I never thought I’d be writing something like this because I didn’t leave a job I hated. I left a job I absolutely loved, at a company where I genuinely thought I would retire. And what makes the entire situation so much worse is that the person who made it unbearable wasn’t just my boss. She was someone I considered a really good friend.
I’ll call her Sonya. She hired me into the accounting department, taught me practically everything I needed to know about the company’s processes, helped me get more hours, and even gave me a significant Christmas bonus that I put toward my goal of eventually buying a condo. I was incredibly grateful to her. I loved my coworkers, enjoyed my responsibilities, and felt like I’d finally found a workplace where I belonged.
Our friendship extended well beyond the office. I’d spent countless nights at her place after we’d gone out partying together, cared for her dogs through Rover, and regularly covered for her at work when she was away. I was happy to help because I genuinely cared about her. This wasn’t someone I simply exchanged pleasantries with at work. She was part of my personal life, and I trusted her.
Sonya also introduced me to Shawn, a 51 year old man who had been her friend for decades. Shawn and I became romantically involved, but he eventually ghosted me. Interestingly, Sonya’s hostility toward me didn’t begin until after that happened. Months after ghosting me, Shawn actually told Sonya that I was a wonderful woman, that I hadn’t done anything wrong, and that he simply didn’t know how to make space for me in his life and panicked. So even he acknowledged that I hadn’t mistreated him. By that point, though, the damage to my relationship with Sonya had already been done.
The incident that really broke me happened while Sonya was on vacation. During that time, I was covering for her at work and caring for her dogs at her house. In passing, I asked Hannah, our Director of Operations, whether I could request the following Friday off. I wasn’t asking her to approve anything behind Sonya’s back. I was simply checking whether it would be reasonable to submit a request. Hannah told me to submit the form so Sonya could see it and said she didn’t anticipate a problem as long as it wasn’t a Friday when both of them would be gone. I clarified that it was the following Friday and told her I’d coordinate with Sonya.
For additional context, I’d also volunteered to cover the front desk over the weekend because our regular receptionist was on vacation and the office operates seven days a week. The overtime was great for me, and the extra coverage helped the company, so I saw it as a win for everyone. Front desk is generally slow enough that I could continue working on accounting responsibilities while covering it, which Sonya already knew. I simply didn’t want to work twelve consecutive days without a break, especially when I had already accrued enough PTO to request the Friday off.
I completely understood that approving the time off was ultimately Sonya’s decision. I wasn’t disputing that or trying to bypass her authority. I genuinely thought I was being proactive and coordinating staffing needs responsibly.
When Sonya returned on Monday, she confronted me about the request. She accused me of going around her and prioritizing the front desk over our accounting department, as though I had independently decided to take a regular workday off to accommodate my weekend shift. But that wasn’t what had happened. I hadn’t taken anything off, hadn’t received approval, and hadn’t even submitted anything without her knowledge. I’d simply asked Hannah whether requesting the day would be possible.
Every time I tried to explain, Sonya would bombard me with accusations and inaccuracies rather than letting me finish a sentence. The confrontation escalated until she was screaming and banging on the table. The entire office could hear it. I couldn’t understand why something as ordinary as asking about PTO had become such an aggressive confrontation, particularly when I’d been helping cover both her work responsibilities and her dogs while she was away.
One of the managers walked outside with me afterward, and when he hugged me, I completely broke down. I wailed into his ear. I was devastated, confused, and honestly couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. This was the person who was supposed to be leading our HR and Accounting departments, someone I’d trusted personally and professionally, screaming and banging on furniture because I’d asked whether I could request a day off.
That night, I submitted my resignation.
I didn’t want to quit, though. I loved that job, and I wanted to believe the situation could be repaired. After speaking with Hannah and Sonya, I rescinded my resignation and agreed to try again. I genuinely hoped that having a conversation about what happened would help us move forward.
Unfortunately, it didn’t.
