Good managers know how to push employees without pushing them too far.

This employee thought he had one of those managers after she joined the office and immediately started improving the workplace.

Before long, though, she started piling more and more work onto his desk while expecting him to meet impossible deadlines.

Whenever he told her the workload had become too much, she turned the conversation back on him and insisted he simply needed to manage his time better.

Eventually, she pushed him a little too far. After she sent him to a workplace coach to improve his work-life balance, he learned how to set boundaries instead of taking on every new assignment she handed him.

So, the next time she piled more work onto his plate during a meeting, he gave her exactly what she had asked for.

Let’s check out his full story below.

My line manager told me to tell her when the workload assigned to me by her was “too much”. So I complied in front or everyone.

This story starts three years ago, when a new line manager arrived at our office. I work in a big institution, and I knew this person from before. I was very happy when she arrived, as she is a pragmatic person who triggers virtuous mechanisms to improve our work environment.

After the first six months, she started demanding more and imposing more work. Sometimes, activities meant to show we are good were prioritized over technical ones. I started working under constant pressure without seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The more I did, the more I was required to do.

I was kind of complaining about it, and she told me, “It is your responsibility to tell me when it is too much to handle. I ask you because you deliver high-quality outputs, but if you want, I can ask someone else. But you know, I know you, and you need a little push to work.”

For me, as a hard worker with a good career and the respect of everyone in the institution, I saw all of this as putting the blame on me—gaslighting at its best.

He tried to tell her the deadline wouldn’t work.

Well, she gave me an unreasonable deadline to write a manual for a fully functioning, automatically updated dashboard that I had produced from scratch. (BTW, I had prepared it in two weeks, while my colleagues hadn’t made any progress in months.)

The deadline was given in the morning for that same evening, on a day when she had organized an aperitivo party at a place next to our office.

I told her it wasn’t possible, but she didn’t want to hear any reasons. “You have to do it.”

Suddenly, she cared that he has a family.

I decided to work on the manual, go to the party, and when it was over, instead of going home like everybody else, I sat at my desk and started finalizing the document, making sure she knew I was still there at 8:30 p.m.

She saw me and told me that I have a family, that I should go home, and that the manual could be finalized the next day.

I replied that I had already told her the deadline was unreasonable, but she didn’t listen to me, so now she would have the manual before midnight.

And I did it.

Then, he got called into her office.

The next day, she called me into her office, saying that it was unnecessary to work so late and that I needed to take better care of myself and my family. I replied that I had told her no, but she refused to accept that, and this was the result, thanks to her.

So she sent me to a mental coach to learn how to have a proper work-life balance.

The coach analyzed my situation and immediately understood that I was fine. So she asked for a meeting with me and my line manager… and here came the surprise. My LM told the coach that pushing people to do better is the only way to improve as a person.

The coach asked, “So you’re not satisfied with his work?”

Apparently, the coach was not impressed by the manager.

My LM immediately started saying that I was the best employee in the whole office.

At the following meeting, the coach told me, “What a piece of **** your LM is! You don’t need work-life balance sessions. You need boundary-setting sessions!”

We spent eight sessions working through real and hypothetical workplace situations, literally learning how to repeat what my manager was saying to me in a way that made it obvious how unreasonable it sounded.

Then the opportunity arrived on a silver platter.

Finally, he had a way to turn it all around on her.

During a unit meeting with all of my colleagues present, in the middle of a period with a heavy routine workload, she asked me to take on two new projects.

I replied, “If I understand correctly, you want me to do this and that while we also have to carry out mandatory tasks A, B, C, D, E, F, and G? Okay, no worries. I can do your new tasks, with a deadline of six months. Forget about me doing them before then, as I have to maintain high-quality standards and a work-life balance.”

Take it or leave it.

Backed into a corner, she had to accept my timeline. She tried to push her agenda a couple of times after that, but I always reminded her of the agreement we had made.

Thanks to the coach, he walked away with valuable knowledge.

From that moment on, she stopped assigning me extra work, at least not without first asking what I was working on, what my workload looked like, how much time the new activity would take, and so on.

After one year, I am now working on a project that she doesn’t even know I’m doing. I am doing what is actually needed, on my own schedule, instead of all the pointless things she wanted me to do. She can’t complain because my optimization and efficiency improvement projects produce real results… and I got my life back.

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Thanks, LM, for the mental coach you asked the institution to pay for. You wanted her to teach me how to work at your pace. Instead, she taught me how to stop you. Kiss kiss…

Nice! It’s always great to see a situation turn around like this.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit think about it.

This reader barely sees it as MC.

Yep, that’s what happened.

Here’s what this reader would’ve told her.

Bad managers are the worst.

Good for him! It’s about time he stood up to her.

The only reason his manager kept piling more and more work onto his desk is because she knew he would get it done.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens when managers keep counting on the same hardworking employee for everything. Before long, they stop appreciating the extra effort and start expecting it.

Hopefully she learned something from all of this. Every employee has a limit, and no manager should keep pushing until someone finally reaches it.