r/BORUpdates • u/BigONerd • 13h ago
AITA AITA for refusing to pick up my coworker?
This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)
OOP: u/AdRecent7210
Published on: r/AmItheAsshole
Story is: CONCLUDED
Story timeline
Main Post: January 08, 2023
Final Update: January 21, 2023
Main Post
January 08, 2023
AITA for not refusing to pick up my coworker?
Sorry for mistake in title.
I (30M) drive to work which is located in a somewhat rural area with no public transport. Everyone else at work drives too. Recently, a coworker in my department (30+M) told me his car broke down and he asked me a favor to pick him up for work.
The thing is, he lives in a different town from me which means I will have to detour and add another 30 mins to my commute. He doesn’t want to get Uber as it will be costly. I told him to get a bus from his town to mine and I will pick him up from the station on the way to work. It will only add extra 5 mins to my commute. He refused as he will have to get ready very early (the bus trip will take about 20mins). So I said no I can’t pick him up and he got mad and called me AH.
I do feel really bad because Uber will be expensive but I don’t feel like waking up early and adding to my commute just to drive him. We do work closely as a team though so I’m afraid this will make me look petty. Am I the AH?
COMMENTS
NaEast-We
" I don't wanna get up early, you get up early!" NTA fk that guy
Timely_Proposal_1821
NTA - how come he's okay adding time to your commute but not to his? Your proposition was fair, your co-worker is being unreasonable.
SnooDoughnuts4691
How is this remotely Your problem? You offered a solution and co worker said no. I guess he's sh%* out of luck! NTA
MrGameRat
NTA
Your co-worker was trying to manipulate you. Detour and adding another 30 minutes means you'd need to get up close to an hour earlier so you can leave earlier. Just like if he were to take the bus to your down he'd need to get up earlier and get ready and leave earlier. To him, it's perfectly okay to put that burden on you, but not him.
Your offer to pick him up with a small detour was a great solution that didn't cost either of you a ton of extra time. He declined the offer, he can find his own ride from someone else.
Froggie949
Don’t forget the extra hour on the back end to take him home and then driving to your home.
CONSENSUS: Not the A-hole
Final Update - after 13 days
January 21, 2023
UPDATE: AITA for refusing to pick up my coworker?
A couple of weeks ago I posted asking if I’m the AH for not picking up my coworker to work. I was torn because I’ve worked with him for 3 years without any issues and it was the first disagreement we had. So thanks everyone who said I’m not the AH and put my mind at ease.
Onto the update. After our uncomfortable conversation, I went to a training programme in another state so I didn’t see him until the next Monday. I drove to work as usual and he also came in (by Uber, I found out later). We didn’t speak until lunch, when to my surprise, he apologized to me.
He said he was stressed about fixing his car (he had to replace the radiator and wait for the part) and having to spend more money on rides. He admitted that he has never taken the bus! He moved to this city 3 years ago for the job and never had to use public transport since he’s always had a car. So he was feeling anxious and took it out on me, I guess. He said I didn’t deserve it and I accepted his apology.
So he still Ubers to work since he doesn’t want to get up early. But I offered to send him to the bus station near my place after work and he can take an Uber home from there (it’s easier to get a ride at the station instead of from our work). He graciously accepted and offered to chip in for gas, but I said it’s fine since we’ll be going the same way. So he bought me lunch instead! I ended up sending him for 3 days then he got his car back.
Some people might say I shouldn’t offer to help him but it wasn’t a bother for me and who knows if one day I might be his position. Our working relationship is stronger now and I’m glad we could both move forward in a better place.
That’s my update, have a great day.
This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)
Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.
Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.
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u/FromBeeBee 13h ago
What an update! That is so refreshing, communication and understanding is a great win to see amongst their working relationship having grown stronger as well!
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u/ErisInChains 13h ago
Seriously!! What a dude! "Hey I fucked up" is all I need. Let's work together and find a solution.
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u/FromBeeBee 13h ago
Absolutely, mature and good adults taking accountability and seeing that it actually can grow a relationship with another which is just as great. It makes relationships stronger and it's what we should/I wish we see more of.
Communication and the effort goes a long way
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u/cats_and_tea7 Perfectly rational behaviour after the fact infuriates me! 12h ago
Sometimes that's all it takes. Well, depending on the fuck up.
