I Caught My Coworker Doing Her Side Hustle on Company Time—I Refused to Stay Silent

Striving to build your career within a certain company can often come with unforeseen complications. It could affect your mental health and if you don’t get along with all of your coworkers, you could end up with anxiety. One of our readers shared their experience.

This is Wendy’s story:

Dear Bright Side,

I’ve been working at a medium-sized recruitment agency for the last few years. One of my coworkers is a single mom, and she would often dump her work on me so she could leave early. When I argued, she’d say stuff like, “You don’t have kids! You don’t know how hard it is.”

I tried to be helpful and supportive of her situation, until I caught her doing her side hustle at work. We all knew that she’d done consulting in her private time. But the last few months she’d been taking a lot of “private calls” during working hours.

And to make matters worse, those calls were cutting into her actual work, and I was asked to pick up the slack. Annoyed, I reported the situation to HR. They called her in, and she suddenly went “on leave.” But the real shock came when she returned.

She came up to me smirking and said, “Just so you know, your report didn’t ruin me. I’m working with someone very close to the boss now.” Then she walked off like nothing happened. I was stunned, and my shock only became worse when my other coworkers started avoiding me.

Last week I had a performance review and when I arrived my boss shut the door behind us. She sat down and whispered, “You were right. But I couldn’t defend you. HR would’ve found out that she was making those calls for my husband’s firm.”

That just made me even angrier. I had lost my reputation in the company because my boss was trying to give my coworker more private work. That was wrong on so many levels. So, as she wanted to start the review, I stood up and left.

I went to HR and put in my resignation. When they asked for my reason, I told them everything, from the overtime I put in, to the extra work I had to do because she was doing private work during office hours. And I had all the evidence to prove it.

My coworker was fired on the spot, and my boss was asked to step out of the office until things returned to normal. Many of my other coworkers were glad that I stepped up because she was doing the same to them. But others are taking her side, saying that I cost a single mom her livelihood.

So Bright Side, what do you think? Was I wrong to expose my coworker so I could regain my reputation?

Regards,
Wendy R.

Thank you for reaching out to us, Wendy. We understand how difficult this situation must be so we’ve put together a few tips that might be helpful.

Treat the people who avoided you as unreliable witnesses.

Anyone who instantly pulled away from you after her little victory lap already showed they respond to power plays, not truth. Don’t seek validation from them or try to repair those relationships. When you move forward professionally, prioritize connections with people who didn’t flinch the moment office politics shifted. Those are the coworkers who’ll stick with you when something real is on the line.

Keep a private timeline of events.

The moment your boss whispered that HR might uncover her husband’s involvement, the situation stopped being about a lazy coworker and turned into a company-wide conflict of interest. Write down the exact dates: when the extra work started, when you reported to HR, when she went “on leave,” when your boss admitted she couldn’t defend you.

This isn’t to weaponize it, it’s to have a clean, factual anchor in case anyone later tries to twist the story or imply you resigned over “drama” instead of documented misconduct.

Quietly watch how leadership handles favoritism.

What burned you wasn’t just your coworker. It was discovering that your boss had been shielding her because her husband benefited from those private calls. So when you start your next job, simply observe how managers treat their inner circle, how they talk about accountability, and how they respond when someone’s workload mysteriously shifts.

You don’t need to take action, just pay attention. You’ll quickly see whether you’ve stepped into another environment where doing the right thing leaves you standing alone again.

Wendy finds herself in a difficult situation and moving forward she’ll have a lot of decisions to make. But she isn’t the only one who is having struggles with a coworker.

Another one of our readers shared their coworker horror story. Read it here: I Did a Simple Favor for My Coworker That Seemed Harmless—It Wasn’t.