Worker given more work after trying to discuss their too-high workload: 'He responded by adding more work'

There's no feeling like constantly being behind the ball, especially when that ball is a heavy boulder that you're pushing up a hill… Only to have it roll back down once you've reached the top, forcing you to start over, over and over again. The Greeks regarded this tortuous task as suitable eternal punishment for misdeeds like murder and cheating the gods themselves. Nowadays, we just call it "employment." 

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Author image for Brad Dickson Brad Dickson
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  • The thing is, even Sisyphus himself didn't have to deal with Hades assigning him an ever-increasing number of boulders of endlessly increasing size—but employees find themselves forced to handle an ever-increasing workload. And the reality is that your manager's unrealistic expectations about how much work you should be doing are going to make you hate your job… and your entire existence. 

    When this worker attempted to talk to their boss about their already-too-high workload, their boss responded by telling them that they were about to have two more projects placed in their hands. Their boss had underestimated just how close to breaking point the worker was, and the worker resigned on the spot in response.

  • 01
    Posted by u/Willbily In a meeting I told my boss my workload was too large, he responded by adding more workload. I resigned as he said that. I was a construction manager for a very high end construction company in Asheville, NC. For a year I had been telling my boss, the VP in charge of my division, that my workload was too large. That's not good because it means delays and mistakes. A workload too large for a construction manager is catastrophic to the construction company but also to the clie
    via u/Willbily
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  • 02
    The day I resigned I was in my weekly meeting w my boss where the theme over the past year has become "my workload is too large and how it will backfire on us soon." My boss smiled and said "well, get ready because we are going to add two more projects to your plate and we will not be able to give you additional help." I said, "OK, then I am resigning" Cue shocked Pikachu face.
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  • 03
    I have never seen a faster display of how unqualified a person was for their role. Boy, I thought my boss was unqualified before but he proved it over the next two weeks. Two months later they are struggling to get me COBRA and my 401k match. I just wanted to succeed but my boss didn't know how to make it happen.
    via u/Willbily
  • 04
    Edit: COBRA is an American program that requires employers to offer their insurance programs to employees after they leave a job amicably for a period of time. 401k is an American program that allows employees to distribute income to a retirement stock market account before taxes are taken. Often employers contribute a certain amount as an employment incentive.
    via u/Willbily
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  • 05
    mistedtwister 16 hr. ago I watched a very promising career take the other path in your exact circumstance and it ended in complete disaster for the whole company and a project literally burnt to the ground. A project manager who was overworked had a multi million dollar job and two others under his eye as well. When the burnout started affecting him he was told to "bury the j". He ended up having a mental breakdown and a 100 unit elderly care facility newly built went up in flames, that was the
    via u/Willbily
  • 06
    NuclearOops 15 hr. ago There's nothing so quite free about living in a society where 70 households lose financial stability and the community misses out on a needed medical care facility all because of a few twits who never had any right overseeing a project had plenty of money to fail at one. Reply Share 2.6k
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  • 07
    Prineak 13 hr. ago It's almost always because they needed to staff maybe two or three roles. Nope. You lose everything. Your little power struggle that was your fault, but you didn't think it was, it cost you everything. All you had to do was be a decent human being. 961 Reply Share
    via u/Willbily
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  • 08
    thesouthdotcom · 16 hr. ago The construction industry is so fud. The mentality that everything needs to get done right this second is why we can't get new people to enter the workforce. We are building apartments, not saving someone from death. We don't need to schedule the concrete pour for 2AM because "it's a critical task," you should have allowed more time for the project. 595 Reply Share
    via u/Willbily
  • 09
    ROMULUX 16 hr. ago Same thing happend last year when I told my supervisor that they were adding way too much work load on us and that it was going to cause issues; I'm a social worker. She gave me the "management knows best blah blah blah" and proceeded to increase all our work load regardless in the name of "hitting better metrics than everyone is else."
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  • 10
    Well productivity plummeted because we didn't have time anymore to do what we are supposed to, an increase in mistakes happened. Now we are at the end of the grant year and they realized they over served way too many clients aka over spent money and in response the state cutts funding for next year/suspended programs due to too many issues with the way the program was run, metrics got worse, and they are panicking how to have enough funding to keep operations going through the rest of the year.
    via u/Willbily
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  • 11
    Beneficial_Ask_6013 17 hr. ago So many bosses have no idea about proper livable workloads. At my old job, I worked in a marketing department for a small junior college. Was a team of 4. We were constantly slammed with projects and rarely worked less than 50 hours. Under constant pressure from leadership to never miss a deadline. One of us retires. Now the team is down to 3. My boss (who isn't part of the team because she
    via u/Willbily
  • 12
    didn't actually contribute to the work, she simply stole credit for it) calls a meeting. Says we aren't replacing the retired worker. I ask about deadlines and the number of projects that can be submitted. She says that she brought that up with leadership, and they agree that deadlines need to be more flexible and that other departments are just going to have to be more patient with the number of projects submitted.
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  • 13
    Two weeks later, we have another meeting. She hands out our upcoming project assignments. It's more than we've ever had in my 5 years. I ask about what happened to lessening projects submissions and extending deadlines. She says we aren't doing that anymore, and these need to be done as quickly as possible. Quit the next week. 1.3k Reply Share
    via u/Willbily
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  • 14
    JustanOld BabyBoomer 15 hr. ago Sounds like the place I retired from. Every single time someone retired or were let go, their former job load was dumped on me. My then-boss was an ARROGANT DUMBASS who kept telling me that a (R-word) monkey could do my job. Then came the day when everything came to a head, I took my retirement and walked out
    via u/Willbily
  • 15
    without notice. The higher ups had already decided to eliminate a lot of jobs so Mr. ARROGANT DUMBAS discovered that he could NOT replace me! To add to the fun, part of my workload involved deadlines WRITTEN IN STONE! He couldn't dump my former workload on anyone else and he had NO clue how to do my job! KARMA!!!!! 518 Reply Share
    via u/Willbily
  • 16
    SpectacularOcelot 16 hr. ago Construction PM here. Did the exact same fain thing. I was the PM, the scheduler, the right of way agent, the material procurement guy, and the parts runner. I got bed at for not wanting to take on any estimates and both the supers had a bunch of stupid complaints my boss just sort of accepted without thought. (I won't even touch the fact that both thought THEY were running the job, and half their complaints were that I wasn't ignoring the other super.) Within a week
    via u/Willbily
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  • 17
    The GreatSuar. 17 hr. ago I just know that look on their face was pure satisfaction for you. Reply Share 132 Sour-Scribe 17 hr. ago As it is for us 434 ↓ Reply Share ...
    via u/Willbily

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