'She just laughed': Boss refuses to stop overworking employee, causing overdue tasks to be forgotten until boss is forced to do them herself

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Mar 25, 2026 10:00 AM EDT

Telling your boss you have too much on your plate requires a lot of courage, and dealing with the aftermath is usually no picnic either.

Getting to a point where your workplace tasks become too much to handle is something many of us deal with on a daily basis at the office. Bosses love to pile on more and more responsibilities, acting as if you have superpowers that allow you to get to everything in time.

Yet, news flash, no one is capable of doing more than time allows, and no one should overwork themselves just to maintain their boss's unrealistic expectations. Which is why some are forced to confront their managers and tell them they are asking too much.

When the 20-year-old receptionist below did that, her boss simply laughed at her. The receptionist warned her boss that they were unable to complete all their tasks in time for their deadline, and was very clear about how much they were able to do, yet they were met with a dismissive attitude and were told to "figure it out". 

The receptionist, however, decided that they did everything in their power to prevent a missed deadline. They informed their boss, and the boss decided not to listen, so whatever happens in the future could not be pinned on them. And that is exactly what happened when the boss discovered the overdue tasks that had no one to tend to them.

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  • Overworked and frustrated young woman in front of computer in office
    via nd3000

    Overworked and frustrated young woman in front of computer in office.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 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.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • I was a fast and reliable typist so it made sense. Not a glamorous job but I enjoyed it.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • I was pretty much the only data entry person for a significant time period. My coworkers at the main office would enter their own sales into the system but I'd enter those from our other offices.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • During this period, the owners of the company were buying up more small town newspapers. I believe at the time we were up to about 16 (there were over 20 when I left and they were still buying more).
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • Well, one of the things I did before I moved into data entry was do legal documents.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • This mostly 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.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • stopped doing legal documents after I trained the new receptionist (who was frankly not that great at her job).
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • I don't remember why exactly but my boss asked me if I could do a few legal documents one week.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • At 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.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • Smiling woman in a suit holding a book
    via Andrej Lišakov

    Smiling woman in a suit holding a book.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • So I told her I didn't have the time to do them and she just laughed at me and told me I'd figure it out.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • Keeping in mind that I'm 20, the youngest person in the office by at least a decade, overworked from being the sole person in charge of multiple newspaper advertisements, and a frequent scapegoat for any mistakes made in the data.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • Which, like, 9 times out of 10, the mistakes were made by my boss. You can literally see this by checking who last opened and submitted an ad.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • They just never bothered verifying beforehand who made the mistake. I pointed this out countless times and they'd just sheepishly walk away.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • Which all led me to decide to be a bit petty. So, I went to my office and entered the data.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • 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.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • But those legals weren't due until Friday. So for three days, I struggled to keep up with the sheer bulk of all the data | had to enter and barely even glanced at those legal documents.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • 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.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • My boss, who had forgotten about the legals, blew up demanding why I didn't do them earlier and that they had to go out today.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • 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." Apparently, I glared so hard that she immediately backed down which honestly I was, and still am, super proud about.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • 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.
    via ubelieveurguiltless
  • The notary did not live in town :)
    via ubelieveurguiltless

  • We're glad that the employee didn't back down and allowed their boss to pressure them into overworking themselves even more. We're even more glad that the boss was the one forced to clean up after her own mistake. Hopefully, in the future, she will be more inclined to listen to her employees when they tell her she is overworking them…

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boss workplace-stories employee manager job ceo overdue overworked-employees workplace company task receptionist
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