Dear Prudence,
Is it bad to stop doing a favor for a friend simply because you’re sick of it? A friend of mine keeps a large number of plants in her apartment; when her job started making her travel for business, she asked if I would apartment-sit for her and water them. Initially, this wasn’t a bad deal: I would crash in a bigger apartment and she would give me a bottle of inexpensive wine for the trouble.
Lately, however, this has started to wear on me. Initially, the plants only needed watering every few days, but now she wants them checked on every day after some pest issues. Her apartment is not convenient to mine, so this is a hassle, especially when she travels for major holidays (and I have already navigated Christmas Eve traffic for these plants before). She’s also started to send more texts for status updates, including during my work hours, and (I realize this is petty) I’m not even getting the wine bottles anymore, so I am not getting paid in any sense. Can I bow out of this just because I’m tired of it? She has other people she can ask to do this, but apparently, they take bad care of the plants.
—Just Pay Someone to Do It