Woman Carpools to Work with Coworkers. Now She’s ‘Angry’ When Colleague Asks to Leave Early to Take Her Child to the Hospital

A woman is questioning whether she’s in the wrong for refusing to clock out early so her coworker could get home to her seriously ill child.

The original poster (OP) shared on Reddit’s AITA forum that she carpools to work with four coworkers. They all live about an hour from the office and started carpooling when they were required to return to the workplace full-time.

One coworker, referred to as “S,” has a young child who recently became very sick. According to OP, the child has been having severe nosebleeds for days — bad enough that he used an entire roll of toilet paper to try to stop one. Things escalated so much that S took him to the hospital on Sunday, but still showed up to work as usual on Monday.

S told her coworkers she hadn’t requested time off because she didn’t think it would be approved. She also said she was terrified that if her son wasn’t seen properly soon, he could die. She then asked whether, the next day, they could use her car for the carpool instead of their usual driver “A,” and if everyone could clock out at 4:45 p.m. instead of their normal times. OP and one coworker are scheduled until 5:30 p.m., while the others finish at 5 p.m.

OP said that she and A told S they’d think about it and would need to check with their managers. After discussing it, OP and A decided they would simply arrange a different ride home so S could leave when she needed to and not rely on the group’s schedule.

However, when A called S to share this plan, S became “furious.” She accused them of being heartless and not caring about her child. S then dramatically declared that she would cancel her child’s doctor’s appointment so it wouldn’t inconvenience them — even though OP and A hadn’t asked her to do that.

OP says she’s frustrated because they had tried to offer S a solution that let her leave early without disrupting anyone else’s job, and she knew their managers would not approve them clocking out for someone else’s family emergency.

She also pointed out that if her own child were bleeding enough to need a hospital trip, she would either take the day off or leave early herself, rather than expect coworkers to change their schedules. She asked Reddit whether she was wrong for not wanting to clock out early so S could get her son to the hospital.

In the comments, many users agreed that S’s reaction was strange and that she was asking too much.

One commenter wrote, “NTA. Her child, her responsibility is the short answer. But this is weird behavior. What are the chances she’s lying? This doesn’t seem like the action of a concerned mother. How expensive is it for her to just drive separately? This makes zero sense.”

Another commenter, who identified as a working mom, said they would never have put their coworkers in that position.

“NTA. I’m a working mom. If I was S, I would have explained to you all that I was very sorry but while my child was having these health issues it would probably be better if I didn’t join the carpool because I might have to leave early and didn’t want to ask you folks to leave early,” they said.

Someone else suggested that S’s reaction might be rooted in money worries rather than logistics.

“I think she’s upset about the additional cost of not sharing gas and tolls for one day. It’s odd to me that nobody seems to be talking about how absurd that is,” they wrote.

Another commenter agreed, adding, “Anyone that can’t skip work to take their kid to the hospital is either in extreme financial distress or a negligent parent. I’m going to guess, given the rest of the context, that she’s in extreme financial distress. As in, can’t afford gas to get home kind of distress.”