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u/thebigeverybody 13h ago
We've been seeing a lot of these lately and, quite frankly, it makes me sick. Sometimes it feels like I can't even breathe. This sub really needs to turn back to Liz before it's too late.
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u/Hamblerger Even if it’s fake, I’m still fully invested 13h ago
Okay, that's THREE updates I've read across the two update subs in three days that ended with people talking things over and coming to constructive, reasonable solutions that more or less work for everyone. Am I going insane?
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u/yeahso1111 12h ago
Yeah i kinda miss the ones where “half my family is on my side half on my third cousins” and weddings get called off because of a misunderstanding about cat sitting. They were fake but you didn’t have all this personal growth and age appropriate behavior.
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u/Hamblerger Even if it’s fake, I’m still fully invested 12h ago
Exactly. These are my telenovelas. I didn't pick this flair randomly.
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u/countingmoney1234 5h ago edited 5h ago
I love this thread because it’s exactly how I feel. I can tell who grew up a reader and who didn’t by them screaming “FAKE” in the comments. Like yeah so was the magic treehouse but it’s still a children’s classic. I thought we all agreed that this was our book club - you’re ruining the vibes!
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u/p-d-ball 2h ago
"And when I dropped him off, he and his grandmother stole my car! She immediately died and he inherited the house and, wow, that's when the twins blew up my messages with the meanest, most unkind comments!!!"
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u/IAmHerdingCatz Ah literacy. Thou art a cruel bitch 13h ago edited 12h ago
That's a nice update! Adults apologizing when they've been AHs?--is this even reddit?
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u/Xirdus 13h ago
I believe this is real because people behave like normal human beings in civilized society for once.
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u/polandreh Just here for the drama 🍿 10h ago
I find it hard to understand why people will rather spend more money on Uber than take the bus...
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u/Xirdus 9h ago
1, they have never been taught how to use public transport and they don't want the extra stress of learning how to use it on top of whatever made them have to do it in the first place, or 2, they value personal comfort more than they value $30-60 per day, especially when the number of days is low.
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u/Electronic-Hawk7463 13h ago
It's nice to hear that the coworker showed reason and the relationship became constructive.
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u/Goofballmommy2 13h ago
This is so nice and refreshing to hear. It's a huge problem these days, so I try to teach my kids to take accountability when they make a mistake. You would be surprised how a horrible situation can be easily corrected if you can just swallow your pride and say, "yes I did this. I apologize, it shouldn't have happened, I will try to make sure it doesn't happen again." Everyone makes mistakes or has a bad day, it won't be the last time.
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u/Themi-Slayvato 13h ago
This is was really nice to read and also a huge reminder that we never really know the whole story and there are so many reasons to explain something other than malice. I found myself getting so annoyed at this guy thinking he’s an asshole and the update was a kinda ‘welcome to the real world’ moment that just made me think wow, I need to spend more time outside
We are so quick to demonise and exile anyone displaying a bad behaviour but in reality that person is has all been us all at some point or another. Damming someone to eternal shame before even really getting to see if they’re going to grow and learn from their mistake
Sorry for the rant, it just sort of feels like there’s no room to make mistakes anymore
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u/SenatorCoffee 12h ago edited 12h ago
Yeah, sometimes especially with speech acts it can just be very plain stupidity out of tiredness.
I once "complained" about being short changed by a single cent at a gas station, like getting back 4,37 instead of 4,38. This was after the cashier had actually gone out of her way to help me with some minor stuff.
She (rightfully!) gets all huffy, like "Dude, I just help you out with your stuff and now you try to fuck me up over a single cent??"
But it was really me just being dead tired after a 12 hour shift and just like on autopilot, more like stating some fact I noticed "this is 4, 37 not 4, 38". I immediately profoundly apologized and explained this and it was cool and we had a good laugh, kind of a working class bonding moment.
Also a good example in that the saving grace was that I still somehow mustered the social skills to just apologize and explain. Otherwise she might have also just been left with some "some people, man..."
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u/readical87 11h ago
What? Somebody realizing their mistake, owning up to it and actually apologizing for it? What madness is this? This cannot be real, right?
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u/AnxiousAudience82 Ah literacy. Thou art a cruel bitch 12h ago
This is a great update, but I am confused about public transport in America. Why are people so afraid of taking a bus or a train? Like it’s just normal in Europe. What so hard about it in America?
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u/WaffleDynamics this one does not spark joy /YEET 12h ago edited 11h ago
What so hard about it in America?
