Doing a colleague’s unfinished work? UAE residents on why it’s so hard to say no

In July 2024, Dubai-based Rachel (name changed on request), was struggling to finish work. Not hers, but the work left behind her colleagues. Nobody had explicitly asked her to do it, but a rather ‘insidious’ fear as she says, had crept in. “I had finished my targets, but my teammate hadn’t, and she needed help. I stepped in, and in the end, I did her work too, because I felt as if I had to do it.”

So she did, working extra hours and even covering for her teammates. They were grateful, but she wished they had just done their own work. “They were new, and I just wanted to be the helpful senior I never had. Did I turn out to be a doormat?”

It’s a rather cruel term, she agrees, and she still worries about slipping back into the same loop. “I’m better than I used to be. Saying no used to be such a messy, unpleasant business,” she says.

Another Dubai-based employee recalls a similar situation: She was helping an intern first. And before she knew it, she was completing her work as well. “She kept saying that she had a lot going on back home, and I was trying to be sympathetic,” she says, rather ruefully.

So, why do we tie ourselves into knots over another’s unfinished work?

It’s the million-dollar question. Sadly, there’s no million dollars even if you do find the answer.

The making of the one who says yes

Anna White, an occupational therapist and director of corporate services and mental health first aid at LightHouse Arabia, sets out the traits of those (read: most of us) who end up finishing other people’s work. “Common traits I’ve observed in people who say they absorb other people’s unfinished work are people-pleasing behaviours, finding it difficult to say no, and being labelled as the reliable one.”

Sometimes it’s a form of micromanaging: Feeling the need to finish someone else’s work because you’re not happy with how it has been done. And sometimes it’s simply habit. “Even if it’s a bad habit, if you finished someone else’s work once and it worked – you met the deadline and you and your team just about made it through – you’re far more likely to do it again,” she explains.

“Even if you were home late, complaining and annoyed with that person at the time. It’s easy to think it’s quicker to just do it yourself, and it might be today, but if you don’t take the time to teach, guess who’s going to be doing it next week and next month? You.”

Emma Burdett, founder and chief executive of WILD Group, who now advises leadership teams after years in corporate life, observes the need to please others, wanting validation and, ultimately, seeking approval, as she says.

A conscience formed in childhood

Dubai-based Maithili Thakur is a 79-year-old homemaker now. Yet as she says, she used to insist on finishing other people’s work, including her siblings household work, because she was sure that they couldn’t do it properly. “In my case, it’s more of a bossy tendency. I am an elder sibling, so I felt responsible and believed the blame would fall on me. So, I would dust the tables again right after they wiped it and wash the dishes, just to be sure. As you can imagine, I wasn’t a very well-liked sister.”

It can begin in childhood. Perhaps validation. Perhaps a need to be a perfectionist. Either way, it just grows stronger as one grows older. Dr. Vassiliki Simoglou, a psychologist and the clinical director of Almond Blossoms Wellbeing Center, traces it to what psychoanalysts call the superego, the moral compass assembled from the rules and prohibitions of childhood. In some people, she said, that inner voice is unusually harsh.

A child who was punished for being unhelpful, or for leaving a task undone, may grow into an adult who cannot walk past one. Such people can develop a pronounced sense of duty as adults, and can feel obliged to step in for others, even to their own detriment, Simoglou  says.

Perfectionism tightens that grip. The perfectionist, is someone who must deliver their absolute best in all circumstances and is never being satisfied with the results of their hard work.

When this characteristic is paired with a deep sense of duty and a people-pleasing streak, it becomes a saviour complex, as she says.  It devolves into an uncontrollable urge to please, help and save others from hardship. You’re now helping a struggling colleague out of compulsion, rather than a choice.

Burdett has watched those same pressures fall unevenly. In her work on gender equality, she found that taking on more work and striving for perfectionism was often driven by a preconceived belief that women would get noticed and then promoted or given a pay rise. The reward rarely matched the effort, and the cost landed on the individual. “People do this at their own expense, including their health and stress levels,” she said.

The people nobody checks on

The pattern, it seems, is set in stone. It looks like excellence, which makes it difficult to disrupt. At work, the organised, dependable, uncomplaining employee is precisely the one organisations hire and promote. As White puts it, “Every manager wants one of them on the team.”

