Man Refuses to Wake Brother Up in Time for Work, Says It’s Not His Responsibility

Getting up for work can be a struggle.

On Reddit, a 22-year-old shared that his 18-year-old brother has always been an “extremely tight sleeper,” noting that their parents “have tried to shake him awake and it’s still difficult to get him up.”

This has continued into adulthood, and his younger brother often sleeps through his alarm.

“Even though we sleep in separate rooms, I could still hear it and would have to go into his room to get him to turn it off,” he wrote.

Last year, the teenager got a job that he “loved” at a retail store and has since formed friendships with his co-workers. However, he has shown up late to work a few times recently, which could cost him the position.

“What had been happening is, although he does wake up when his alarm goes off, he had been falling back asleep afterwards,” the man explained.

The poster acknowledged that it’s normal to accidentally sleep past an alarm every once in a while. However, after the second time it happened, his younger brother asked if he could start checking on him to make sure he was up in the mornings.

“I refused to do this. I told him that if he wanted to play the ‘closing your eyes after your alarm goes off’ game, that was on him,” he shared. “I am not going to be there to wake him up.”

“The other thing is, if I were to agree with this, he would probably start blaming me if he ends up being late again,” the poster pointed out. “He would consider it a new responsibility of mine and would get upset with me if I were to fail to wake him up. I refuse to have that responsibility when he is an adult now.”

While chatting with their mom, however, she told him that it “would be a nice thing to check on” his younger brother since he is “already up and moving” in the mornings.

“Now, truth be told, when his alarm goes off, I usually try to go back to sleep. But, maybe she has a point about it being common courtesy to do a simple check,” he wrote, turning to Reddit for advice.

People in the comments agreed that it wasn’t the poster’s responsibility, suggesting that the younger brother start putting his phone across the room so he is forced to get up and shut off the alarm.

“As someone else said, there may be a medical reason for this. More likely, he’s staying up too late, probably on his phone after he goes to bed. That needs to change – he needs to make sure he has enough sleep hours,” one person wrote. “Meantime, I suggest he get a second alarm clock and set it 5 minutes later than the first, and keep it across the room from his bed.”

“You are correct, if you accept this responsibility then it’ll become your fault. If he’s having such a hard time waking up then he needs to either change his sleep habits or see a doctor to find out what is going on,” another person added.