About a month ago, a coworker lit into me and told me I was being selfish (this was while I was doing two people’s jobs in 40 hours/week because her school’s counterpart of my job had given her two weeks about a month before a huge audit. Long story short, I went up to the office of a lady there with whom I’m friends, and had a good cry.
A few hours later I stopped by the office of a friend to ask about something totally unrelated, not realizing he knew about everything that had happened. He told me to come in and sit down, and asked me how I was doing. He was so kind I felt myself on the verge of tears again. He must have picked up on this because he said that if I needed to cry, he understood, and to go ahead. He ended up talking with me for about 20 minutes, assuring me that I was doing a great job, that I needed to realize that I could only do much in so much time, and that I should stop beating myself up about it (I do tend to be too hard on myself.)
I discovered that day what a wonderful friend this guy is, and our friendship has further strengthened since that day. It was his support and encouragement that enabled me to keep going despite further difficulty from this lady.