Overworked truck depot worker calls boss's bluff after being reprimanded for working their scheduled hours like they were told: 'Clearly, you're not going to fire me. You have no one who can do my job'

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Jun 3, 2024 6:00 PM EDT

Being overworked and understaffed, working long hours at odd hours, is no way to live your life. Still, many of us are doing so in order to eke out a living in this wild world. It can even seem manageable while you're in it, grinding out the hours to keep up with an ever-increasing workload to keep the bossman happy while seasonal demand runs its course or to cover for that vacant role that they've yet to see fit to fill.

The reality is, by trying to do the right thing and keep everyone happy, rising to the occasion that has been presented, you're just your own worst enemy, showing the 'powers that be' that they don't need to hire additional help, either out of greed or because they purely don't realize that its a necessity and you're quickly approaching burnout. And, yes, burnout will come, maybe surprisingly fast and when you least expect it, but once it hits, you're going to find it impossible to keep going forward with the way things are.\

It was a bit like this for this trucking depot worker whose grueling job it was to clean out the interiors of the fleet's trucks after messy sucrose deliveries. After multiple failed attempts to hire some deadbeat at a lower wage, they—yet again—found themselves alone cleaning the trucks. A job that required two people just to cover hours of operation. Still, when the chance presented itself for a reprieve from their long hours in the form of a poorly worked demand, they took it and ran with it… showing their bosses just how necessary another hire was.