20-year-old data entry employee is laughed at when she says she's overworked, stands her ground and makes her boss finish the job: ‘I was, and still am, super proud.’

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Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Mar 24, 2026 11:00 AM EDT

Young employee uses her confident stare to get her boss to understand her overloaded workload. 

Sometimes, it takes more than words to get someone to understand the gravity of what you are trying to say. This is beautifully portrayed by parents around the world when their kid is acting up and not listening to them. The "mother stare" or the "father silence" is understood by kids from every corner of the earth. Here we see the stare being perfectly used in a professional setting.

As a newbie in the workforce, you tend to let a lot of things slide because you are trying to prove that you are a hard worker. So, you might work beyond your wage in hopes that your duties and pay will eventually even out. Here, however, the boss kept pushing her limits. Finally, it came to a head and the boss was the one who had to learn the life lesson the hard way. How was she taught? Well, it started with the young employee clearly stating that she was overworked. She was given someone else's duties and she very pointedly told her boss she simply does not have the time to complete the task. The boss laughed in her face and told her to "figure it out" anyway. So, she begrudgingly took on the task, and guess what? She was unable to complete all of her duties, just like she told her boss would happen. When her boss tried to give her trouble about it she gave her the stern stare and repeated that she told her she was unable to complete such a task. 

The boss sat down and ended up having to finish the workload herself. This included her having to drive out of town after work hours to get everything done in time.

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  • A professional woman dressed formally, standing proud and smiling
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

    A professional woman dressed formally, standing proud and smiling.

  • "Told boss I didn't have enough time to do everything. She just laughed."

    I worked at a newspaper company from the time I was 19 to about 21. Started out as a receptionist and later got placed into a data entry position for the billing of advertisement slots. I was a fast and reliable typist so it made sense. Not a
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  • glamorous job but I enjoyed it. I was pretty much the only data entry person for a significant time period.
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  • My coworkers at the main office would enter their own sales into the system but I'd enter those from our other offices. During this period, the owners of the company were buying up more small town newspapers. I
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  • believe at the time we were up to about 16 (there were over 20 when I left and they were still buying more). Well, one of the things I did before I moved into data entry was do legal documents. This mostly
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  • consisted of changing dates, newspaper name, and supervisor's name. Then I would paste on a cutout of the notice that they require a legal document for and place. them on my boss's desk for her to get signed and notarized.
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  • I stopped doing legal documents after I trained the new receptionist (who was frankly not that great at her job). I don't remember why exactly but my boss asked me if I could do a few legal documents one week. At
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  • this point in time, we had just bought 4 new newspapers, and I was way too busy trying to keep up with deadlines to do those legal documents. So I told her I
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  • didn't have the time to do them and she just laughed at me and told me I'd figure it out. Keeping in mind that I'm 20, the youngest person in the office by at least a decade, overworked from
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  • Busy newsroom doing research and typing on their desktop computers, dressed professionally.
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

    Busy newsroom doing research and typing on their desktop computers, dressed professionally. 

  • being the sole person in charge of multiple newspaper advertisements, and a frequent scapegoat for any mistakes made in the data. Which, like, 9 times out of 10, the mistakes were made by my boss.
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  • You can literally see this by checking who last opened and submitted an ad. They just never bothered verifying beforehand who made the mistake. I pointed this out countless times and they'd just sheepishly walk away.
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  • Which all led me to decide to be a bit petty. So, I went to my office and entered the data. Every newspaper had a different deadline which I'd have to meet so they could compare the preprints to the data for the following week. But
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  • those legals weren't due until Friday. So for three days, I struggled to keep up with the sheer bulk of all the data I had to enter and barely even glanced at those legal documents.
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  • Friday was a slower day in the afternoon but the notary typically left around noon. By the time I got the legals done, she was gone. My boss, who had forgotten about the legals, blew up
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  • demanding why I didn't do them earlier and that they had to go out today. I, who still had a giant stack of data I had to enter by Monday at noon, simply looked her in the eye and said, "I told you I didn't have the time to do them."
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  • Business professional woman driving in her car at night.
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

    Business professional woman driving in her car at night.

  • Apparently, I glared so hard that she immediately backed down which honestly I was, and still am, super proud about. She ended up having to drive to the notary's house and get her to sign them and drive back to the office and fax them.
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  • The notary did not live in town :)
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  • Having a good stare is so empowering, we recommend everyone perfect one. You never know when it will come in handy! Maybe one day at work or most likely one day as a parent. This young employee was done being overworked and was able to teach her superior a lesson she should've learned a long time ago. You better believe her boss didn't overwork her like that again.

  • Slight-Book2296 Yup she really tried the you'll figure it out approach until she was the one who had to figure it out lol funny how fast that tune changed when it was her problem.
    via Slight-Book2296
  • Neverdropsin57 Did you know how imposing your glare is before this, or was it like discovering a new secret power? ubelieveurguiltless OP I have definitely used it in future situations lol. I've been told I look "scary" when I do it
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lesson learned data entry employee confidence newsroom happy workplace inspirational hardworking first job
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