Last week was finals week, and I spent every hour I wasn’t at work studying and working on my essays, presentations, and exams. Friday, after my shift was over, I headed home right away to do an online exam (it opened and closed at a specific time so I had to be at home to work on it). A couple days later I’m clocking out and my coworker pulls me aside and says she wants to apologize. I ask what’s going on and she says the day I left to do my exam, she became really stressed because of the work that still had to get done. My going home to do my exam meant she was left alone to handle everything by herself. My department is severely understaffed, so if the two of us aren’t there, nothing gets done. However, my coworker admits that she started complaining to coworkers in other departments that I abandoned her in her time of need and was lazy and didn’t finish my job. This lead to one coworker telling another and she says she’s overheard several people gossiping about how I’m an incompetent worker. She apologizes. I say I just needed to get home because I was processing all that she said. I feel so awful. I understand we’re understaffed, had I not been in a rush to get home to a scheduled final I definitely would’ve stayed later. But I finished everything on my list. I restocked. I cleaned up my station before I left. I told her I was leaving to do my exam. But she still went around telling everybody I was a lazy worker who doesn’t get anything done. I’m so embarrassed to go to work tomorrow now that I know everyone is talking behind my back. Is there something I can do about this?