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A short-term favor at work has a way of slowly becoming a permanent change in job description if you’re not careful.

When one employee’s coworker left the team, her boss assured everyone a replacement was already in the works.

He asked her to temporarily fill in for a few small tasks, which seemed like a reasonable request at first.

But months later, the employee discovered the job posting had disappeared entirely, and without any fanfare, her former coworker’s entire workload was permanently dropped on her plate.

Now, facing some serious burnout, she wonders how much longer she can cope with this unfair arrangement.

Keep reading for the full story.

My coworker quit and management quietly turned half her job into my job

A coworker on my team left and management said they were already looking for her replacement.

In the meantime they asked me to cover a few small things since I knew the system.

But the employee soon realized leadership wasn’t that serious about filling the position.

That was over a month ago and the job posting has disappeared.

Nobody said anything to me, but her weekly reports, client emails, and inventory checks are now permanently listed under my name.

So she tried to hold her boss accountable, but he seemed content with just dumping the extra work on her.

I asked my manager when they planned to hire someone.

And he said the team has proven we can operate efficiently with the current headcount.

By team he means me doing two jobs while everyone above me congratulates themselves for cutting costs.

Then they had the audacity to micromanage her output.

Now they are asking why a few of my tasks are falling behind.

Apparently I proved the department doesn’t need another employee, but also proved I can’t handle my workload.

Why are companies always the worst?

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

It’s time to start pushing back on these unreasonable expectations.

Clearly the team isn’t functioning as well as the boss claims if work isn’t getting done.

It’s time to pull out her job description and go through it line by line.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a researcher who complained about being excluded from a trip only to watch the university cancel the whole thing.

Overwork seems to be a troubling reality of the modern workforce.

There’s a real difference between a team running efficiently and one person absorbing a whole second job without acknowledgment or the pay bump to show for it.

In all likelihood, this boss probably knows exactly what he’s doing.

He’s counting on this employee to stay complacent and non-confrontational so he can continue to reap the benefits of cost cutting while the people actually doing the work suffer.

You give a bad boss an inch, they’ll take a mile.