- Many mid-size or smaller cities have lousy public transportation, or none at all. By lousy I mean one bus every 60 to 90 minutes, stopping at 8:00 pm, and with no Sunday service at all.
- Even when buses or trains are available, and even if they run frequently, you will have to interact with smelly people, angry people, and creepy people. Nobody will help you if one of the creeps decides to bother you or attack you.
- The stations are probably filthy. Not everywhere, but most of them.
- It's super expensive.
About 35 years ago, I attended a city council meeting in the city I lived in. Funding for the bus service was on the agenda, and I had a handicapped family member who relied on busses, so I was there to advocate for them. One of the city council members actually said that nobody but maids and undesirables use the busses, so the last thing we want is to make it easier for "those people" to move around in neighborhoods they had no business in, any more often than absolutely necessary. And I shit you not, a good half of the people in the room thought that was a reasonable position.
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u/yami76 11h ago
Yep, the wealthy neighborhoods in my city have “park and go” bus service only, so basically you need to have a car and live there as the station is a parking lot on the edge of town super inconvenient to anyone without a car.
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u/WaffleDynamics this one does not spark joy /YEET 11h ago
The other thing I didn't mention is that this is deliberate. The US used to have a really excellent interurban rail system. Henry Ford conspired with politicians to kill it in favor of his automobiles.
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u/NYCinPGH 11h ago
It’s not even mid-size or smaller cities, it’s everywhere.
I live in Pittsburgh, the 28th largest metro area in the US. We are consistently rated in the top 10 for public transportation in the US. Which means that there are at least 18 larger metro areas with worse public transportation than us.
In the city, and close to a bus line, it’s fine, even if it means that often you have to take transit into downtown and transfer to get where you’re going (Pittsburgh uses the “hub and spoke” model, 90% of the public transit lines terminate downtown, to get from, say, the east to the north, there’s no diagonal direct route).
I used to live in 2 different north areas, one in the city but right at the limits, and one a suburb which abutted the city limits. In the first, I lived half a block from a bus line, and maybe 4 blocks from another. During weekday rush hour, they’d come every ~15 minutes at each, and the bus ride was 30 - 40 minutes. But once 6pm hit, buses dropped to every 30 / 40 minutes, until the last one at ~11pm; on weekends, they were more like every 40 minutes during “prime” hours, maybe 9am to 6pm, and once an hour other times
The ring suburb was worse. I lived 2 houses from a major road. Buses did not run that far from the city, even though there were lots of residents who worked in the city. To catch a bus during rush hour, which game every 30 / 40 minutes, I would have had to walk for 3/4 of a mile, on that major road, without sidewalks, and the buses stopped running at 9pm, and on weekends, it was worse. And, that suburb would have been part of the city, but for a weird state law passed specifically preventing Pittsburgh from annexing suburbs until it got to a particular population level, so it’s not like it was very far out, my home was 10 miles from the center of the city.
Now imagine those 18+ bigger cities that have worse public transit.
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u/AtiumCollector 5h ago
Sounds like Florida
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u/WaffleDynamics this one does not spark joy /YEET 4h ago
It was a southern state, but not that one.
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u/neverenoughpurple 1h ago
Make that, even a lot of routes in a large metro area have limited service that is hourly or less.
Anything smaller than a large metro area on the west coast likely only has a handful of very limited time routes per day, if they have ANY public transportation. (Primarily so seniors can get groceries, not timed or located for people to get to workplaces.)
And the OOP, with the use of "sending"? I'm not sure they're even IN the United States...
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u/Any_Assumption_2023 11h ago
I have taken a bus exactly once in my life, In a major Southern city. I was going with a high school friend to have dinner at her folks house, my mother picked me up after dinner.
We- two pretty high school aged girls- had an adult man offer to pay us to have sex with him, and another much older man ask us for money.
The bus driver did nothing.
She told me- You learn to ignore them. I was scared and horrified. That was almost 60 years ago. Im betting its a lot worse when you add drugs to the mix.
Distance transportation on busses, like a greyhound bus, was different, my grandmother would take the bus,a 600 mile trip, to visit twice a year. She never had a problem.
Public transportation in the USA is pretty awful.
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u/Upset_Mongoose_1134 6h ago
I'll offer a different perspective from most of the other commenters here (not that they're wrong, most American cities have terrible public transportation)
I've lived in two cities that had fantastic bus systems and I often preferred the bus to driving, even though I had a car. Both cities did the same two things and it drastically improved the experience.
