AITA for refusing to lend my coworker my charger anymore?

I work in an office where my coworker sits near me. A few months ago she asked if she could borrow my phone charger because she forgot hers. I said sure. After that it became a daily thing. Almost every morning she’d ask to borrow it, and sometimes she’d keep it for hours which meant I couldn’t charge my own phone. I mentioned a couple times that chargers are pretty cheap and she could easily bring one to keep at work. She laughed and said why buy one when you have one? Last week my phone died during the day because she had my charger again. After that I told her I’d prefer not to lend it out anymore because I actually need it. Now she says I’m being selfish over just a charger and that coworkers are supposed to help each other out. A couple people in the office think I should just let her use it since it’s not a big deal. But I feel like after months of borrowing it every day, it’s no longer a favor. AITA?

13 thoughts on “AITA for refusing to lend my coworker my charger anymore?”
  1. NTA – if she calls you selfish, then just say she broke the primary rule of being a freeloader. You don’t disadvantage the person doing you a favour. The other people in the office can help her out. Or she can get round to buying her own. It stopped being a small thing when she wouldn’t give you your own possessions back when you needed them.

  2. If co-workers should help each other out, then she can help you out by bringing her own charger! NTA.

    Your other co-workers are free to lend theirs to her too. Gotta be helpful, right?

  3. NTA Then next time she asks for it just tell her so and so says you can use her charger I’ll bet she won’t offer it. 

  4. First, Nta

    2nd, selfish is not always a bad thing… There is necessary selfishness and unnecessary selfishness. You were being generous until you were forced into necessary selfishness because they were being unnecessarily selfish by using you and not considering your needs and generosity.

  5. NTA – She’s taking advantage of your generosity after you lend your adapter to her more than a few times already. She feels that she is ENTITLED to use *your* adapter when the two of you are present to the point that she persists using it *more* than you when your cellphone died is just unbelievably impudent of her.

  6. NTA and never loan electronics or accessories. People think if they borrow something once, they have a right to it.

    Tell her to buy her own charger, they’re less than 20 bucks.

  7. nta

    stop letting people ‘borrow’ and instead let them ‘use’. coworkers can use your charger – which is plugged in by your desk. they can leave their phones/earbuds/watches plugged into the charger on your desk.. what they can’t do is take the charger away from your sight. they don’t like it? that’s okay, they can find a different charger/someone else to bother.

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