Employee stops volunteering extra work until manager notices, leading them to finally acknowledge and change the workload: ‘It made me invisible’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Jun 24, 2026 8:00 PM EDT

What do you get out of being exceptionally good at your work?

We all know that the answer to this question is probably… more work. When you're good at your job, and other people recognize that you're doing a good job, the reward is usually expanding your workload so that your workplace can benefit more from your success. The lucky ones might get a raise out of it, or even a promotion, but most excellent employees only get the wonderful opportunity to work more while getting nothing in return.

The positive thing about that, which most people tend to forget, is that you can always say no to the extra workload, especially if you feel like you don't actually have the capacity to take on more tasks. If you're doing a good job as it is, and you haven't got an incentive to take on a bigger workload, well, the simple solution is that you don't.

Tell your coworker, your manager, or your boss that you have enough on your plate as is, and that you don't want new tasks to take away from the job you are already putting your heart and soul into. There is not much to lose from it, especially if you know they know how good of an employee you are, and you definitely know they cannot risk losing you.

The employee who shared this story below on Reddit's r/jobs subreddit learned this lesson only after they agreed to help their coworkers with other tasks. People got so used to giving this employee more work to do that they simply assumed they could handle it all. And with no incentive or appreciation, all that extra workload simply became too much.

It was only when this employee started saying 'no' to requests that their boss finally noticed how much they've been doing, and decided to finally give the employee the recognition they deserved. All it took was putting up these boundaries, and the employee stopped feeling so invisible.

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