She called me three days later. Both reimbursements would be processed that week. And there would be changes to the management structure, details she couldn’t share, but my report had been taken seriously. And so had two others she hadn’t known about until I came in.
Daniel was removed from his role by the end of the month. A new manager came in. My $160 showed up in payroll like it had always belonged there. And that’s when things got complicated.
A few days after the news broke internally, one of my coworkers stopped by my desk. She just said, quietly: “You know he has a kid, right? And his wife is not working right now.” And then she walked away. Another coworker stopped inviting me to the group lunch. Someone else told me I “could have just let it go, it was only $80.” And the worst part? For a second, a small, awful second, I believed them.
I still don’t feel like I won anything. I feel weird about it. But I also don’t think I did anything wrong. Did I? That’s what I keep asking myself. My sister says I did the right thing, full stop. But some days I wake up and I just feel bad about the whole thing, even though I know what he did wasn’t okay.
Was I right to go to HR? Should I have found another way? Or is this guilt just what doing the right thing sometimes feels like? Bright Side, I really need an outside perspective on this one.
Randy Byron
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