Companies love to talk about efficiency — especially when they really mean “do more with less.”

So when one longtime IT worker repeatedly asked his boss for help as his workload ballooned, he was brushed off with speeches about prioritizing instead of actual support.

Eventually, he decided the only thing he really needed to prioritize was finding a new job.

Keep reading for the full story.

“You just need to prioritize” – Soon Ex-Boss

I have been working in IT for the last 10 years, four of those at the company I am just leaving.

I joined this company after a few bad experiences with coworkers and bosses.

After getting to know some of the staff in the company, I was really happy about the coworkers and colleagues, because most of them seemed to be really friendly.

But the longer he stayed, the more the cracks began to show.

Into my second year at the company, I felt like we were understaffed in IT.

“Not too bad still,” I thought.

That was up until our workload increased.

Before, we could handle the daily stuff and projects, and on top of that, we could do some system upgrades over the year.

He begins feeling like the team needs a lot more support.

Now we were getting more and more work due to new regulations from corporate and more software that needed to be supported.

During this time, I started asking my team leader to look for a new guy. We needed more hands.

But instead of helping, the boss blamed him for not prioritizing better.

After a year of bringing this up at least once per month, my boss started with his speech about “You just need to prioritize (your work).”

Of course, this would not help if the work is at like 110% of the load that the current team could handle.

We increased our hours and could get it done, but that was only for half a year.

Eventually, this employee had enough.

At this point, I was done with this whole ordeal.

Corporate IT got more and more hostile, and on top of that, I saw people left and right leaving.

After around 3 years of being with the company, I saw our trainee leave.

After talking with the trainee, his decision became even more clear.

I talked to him about pay and why he wanted to leave, not to deter him, but to understand his reasoning and show my support.

At that point, I had been passively looking for a job for about 6 months.

I was, at this time, talking to my team leader and telling him that he needed to increase my salary by around 8% at least and bring more hands to the team.

He was asking me why I wanted to leave.

So he decided to throw back some familiar language.

I told him about the problems that he knows and said that I could not bring myself to stay in this company with the problems the team was facing.

“I just need to prioritize myself.”

He did not react, unfortunately, but I think he got the point.

Far too many companies would rather see a dedicated employee walk out the door instead of address concerns.

What did Reddit think?

If everything’s a priority, then nothing’s a priority.

Many businesses are propped up by terrible communication.

This boss wanted priorities, so he got them.

If management refuses to staff appropriately, then they need to deal with the consequences.

Management saved on hiring costs, and this IT guy saved himself from total burnout.

If they won’t fix the workload, you fix your exit plan.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.