Her letter
I work in a small five-person team. A month ago, my coworker Anna had a devastating miscarriage at six months pregnant. She understandably took two weeks off.
Because I’m the only one trained in her specialty, my manager asked me to take over her project. I said no. I’d already been covering for another colleague weeks earlier, and I was exhausted.
Now the project is falling apart. The team is furious. I’ve been called selfish, cold, even cruel.
But no one knows the full story. Last year, when my mom was hospitalized, Anna covered for me. She missed a deadline — and instead of admitting it, she told our boss I lied about my mom being sick to avoid responsibility. She accused me of faking a family emergency.
She never apologized. She just acted like it never happened.
So when tragedy struck her, I couldn’t bring myself to step in. I know it makes me look heartless. But how do you sacrifice yourself for someone who once tried to ruin you?
It could be a quiet struggle between empathy and self-protection.
Psychologists say that compassion fatigue is real: when we feel drained from constantly giving, our instinct for self-preservation takes over. In workplaces, this is magnified by betrayal — once trust is broken, rebuilding it is incredibly difficult.
Choosing not to help doesn’t always come from cruelty. Sometimes it comes from old wounds we’re still carrying.
Why your coworkers may see you as the villain.
At work, people rarely know the entire backstory. They see the immediate crisis, not the years of tension behind it. To them, refusing to cover for a grieving coworker feels cold.
But what they don’t see is the hidden history — the accusations, the mistrust, the scars left behind.
Until we allow space for honesty, workplaces will continue to punish people who quietly protect themselves while rewarding those who loudly play the victim.
