Family isn’t just for having dinner on holidays; they also look out for each other when times get tough.

So, after Reddit user South_Arrival_7036 learned that her sister had an accident and was forced to switch to a lower-paying job, she started making her sibling lunch, and her husband began delivering them on his commute.

However, the woman recently found out that her sister’s colleagues have been giving her a hard time because they find the meals too fancy.

This woman cooked and packed her sister lunch every day

Image credits: cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo)

And was very surprised when the sister told her that she was putting too much effort into the meals

Image credits: Amanda Quintana-Bowles / Flickr (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Leeloo The First / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: South_Arrival_7036

Maybe the lunches are just the tip of the iceberg

Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels (not the actual photo)

While it might be easy to brush off the sister’s demands as irrational nonsense, they might be just a result of a wider problem. Bear with me.

We spend so much of our time at work and grant it so much of our mental capacity, so of course we want to feel like we belong and are well-liked.

According to sociologist Tracy Brower, PhD, loneliness can affect us in many different ways:

• We might lack motivation to do things with others or to be active in our everyday tasks;
• We might struggle to feel engaged at work—feeling outside of the team or the project—or feel like we lack the energy to get our work done;
• We might lose the desire to learn new things, grow, or seek challenges—all of which are important to our happiness and our career advancement;
• We might experience a loss of hope for the future or a loss of vision for what will come next;
• Our performance may suffer because we aren’t investing in today’s responsibilities or taking initiative toward tomorrow’s;
• Our relationships may suffer if we fail to follow through or deliver on commitments, or as we lose motivation to invest in relationships.

So even if we aren’t interested in having a work bestie, meaningful relationships with the people we earn our living with are still very important. And if the sister’s lunches are being widely mocked even now that she’s been working at the company for a few years, it might be because she’s not fitting in on a broader level.

Many of us should be able to relate to her. Research from Utah State University’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business indicates that 66% of employees experience some form of ostracism at work.

In fact, their findings also show that of the respondents who said they had experienced some form of workplace ostracism, 68% also reported feeling burned out at home. Furthermore, 82% of their spouses reported that the worker engaged in family undermining at home (e.g., acting in an unpleasant or angry manner when they come home from work, or taking out work frustrations on family members). What’s more, 70% of those spouses indicated that they then felt burned out by family life.

This means that it very well might be that the whole thing is being blown out of proportion as a result of a negative cycle initiated by the sister’s coworkers.

After reading the story, most people said that its author didn’t do anything wrong

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But a few said she should respect her sister’s wishes

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