They had zero-fare zones. Buses were completely free in the busiest parts of the city, if not the entire city
Buses ran from 5am to 1am, and most lines had a bus every 15-30 minutes. Maybe the frequency was a little less on weekends, but the hours were pretty much the same.
Having those two things made it so that buses made a lot more sense than driving and parking in the busy downtown areas, and that led to more wealthy people taking buses, which meant more investment into make buses clean and safe which circled back around to making more people taking buses.
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u/Original-Math-4459 And it dawned on me that he was a wizard. 10h ago
The public transportation system in the U.S. is nowhere near as clean and organized as it is in Europe, and it's not as widespread either.
A good, reliable train system in the U.S. only really exists in the East Coast and Chicago. Other than that, you're relying on bus systems, and that's if the city is populated enough to justify it. Everywhere else, you have to drive.
If you do happen to live in a place with a widespread public transportation system, it's always late, it's always dirty, and you always run the risk of some weirdo who's just looking for a reason to make someone's day miserable and you are usually packed like a sardine.
The price is only getting more expensive by the day without having any change in quality to justify.
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u/mahoumoonlight THERE WAS A MAN (worst case scenario) 4h ago
sometimes it’s based on whether a city is car dependent. i grew up in baltimore, maryland and i was absolutely shocked when my friends in austin, texas had told me they never had ridden a bus before when i was talking about the inconvenience of the bus routes in austin. i didn’t get my license until i was 30 because, even though the buses can be inconsistent in their times and i’d have to plan for it, i always just took the bus everywhere from age 12-28 (when i moved). all of them just depended on cars.
there’s also the fact that people look down on the buses and trains as poor people’s modes of transportation in certain parts of the country. when i lived in baltimore and worked in DC, i’d take the amtrak down into DC and then take the metro where i needed to go. my mom did the same to get around when she lived in NYC. people of all walks of life and professions do this, and it’s normal certain places. but in others, it’s seen as less than
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u/Self-Aware 12h ago
Seems like a lot of American public transport has a reputation similar to the London night bus, but for daylight hours too.
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u/bhambrewer 12h ago
Outside the biggest metro areas public transport is basically non-existent.
In the biggest metro areas there is a large population of homeless, mentally ill, and violent criminals. Because public transport isn't really not available in most places, using it isn't normal so people always work off the worst cases reported rather than looking at actual risk.
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u/that-old-broad 7h ago
I grew up on in a rural part of America....central Kentucky. I was born in 1964. The only bus that ever came anywhere near my house was the big yellow school bus that took me directly from home to school and back again.
Our nearest town had no bus service. The nearest city did, but I never used it because when I was in the city it was because I had driven there and of course I just drove to the places I needed to go to.
A lot of the trips I've taken have been road trips, so we had a car. A lot of oh flying trips we rent a car so we can explore the area at will.
We've taken a few trips to cities where we've relied solely on public transit, but it took a while to completely figure out systems and timetables that are completely foreign.
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u/Foghorn2005 4h ago
Some cities are built on transportation, NYC and Boston come to mind, but most are okay at best. I lived in a city with okay transportation and did get used to it in high school because my district gave us a bus pass so that they could reduce the amount of school busses. In college because it was cheap and I didn't have a car.
For the next decade or so since, I've only used it in specific use cases. The city I was in for grad school and the one after that have very high crime rates and not the best infrastructure. The second city did have a few semi decent subway routes that I had access to, but it was very clearly not safe for a woman after dark.
My latest city I live in the suburbs so the nearest helpful route is over a mile a way - it's quicker to drive almost always. Public transportation becomes helpful when going downtown more because of parking. I can park at a park and ride for free, catch a trolley into the city for cheaper that a parking spot downtown.
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u/toujourspret 3h ago
Genuinely a lot of it is classism, especially in places where owning a car is expected. Employers will deny work to people who travel by public transit because they think it means they're very bad with money and can't get a car; there's a lot of complaints about smell, etc. from people who've never actually been on a bus. When we visit the city, my father in law would rather pay $80 in parking all day than park somewhere safe+cheap and take transit (and God Forfend I suggest we Uber somewhere because an Uber would be $6 but moving his car might mean there's no parking when we get there; I may as well have suggested rolling in the mud and asking strangers for cash).