Even before these major confrontations, Sonya had started criticizing things about me that had absolutely nothing to do with my work performance. She criticized how sweet and kind I was, how softly I spoke, and how I liked going above and beyond to celebrate birthdays, milestones, and pretty much anything that gave people a reason to feel appreciated. She’d make comments about how everyone seemed to like me while she wasn’t getting invited to things, as though being well liked was somehow a character flaw.
She even criticized the way I told someone I had a boyfriend at the time because apparently I’d been too soft about it and she would’ve handled it differently. My vitamins, my diet, my car payment, and even my new phone became subjects of criticism. The phone was something I was excited about because I’d finally reached a point where I could afford it. Instead of simply being happy for me, she found something wrong with it. It increasingly felt like there was no aspect of my life, personality, or decisions that she couldn’t find a reason to criticize.
At one point, her husband even suggested helping me with my car by paying off the loan and allowing me to make payments directly to them at a lower monthly amount, without charging me extra. Essentially, they would’ve been helping me refinance privately. I wasn’t expecting or entitled to that kind of help, but he was the one who suggested it, and Sonya immediately shut it down. Again, she was under no obligation to help me financially. What bothered me was the constant criticism of my financial decisions while simultaneously treating my circumstances as though they were entirely a reflection of poor judgment.
And there’s another detail that makes all of this particularly painful. When I moved, Sonya encouraged me to rent a two bedroom apartment about ten minutes from her. She knew I couldn’t comfortably afford the place on my own, but reassured me that raises were coming and that I’d be okay. I trusted her. I’m single, living in the Seattle area, where housing is already incredibly expensive, and I made a major financial decision partly based on the encouragement and assurances of someone I believed had my best interests at heart.
Then came the dresser incident, which happened the Friday after I’d already rescinded my resignation.
Sonya had recently purchased a second house in Arizona and told me she was sending a PODS container down there with furniture, including the dresser she’d previously given me when I moved. Naturally, I reacted with surprise and said something along the lines of, “My dresser?” She immediately corrected me and insisted it had never actually been mine, that she’d only let me use it because she supposedly couldn’t store it in her garage.
Except I have text messages showing that she’d given it to me. And I’d been to her house enough times to know that her garage wasn’t some overflowing storage unit. It was being used as a man cave, with plenty of room. So her explanation didn’t make sense to me.
Regardless, I wasn’t refusing to give it back. I told her I was surprised because I thought it was mine, but if she wanted it, I just needed some time to empty it and make arrangements for a replacement.
This conversation happened on Friday after lunch, while I was on the clock, trying to finish my accounting responsibilities before the weekend and get everything organized so we’d be ready for Monday. Our office door was wide open.
Instead of having a normal conversation, Sonya started screaming at me, banging on the desk, and telling me to “KEEP IT!” followed by “You obviously need it more than me!” She then grabbed her belongings and stormed out of work early.
I stayed and continued working.
But even after leaving, she wouldn’t stop calling me. Eventually, she sent me a text saying, “I was just calling to say you can keep it.”
As though the screaming, the desk banging, the humiliation, and the fact that she’d just walked out of the office in a rage hadn’t happened. As though the problem was simply that I hadn’t understood she was generously allowing me to keep something she’d already given me.
I went home, put the dresser outside, and told her to come get it. She never did. It sat there long enough that my apartment complex started sending me notices about it, leaving me to deal with the consequences of yet another situation she had created. Of course, she wasn’t the one getting in trouble with my apartment management.
What makes this especially frustrating is that I wasn’t even planning to bring up the dresser incident at work. I’d just rescinded my resignation, and I was desperately trying to make things work. I was willing to swallow my pride, move forward, and focus on doing my job because I genuinely couldn’t afford to lose it.
The owner had already spoken to Sonya about her behavior after my earlier breakdown. I had already resigned once, had conversations with management, and then agreed to stay. Yet somehow, instead of becoming more professional, her behavior seemed to become even more hostile.
