Don't do it grudgingly

You'll do the favor either way. Cover the shift, train the new person, take the call nobody else wants. The question is never really whether — it's the spirit you bring to it. There's a way of helping that drags, that sighs, that lets everyone know what it's costing you. The help still lands. But you've poisoned it on the way out the door, and you've spent the hour twice as tired for it.

Marcus, writing instructions to himself, named the trap and its four faces at once: "Labor not unwillingly, nor without regard to the common interest, nor without due consideration, nor with distraction" (Meditations 3.5, Long). Not unwillingly. Not half-present. The good colleague isn't the one who never gets asked for anything — it's the one who, when asked, does it cleanly, with their whole attention, and without making you pay for it in mood.

This is the practice the week hangs on. You can't always choose the task. You can always choose whether to do it as a whole person or a resentful one. The hour passes regardless. Only one version leaves you, and the people around you, better off.