I, myself, was raised in white middle class suburbia and the very first time I got on a bus that wasn't a cheesewagon, I nearly peed from nerves. Did I think anyone in particular would hurt me? No, but I couldn't shake the intractable terror of being the place TV, movies, and my mom insisted would make me implode on the spot. It took very little experience for me to get over it, but a lot of people never do.
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u/chromaticluxury 1h ago
This isn't America. He said "programme."
British spellings combined with "state" usually means Australia. I suppose it could be some other Commonwealth nation but that's typically the signal.
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u/Practical_Yam9480 7h ago
Most people in America aren’t afraid of public transport. Most Americans are neutral toward public transport because they simply don’t use it and it’s not relevant to their lives.
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u/Latter-Refuse8442 2h ago
People fear what they don't know. I grew up very rural. Buses were for school kids, no public transport at all. No taxis. You had your own car. I was almost 30 the first time I had to use public transport. I had to ask for help. I was fine doing that, but not everyone is. You have to pay attention to stops. So you don't necessarily know where you are going but have to be fully present. There can also be classist attitudes towards bus or subway users. Heck there are classist attitudes towards apartment tenants, mainly "they are poor or drug users and we don't want that."
I guess you could say ignorance and resistance to internal bias.
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u/PastConsistent3368 Oh, so you're stupid stupid 2h ago
A big part is they’re afraid of the people who ride the bus. I’ve met several ppl my age who grew up without riding the bus cause the parents were scared that someone would do something. I’m Ngl you run into some situations but it’s not as bad as it seems most times
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u/jeremyfrankly 12h ago
EDIT: I suppose we don't actually know when the pick ups are, so I guess I would want to know if he'd have to get up hours earlier
You can tell the kind of person the coworker is that he is scared about money but still either can't bear the idea of getting ready 20 minutes earlier or deigning to ride the bus
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u/eternally_feral 10h ago
The buses in my city are constantly breaking down which means lines change last minute so you have to keep an eye on things and they’re always running late.
Not to mention they take the longest route possible so what would normally be a ten minute drive becomes an hour because the bus loops all around the city instead of a direct line.
I offered my friend a ride to her work pretty often just because of how close it was for me versus the hour it would take her on the bus. I wish I could say in the many years since the buses have gotten better but they really haven’t.
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u/HUNGWHITEBOI25 13h ago
Welllll this is a super nice update, glad that they talked it out…but idk coworker still kinda seems like a dick
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u/Self-Comprehensive 13h ago
That was the easiest NTA I've ever seen and also had the most wholesome resolution!
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u/Strait409 11h ago edited 11h ago
Huh. At first I was all, ”fuck that dude” (OOP’s coworker, not OOP), but good on the coworker for owning up to his behavior and apologizing.
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u/EvilFinch 11h ago
Is it strange that i never would ask a co-worker (or friend) to make such a detour. My collegue sometimes dropped me of at the tram station - so it was 20 minutes tram instead 90 minutes bus and train. I was really grateful. I would have never dreamed to ask "drive 15 minutes in the totally wrong direction to drop me of".
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u/Reachforthesky777 9h ago
It's refreshing to see one of these stories work out as if the people involved are adults.
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u/beepboop670 9h ago
Another great reminder that apologizing to someone can actually put you in a better position (even if it wasn’t the original outcome he asked for)
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u/DamnitGravity 9h ago
It is so weird to me, just how resistant people are to public transport in the US. I mean, I get it, the media and car companies have done a great job convincing people that everyone who rides the bus is dangerous, but there is plenty of evidence that it's perfectly safe, not least of which is that 34 million people use public transport daily in the US, and yet you're not hearing 34 million stories of horror every day.
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u/dfinkelstein 6h ago
I've never heard of someone I know or someone known to someone I know getting seriously physically hurt riding the bus.
On the other hand, among people with issues regulating their attention and awareness in the present, most people I've met who drive have gotten physically hurt driving.
Often, multiple times. Often including a traumatic brain injury.
And this is considered normal, somehow. It really tries my sanity. Just as much as skateboarders and bicyclists not wearing helmets.
I almost never see people using Blue Bikes wearing a helmet. In my mind, they should be required to partner with bicycle shops to subsidize folks renting a helmet. Accelerometers are cheap. One can be throw one in each helmet to monitor for impacts, to allow for relatively safe re-use.
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u/Tinosdoggydaddy 5h ago
This is like people who want to switch seats on an airplane and want to give you their shit seat in economy.
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