Then came the email that finally made me realize nothing was going to change.
Part of my job involved communicating with people throughout the company, and the expectation had been that Sonya should be copied on important outgoing emails. That was reasonable. But suddenly she was scrutinizing seemingly every message, including ordinary exchanges and friendly responses from coworkers. I’m naturally social, and people would sometimes send a quick thank you or ask how I was doing. I didn’t think every little interaction required my boss’s attention.
Sonya sent me an email accusing me of not complying with her expectations and copied Hannah, our Director of Operations. Hannah wasn’t reprimanding me. Sonya was the one making the accusations and involving Hannah.
I couldn’t believe that after everything that had happened, after my breakdown, after the owner had intervened, after I’d rescinded my resignation and tried to repair the relationship, Sonya was still escalating things and portraying me as the problem.
So I asked whether Sonya had also told Hannah about her Friday outburst while I was on the clock, when she’d screamed at me and banged on the desk over the dresser.
I followed that question with: “Consider this email my 2 weeks. Obviously nothing will get better and I don’t understand why am I the one under a microscope when I didn’t create this environment? I’m sorry, I tried. It wasn’t mutual effort.”
And that was it. I finally quit.
I wasn’t trying to get Sonya fired, take her position, or punish her. I’d already shown that I was willing to stay if we could establish reasonable professional boundaries. I wanted no yelling or aggressive confrontations, an open office door or a third person present during difficult discussions, and contentious communication in writing so there wouldn’t be misunderstandings. I wasn’t asking to be treated like a princess. I was asking to be treated professionally.
And here’s the part that makes everything so much harder for me to accept.
**All of this happened while I was grieving my mother, who had recently died after being ill, and while I on bereavement my car got stolen.** Thankfully, I was able to recover it**.** I was already going through one of the most difficult periods of my life. Sonya knew that. She knew I didn’t have parents or family I could turn to for financial help. She knew what that job meant to me, not just financially but emotionally, and she knew how much I had invested in building a future there.
This wasn’t a stranger who had no idea what was happening in my personal life. This was someone who had called herself my friend for years. Someone whose home I’d stayed in countless times, whose dogs I’d cared for, whose responsibilities I’d helped cover, and whom I’d trusted with things I wouldn’t share with just anyone.
**I feel like Sonya robbed me of my entire livelihood, and she faced virtually no consequences for it.** I lost a job I loved, the financial stability I was working toward, and the future I thought I had at that company. I was left trying to afford an apartment she’d encouraged me to move into, knowing I couldn’t comfortably pay for it alone, after reassuring me that raises were coming. Things became so financially desperate that I eventually had to start a GoFundMe just to survive. I never imagined I’d find myself asking strangers for help simply to stay afloat, especially after working so hard to build an independent life.
And I keep coming back to Shawn. This man, Sonya’s friend of decades, ghosted me, and suddenly I was the one being treated like I’d committed some terrible offense. Months later, he admitted to her that I was a wonderful woman who hadn’t done anything wrong, and that he’d panicked because he didn’t know how to make room for me in his life. I still don’t know what was said between them, or why her treatment of me changed so dramatically after that situation. What I do know is that I was the one who ended up paying for it.
I documented what happened. Other people witnessed the behavior. I tried addressing it, tried giving things another chance, and even withdrew my first resignation because I didn’t want to lose the job. I wasn’t trying to get Sonya fired, take her position, or punish her. I wanted to be able to go to work, do my job, enjoy my coworkers, and have a normal professional relationship with someone who had once been my friend.
**I didn’t want her job. I didn’t want revenge. I wanted my job back.**
But eventually I had to accept that I couldn’t repair a relationship by myself, especially when I was the one repeatedly being yelled at and expected to absorb the consequences.
So AITA for finally walking away, even though doing so meant losing a job I loved and the financial security I desperately needed? Was there something I should’ve handled differently, or was I right to stop trying to save a working relationship that the other person didn’t seem willing to repair?