Employee stops taking on additional tasks to help the management team after being forced to work mandatory overtime, leaving management completely overwhelmed: 'Management is drowning in them now'

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Feb 3, 2025 12:00 PM EST

You probably have no idea how much work you're actually doing outside of your actual job: your boss asks you to do something. Sure, why not? Add on one thing and then another, and before you know it, you have a whole stack of jobs you're doing for them that aren't (or weren't) really your responsibility. Sure, taking on additional tasks is an important way to gain recognition and experience, which can lead to growth and new opportunities. But you can only do this for so long without recognition before it's time to examine how and why you're doing things and what you're doing outside of your current role.

Of course, if you have no idea about the actual relative amount of work you're doing, you really can't expect anyone else to either. It's actually incredible how little every single boss in every organization knows or understands the work that is being done beneath them.

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    via Agustin Farias For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • And how could they possibly? Constantly monitoring your staff is almost always a complete waste of time and a full-time job on its own, and they definitely have other things they should be doing… right? Any attempts to "understand" are just invasive, overbearing, and micromanaging processes that actually just hamper the productivity of their staff. It's a bit like the “observer effect” in physics; you often can't observe something without significantly impacting its function or energy levels—and you can't observe staff without significantly interfering with their work and energy levels, too.

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    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • This worker had been taking on more and more work, really going “above and beyond” in their contributions. But the more they took on, the more there was being given to them, so things just slowly escalated over time. So, when the company started pushing mandatory overtime to cover the chronic understaffing, it became impossible for them to keep up with what they had been doing. Their return to their “normal" work volumes saw management scrambling to keep up with their own work.

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    "Stopped willingly taking on extra work and management is now drowning"

    I am a level 1 agent on a team of about 25 people. We receive messages from other departments daily requesting assistance or completion of tasks. The tasks are our department's responsibility, but it is also optional to handle them, as it's not our main duty. If no one handles them, management has to take care of them.
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    I've been going above and beyond for the last year or so and taking on these additional tasks, and I'm one of the only people on my team to do so. I've been praised for this by management and it has helped me secure an interview in the past for a promotion (I didn't get the promotion due to limited number of openings, but still very cool that I was considered).
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    A couple weeks ago they announced mandatory overtime for the next couple months due to high volume, but it's really just incompetence on leadership's part and understaffing. I've been quite stressed out so I stopped helping with the additional tasks altogether. And I guess I didn't realize how many I was doing, because management is DROWNING in them
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    now. They're having a really hard time keeping up with them. They typically didn't handle these tasks at all, since me and a couple other team members. would pick them up all the time. But now that I've stopped (and so have the other couple people on my team who were doing them regularly), they're completely overwhelmed with them. and are spending most of their time working on them.
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    It's wonderful to see, and I don't think I will ever willingly carry my whole department like I did before. F them.
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    Hoon0967 3h ago Good for you friend! Sometimes when you stand up for yourself you're standing up for others as well and can encourage them to follow your example. Keep it up!
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    helio2002pt 3h ago That is the way.
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    Bulky-Internal8579 3h ago That's lovely! Well done! Maybe they'll wake up and recognize your value of one of these days.
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    Watching Telly Now • 1h ago I see you, I hear you, I feel you.
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    Rabbits AteMySnowpeas 1h ago Somewhere, out in the vastness of the cosmos, a diminutive violin is being played for management...
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    tdomman · 2h ago I hope the end of your second paragraph was sarcasm. Sounds like they're stringing you along.
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workplace discussion employment issues antiwork workplace-stories jobs employee employment-discussion job work employees overworked-employees workplace Horrible Bosses employment in the workplace
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