they were probably coming to you all the time because everyone else is fed up of swapping with them if they're doing it that often.
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • ParticularAd1735 NTA. For future reference, you need not explain why you don't want to change shifts. Simply say "I'm not available to work that day."
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • Jacce76 NTA your coworker needs to speak to the manager and let them know what her availability actually is. You don't make the schedule so it's not on you to fix it.
    via Responsible_Bus5138
  • Ok-Complex5075 NTA. You did a nice thing and you don't always have to do it. That coworker should consider changing their availability if they're struggling to show up to work when they are scheduled. Also, it's not up to you to continuously cover their shifts. If they're going to be cold and rude because you didn't want to do it, that speaks volumes about them, not you.
    via Responsible_Bus5138

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