Burned Out Teacher Stops Working 20+ Weekly Unpaid Hours, Boss Gets Mad & Guilt Trips Her

It's totally normal (and good, even) to want to do a good job at work. But being good at your job should never require working outside of paid hours. Sometimes it's tempting to do a little bit extra when you're still in the honeymoon period at a new job, just to show that you're willing to go above and beyond. But doing work outside of work hours can backfire big time in the long run. Case in point, when u/ETsUncle's wife experienced major burnout after putting in 20+ extra hours of unpaid work per week for far too long, scaling it back became a "performance" problem according to her boss. Let this thread be a lesson to all the overworked plebs out there: sometimes it's beneficial to do less.

Posted by Mel Dawn

“‘We can tell’ -school admin after my wife told them she stopped putting in 20+ extra hours every week outside of paid hours.” Posted by u/ETsUncle

The comment section

“I found a job working for local gov't. Took a pay cut. Also took a stress cut. Life is too short to be over worked, under appreciated, and completely stressed out.” said u/New_Year_New_Handle.

“Stress cut is a term that should be popularized. The idea of going full throttle at a career for slightly more money should be evaluated more carefully. ‘I got promoted and raised an extra 15k a year’ ‘I now work extra 20 to 30 hours a week’ A promotion in this sense is not worth it at least for me” said u/CarelessAd2349.

“Two of my good friends are both high school teachers and also parents, two of the worst roles in the U.S. when it comes to ridiculous expectations of uncompensated over-the-top work. They're ALWAYS exhausted and never have time to see us. I just want to shake them and be like ‘DO LESS.’ No one will spontaneously combust if you do slightly less!” said u/AskMrScience.