Hey everyone! 👋 Let’s dive into a topic that many of us have either faced or at least thought about at some point in our careers: work overload. Imagine this scenario:
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You’re in a tight-knit team of just 2, when there used to be 5. 😳 But surprise! You’re still expected to handle the same volume of work as before.
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Your manager is sending out requests that require lightning-fast turnarounds, and honestly, the timing feels unreasonable. ⏳
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You’ve saved up all your well-deserved PTO, but taking time off seems like a luxury you can’t afford—what if you return to a mountain of unfinished tasks? 📅
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It starts to feel like you’re doing free overtime work, and your effort isn’t being recognized. 😩
In a situation like this, what’s your move? Would you stay and hustle it out, or consider looking for greener pastures? 💼🌱 Here are some thoughts to ponder:
– **Salary vs. Sanity**: Would a higher salary make you feel better about the workload? Or is your mental health the priority here? 💰❤️
– **Culture Matters**: Does your company value work-life balance? If not, is it worth sticking around?
– **Have the Conversation**: Have you tried talking to your manager about feelings of overwhelm? Open communication might lead to some improvement! 🗣️
– **Future Opportunities**: Are there opportunities for growth in your current role that make you hesitant to leave? 📈
Let’s face it—no one wants to feel overworked and underappreciated. If you’ve been in this position, how did you handle it? Did you leave the job, initiate a conversation, or tough it out? Share your experiences, advice, and tips below! 👇
Some resources that might help:
We’d love to hear your thoughts! 💬 Are you team “stay and fight” or “time to move on”? #WorkLifeBalance #JobOverload #MentalHealthMatters #CareerDevelopment #EmployeeWellbeing
Go to management and tell them they either need to hire enough people to manage the workload, or I’m going to quit and instead of trying to manage the workload of 5 people with two people, they can do it with one.
If you like the pay and experience, just roll with it. It’s like that everywhere.
I worked in a similar situation and had a breakdown from stress and cannot work at the moment – not worth it – look for another job as soon as you can as the consequences are awful
Absolutely look for something else. It doesn’t seem like your company is motivated to hire more to ease the stress. You are doing over twice the workload and I bet there was no pay increase.
You can try having a discussion with management. But not sure how motivated they are to fix this situation. Maybe there are things they can do (best case scenario) or maybe they won’t do anything at all.
Do you know the reasons the other 3 team members left? Is there a plan to hire more? Has the company taken steps to try and mitigate the workload?
To me, this is a situation that is inevitably going to lead to burn out. Either you stay and endure, or you at least attempt to find something else if the company is unwilling to ease the workload.
In which country are you?
Ask for a raise
Start talking to your manager about how this is unsustainable. Every time a rush job comes up, be clear that something else will not get done on time.
Tell the manager that 2 people can’t do the work of 5 and expecting to be able to finish it based on previous expectations.
If manager can’t accept that, then tell him the team needs to hire more, or they can find a replacement.
Probably that’s exactly what they’ll do. Get ready to for a new job.
Before you do anything drastic, you need to have a conversation with your line manager.
Your job is to do the work, but theirs is to help you prioritise in terms of business importance.
Assuming all the work is things you can do given enough time (and not tasks you can’t), you can only manage expectations if you actually know what those expectations are.
To be proactive, if you know the tasks well enough, you could work out realistically how long everything would take and bring that to the meeting.
You need a manager way to show a manager your current/forecasted load. Every time you receive a request, block the time in your calendar.Make your calendar full. Every time there is a change or something new, share your calendar and ask your manager: what shall I delay? Also, book all your leaves till the end of the year right now and communicate your plan (communicate do not ask for approval), and put the time off on your calendar as well.
Quiet quitting time 👍
Comes down to your workplace and managers.
I’m assuming they must have known losing 60% of a department was going to cause issues. Could still try bringing it up with them and seeing if they do anything.
I would start looking either way though. Some places get pissy and petty when you raise issues so it’s always good to have another option out there.
Personally I’ve gone through similar issues a few times, it was more them just saying yes to everything and assuming I’d somehow make it work/find the time. Sending me requests needed in a day where I can see from the email they sat on it for weeks.
I warned them that I had only so much capacity and I would let them bear the consequences of not keeping it in mind. So I would set scheduled emails and such to get them things at the last possible minute if I was able to get it done, forcing them to have to scramble/work late.
When I couldn’t get it done, I just said “Sorry, there isn’t enough time, you shouldn’t have promised that. Have fun telling the customer and I won’t lie if you send them to me.” Now, this is begging to get replaced though so it’s playing with fire a little. I had a few standing offers so it made it easy to play that game of chicken.
For me it worked out. They got but enough times and when they raised a stink it was obvious I was the one they couldn’t lose. Could have gone the other way though.
If you are constantly overworked and can’t use your PTO, the pay would have to be really good. Even then you can only keep that up for so long before it takes a toll. You could ask for more money but that won’t fix the core issue.
So really, you can try and work with them to fix it or find a new job. For me staying worked out but I’ll also always have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder over it, I think staying is probably not the right answer more often than not.
It’s always worth at least seeing what is out there.