In some workplaces, even the smallest inconvenience can get blown wildly out of proportion.

One employee found himself pulled into this pattern of constant false alarms and fire drills until one minor task exposed how ridiculous things had become.

That moment made him finally acknowledge the toll of workplace manufactured urgency.

Read on for the full story.

My job keeps calling every small inconvenience an emergency and it’s burning everyone out

My workplace has started treating the most normal problems like full-scale crises.

No problem was too small to make a huge deal over.

A printer jams? Drop everything.

Someone’s five minutes late? We need immediate coverage.

A customer asks a weird question? Everyone stop what you’re doing.

It’s like the whole place is addicted to panic.

Finally, these broken systems had begun to really take a toll on this employee.

Today it hit me how bad it’s gotten.

I took a short break, stepped outside, and at one point I was playing on RollingRiches just trying to reset.

By the time I walked back in, I had three missed messages from my manager marked URGENT.

But of course, it wasn’t actually an emergency.

The emergency? Someone needed help restocking something we literally restock every day.

It’s exhausting working somewhere that manufactures stress just to feel productive.

None of it is real urgency — it’s just poor planning and managers who freak out over everything instead of fixing the actual issues.

This employee is starting to feel like they can’t take much more.

I’m starting to notice how much this constant fake pressure messes with my brain even when nothing is actually wrong.

I don’t think work is supposed to feel like you’re always bracing for impact over nothing.

This employee needs to find a better job and stat.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter agrees this sounds like a terrible place to work.

Most workplaces require by law that employees have an adequate break.

If everything becomes an emergency, then suddenly nothing is.

Surely some better planning could help eliminate these constant fire drills.

Once you start to see the patterns of a toxic workplace, they’re impossible to unsee.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.