Underneath, the picture can be more fragile: Overthinking, approval-seeking, an inability to slow down. And the polish itself becomes a disguise. “The problem is that because they look so good on the outside, people are far less likely to notice they’re struggling, and they can sometimes be the last ones to ask for help,” White says.

Left unnoticed, they keep absorbing more, she adds, until something gives, whether that’s their health, their relationships or their job satisfaction.

The trap of being indispensable

Over time, being needed can harden into something closer to an identity. Burdett has seen high performers, particularly those who bring in revenue, come to believe the organisation cannot function without them.

She knows the feeling first-hand. “I was the top performer for the region and felt indispensable,” she says. That certainty did not protect her. Amid company politics and a boss she describes as ego-driven and threatened by her success, she found that situations 'were orchestrated' to push her out of the business. The experience left her with a blunt conclusion: “No one is indispensable, especially when the number of great candidates available right now is high.”

For some, though, letting go of that belief threatens far more than a job. When identity is built almost entirely around a professional title, losing the title can mean losing their sense of self, says Simoglou. They may need to feel indispensable simply to feel they belong.

After years of being the one who always delivers, being needed can also start to feel like proof of competence. When a colleague says, “We’d be lost without you,” it lands as a compliment, White explains. “But being indispensable is a bit of a trap.” The indispensable never fully switch off on holiday, get stuck in roles nobody else can cover and end up leading teams that never grow, because those teams have never had to.

Her antidote starts with a single, deliberately uncomfortable question: “If I wasn’t the person fixing everything, who would I be at work?”

Why ‘no’ feels like failure

If saying yes becomes reflexive, saying no can feel genuinely dangerous, and in some workplaces it is.

In that environment, Burdett says, “If someone is in fear of their manager or worried they may lose their role, then this would make them more likely to take on the unfinished work of others.”

Yet the fear, she argues, rests on a misreading. Many people assume refusal costs them respect and credibility, when the reverse is closer to the truth. She urges leaders to remember that saying ‘no’ is a complete sentence and leads to more respect in the workplace,” and warns that the alternative compounds silently. “Saying yes all of the time leads to resentment and stress longer term, which affects mental health.”

Whether a refusal is safe, White said, depends heavily on the team. Where there is psychological safety, a no is read as a sign that someone knows their priorities. “Where it’s very hierarchical or competitive, or people are afraid of looking like they can’t cope, saying no can feel like a real risk.”

The conditioning, she added, starts long before the office, in classrooms that teach that “good students say yes.” It is reinforced by a stubborn optimism about time. “We also say yes to things down the line because we’re convinced future us will have loads more time,” White said. “She never does…”

For the deeply conscientious, Simoglou said, a refusal strikes at the self-image itself. These are people 'conditioned to showing up for others, taking tasks on, finishing them dutifully, and saving the day.' To decline is to become 'less of a hero, a loss they cannot afford.'

Busyness as the cure

Yet there may be another motive, too. Extra work can keep anxiety at bay. Burdett sees this partly as a consequence of hustle culture, which she calls “an outdated concept which leads to burnout”, and a broader belief that worth is measured in busyness.

Taking on more work, she says, can make people feel more accomplished and less anxious, feeding the need to stay constantly busy.

Simoglou hears echoes of this in her practice. For many high performers, free time is a “luxury they have no respect for, nor do they appreciate”, she said. For those struggling with anxiety, keeping busy can also give their worries an outlet and provide a distraction. Beneath both lies a need for control. “I often hear my patients say that while they may feel helpless in many areas of their lives, work is the one area they have under control,” she said.

There is a note of caution, though: not every long workday is a symptom, as White points out. “Some people genuinely love their work, and for some it’s a lifestyle,” she said. What matters is the motive. “For me it’s all about what’s driving the behaviour.”

When that driver is anxiety, constant activity can become a way of never sitting still long enough to notice what is going on beneath the surface. “In a world this overstimulating, whether it’s work, scrolling or eating, we can fill every gap and forget how to just sit with ourselves,” she said. The relief is real, but temporary. “But if it becomes a pattern, it can keep us from really getting to know ourselves and having a life outside of work.”

The hidden price of yes

Rachel still wonders whether she became a doormat. The experts suggest a more useful question, one that treats every favor as a trade rather than a gift. “What we forget is that every time we say yes to one thing, we’re saying no to something else,” White says. “It might be the gym, dinner with the family, or the work that’s actually in your job description.”

“So the question isn’t really whether you should say no,” she said. “It’s what you’re saying no to when you say yes.”