AITA for refusing to clock out early so my coworker can take her kid to the hospital?
I (31 F) carpool to work every day with four coworkers. We all live about an hour away from the office and have been carpooling ever since they forced us back to full time in person so that we could share commuting expenses (Gas and tolls).
One of my coworkers (let’s call her S) has a young child who recently got very sick.For the last few days he’s been having constant nosebleeds so bad that he’s even gone through an entire roll of toilet paper trying to stop the bleeding.
Last Sunday night it got so bad that they took him to the hospital. On Monday she still came to work as usual and didn’t mention anything about it until we were all driving home. That’s when she told us she hadn’t asked her boss for time off to take her kid to the hospital because she “didn’t think she would be allowed.” She also said that if she doesn’t get him seen soon, “he could die.”
She asked if the next day we could all take her car instead of the usual driver’s (Let’s call him A), and if everyone could clock out at 4:45 instead of 5:30 (5:30 is when A and I normally finish,the other 3 clock out at 5).
We told her we’d think about it and would need to clear it with our managers. After talking it over, A and I decided we would just find another ride home so S could leave whenever she needed. The plan was: she would drive her own car to work, we’d all ride with her in the morning, and then in the afternoon A and I would get a ride with someone else so she could go straight home and get her kid to the doctor.
When A called her later on that night to explain this plan to her, she got furious. She accused us of being heartless and not caring about her child, said “what goes around comes around,” and then dramatically announced she would just reschedule the doctor’s appointment so it “wouldn’t inconvenience us” even though we never asked her to do that, and even though she had just told us an hour before that her son’s nosebleeds haven’t stopped and he could literally die.
I’m angry because she was the one who originally said she’d take her own car and drop us off so she could go straight home to her kid and we were totally fine with that plan, but we knew there was no way our managers would let us leave 45 minutes early for someone else’s child. A and I don’t have children but honestly, if my kid was bleeding that much, I would have called out or left early the day before and taken him to the ER, not shown up to work and dropped the news casually on the commute home. I’m also confused, and concerned,at her saying that her kid ‘could die’ but yet she’s scheduling a doctor’s appointment instead of dropping everything and taking him straight to the ER.
So, AITA for refusing to clock out early so my coworker can take her kid to the ER?
Thank You
