Co-Workers Gave A Woman $1K For Her 'Baby' & She Had To Say She's Not Pregnant, 'Just Fat'
A childfree woman and her former co-workers just combined for the most bizarre office mixup you'll probably ever hear about, and it only gets worse when you throw in a $1,000 cash gift given for the wrong reasons.
They say to assume something makes an a**es out of you and me, but in this case, they made for a juicy debate in Reddit's Am I The A**hole community.
The 34-year-old woman at the heart of the story turned to Reddit to ask if it's wrong for her to keep a $1,000 cash gift from her old co-workers after she only just discovered that it was meant for her "baby."
Her story is long and complicated but, basically, she left her old job in January 2020 but stayed on the payroll so she could do contract work for her boss here and there.
"On my last day, co-workers leave me a goodbye card with $1,000 cash in it," she writes.
Fast-forward to March 2023, and she runs into a former co-worker who asks if she is expecting a second baby.
"I internally die because OH SHE THINKS I'M PREGGO," she wrote. She explains that she's a bit over her target weight and her belly pokes out, but she is not pregnant and doesn't have kids.
"I tell co-worker I don't have kids, haha, I'm just fat."
She described that moment as a super awkward "0/10 experience," but she shrugged it off until later in the month when she got a call from HR.
She was told that a former co-worker wants the $1,000 back because it was meant as a maternity gift. The woman sharing the story was also accused of deceiving that co-worker with the way she dressed.
"She took donations from the staff under that pretense and now my fatness and lack of baby-ness is The Hot Office Gossip. Feeling super great about that too. HR says they can't force me to do anything, but it would be nice to return it."
The poster added that the original card was gone but it had two pandas on the front and there was no mention of pregnancy.
"There was a big one hugging a smaller one, so maybe it was about babies," she acknowledged.
So here's her big question: should she return a gift from almost three years ago because her old co-workers made a bad guess, or should she keep it despite the mistake because of how insulting the whole situation has been?
Redditors truly struggled to process the whole situation, with some of them laughing at the absurdity and others feeling the woman's pain.
"You poor thing and I feel your pain," wrote another commenter who said they faced the same pregnancy questions. "It really sucks and people are thoughtlessly cruel."
Many others shared their own stories about how awful it feels to be mistaken for pregnant when you're not.
"Do not send the money back," advised one of these commenters. "Everything about that is ridiculously inappropriate."
Some pointed out that it was the unnamed co-worker who screwed up here by misleading everyone, including the woman who left the job.
"Jokes on your ex-co-workers for just assuming stuff about your body (original poster), definitely don't return the money!" wrote another. "And don't feel bad about your body."
"That thousand dollars was their idiot tax," wrote someone else. "I hope you enjoyed it."
Never assume!
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
