Why is my coworker draining me?

Look at the week as a record. The same coworker takes the most of it. Long complaints at your desk. Every small problem routed through you. A mood that sets the tone for the room by nine.

Then look at your own side. You plan your day around their moods. You answer their messages first. You go home with nothing left for the people you live with.

The draining is real. It is also not one event. It is a hundred small handovers, and each one looks too small to refuse.

There is a file in this archive called The Draining Bond. It is written for the person who carries other people's weight and cannot set it down. It is not written about your coworker.

Its one-liner is plain. The reasoning arrives at the same answer no matter what the numbers were. They are having a hard week. It is only ten minutes. You are good at this. The answer is always yes.

Where that habit was learned is optional to know. SOURCE UNKNOWN is a complete answer. The yes runs the same either way.

It is not about being a bad colleague. Wanting a quiet hour is not the same as not caring.

It is not a verdict on your coworker, and it is not a verdict on you. This page issues neither.

And it is not yours to fix. Whatever runs in them runs in a body you are not in. No amount of patience reaches it, which means the months of patience were not a failure of skill.

Watch what happens when their name lights up your screen. A weight in the shoulders. A tight jaw. A small sigh before you have read a word.

Say how long you have at the start, not the end. I have five minutes, then I need to get back to this. Said first, it is a fact. Said after half an hour, it lands as a complaint.

Hand problems back. Ask one question: what do you want to do about it? Then let them answer. Taking the fix is taking the weight.

Use the plain signals a workplace allows. A closed door. Headphones. A meeting moved to a time with an end. They are how a desk stays a desk.

If the load is work rather than mood, raise it with your manager as a workload fact. Keep it about tasks and hours, not about the person.

Check what has changed since this started. Whether you dread Monday by Sunday afternoon. Whether you eat lunch somewhere you cannot be found. Whether the people at home get the tired version of you.

Each of those is a cost with a name. The dread has a body signal you can catch: the weight in the shoulders, a few seconds before the next message opens.

Because the day has turned into an arrangement where you carry and they set down. It may be complaints. It may be work passed across. It may be a mood you manage before anything gets done. This page cannot say why your coworker does it. It can say why it lands so hard. Each handover is small, so you never refuse one, and the small ones add up by Thursday.

Start with your own side, because it is the only side you can reach. Give a time limit in the first minute. Hand problems back with one question. Keep the door or the headphones as a plain sign that you are working. Do not argue about who they are. Change what you are available for, and keep it steady.

If the conduct is harassment, threats or unfair treatment, start with the box at the top of this page instead.

Some people read this page for a coworker and see their own habit in it. The yes before the thinking. The guilt at the idea of a shorter answer. The tired drive home that feels like your own fault.

If that is what stayed with you, the first-person file is written for you, about your own body, not about anyone at work.