Hi guys, long time reader, first time poster, so please bear with me. I bring to you today, a petty rant (at least that’s what I feel) and I hope the opinions of the people of the Internet will help set me straight.

So, I (32F) have been working now for ten years with this organization. As my role and seniority grew, they decided to promote me and requested me to move to the another country (that shall remain unnamed). I was happy in my country of origin but this move is of course an achievement for me and I do feel pride on the fact that I did all this myself.

Now as many of us know, migrating from a country to another for work is no laughing matter. I went through a gruelling Visa documentation process where I created everything from scratch. The cover letter, company’s invitation, specialised CV and many many more documents. It took me a long time but when u began the process, things went smoothly and I got my visa.

As it happens, big organisations usually help candidates in this process. Before I finalised all these documents, I shared them with my travel team to check and confirm so they had a copy of everything.

A month or two after I moved, I got a message on my company’s chat platform from another girl (let’s call her S, similar age range as mine) who was also going through the same process as I did, on the same visa type. My travel team shared with her a copy of my docs as reference. I thought she would work on her documents and use mine as sample, instead she just changed my name to hers on ALL the documents and submitted them to the authorities. She had pinged me to take some help on the specialised knowledge I had quoted for my own self, as she did not know enough about that, she wanted my help to prep for the interview. Obviously this did not sit right with me, but rather than make an issue about it, I helped her, gave her some material to study and she got through the interview process as well. We work in a big company, our roles are completely different, it honestly did not affect me that she used my docs at the time for her own self. Good for her I felt.

Now 2.5-3 years later, I filed for my visa extension but from my country of origin and did not face any issues. I had to travel back as my visa was ending due to some personal commitments so my team recommended I complete my visa renewal from home itself, easy. S applied for visa extension from the destination country itself. I dont know why, maybe it was random, but she was provided with a notice to prove evidences of her specialised knowledge, skills, training and experience. Let me clarify, her work had absolutely nothing to do with what she submitted, which were basically my documents. She is in a situation where she has to submit a very very long list of evidences before June. She obviously came to me for help, and has requested my support in getting these documents ready. She hasn’t been rude or entitled (how can she, I owe her nothing), simply asking for help. Now u have to decide whether I want to spend my time and effort helping her out or let her figure things out for herself.

I feel so petty in thinking that she should have not used my documents so blatantly and this serves her right. A part of me wants to tell her to talk to the travel team and figure this out herself. I work a busy and hectic role myself, feeling extremely exhausted and drained out every evening. Why should I help someone who is not even a friend, not even a colleague I have any interactions with, someone absolutely disconnected with me who used my docs for such an easy sailing experience.

On the other hand, I keep on putting myself in her shoes and feel how scared and stressed she must be feeling. I have made my own mistakes in life and people have helped me out, don’t I owe it to the world to pay the kindness forward? Shouldn’t a woman who is in a position of power to help another person/woman do so? If we won’t help one another, then who will? Life is already hard enough.

Ugh, I know I am going to help her out in the end but help me understand guys if I am making the right or the wrong decision.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, lol! Sorry for the long post.