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.…