He Was Handed A Huge Workload And Told Not To Work Overtime, So Now He’s Stuck Between Two Orders That Don’t Fit Together
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Imagine having a job where you sometimes have a lot more work to do than you do at other times.
How would you handle the extra heavy workload during busy weeks?
The obvious answer might be to work overtime, so that’s what the employee in this story did.
However, even though working overtime was the boss’s idea, he still got upset when he saw the employee’s timesheet.
Keep reading for all the details.
Boss tells me not to work overtime anymore… until the work stops getting done
Another short but sweet, classic time sheet story.
I’m an analyst in a very specific field, working off “submissions” from various clients — meaning, my workload can fluctuate between a few weeks of minimal work, and a few months of having three times the workload one person can reasonably accomplish in a day.
We work relatively independently, with our boss assigning us various clients, and occasionally pulling us off our desks to work on his projects.
My boss also has selective workload blindness, wherein he mysteriously forgets about all your existing clients as soon as he needs you to do his project work, which contributes to the bad work weeks being very bad.
OP took the boss’s advice.
Consequentially, sometimes I work 40 hours a week, sometimes I work 50+.
Our boss’ answer to our insane workload is to suggest we “sometimes come in an hour early” or “maybe stay an hour extra”, or “work through lunch”.
So, for a few weeks I did.
But the boss wasn’t happy.
After a week or two of submitting my accurate time sheets where I came in early, took no lunch, and stayed as long as I could after normal working hours, he came into my office and angrily told me that I needed to keep it under 43 hours a week, because anything over that requires special approval from HIS boss, and he didn’t think my “current workload justified those hours”.
In other words, he had to explain to his boss why our department is working 50 hour work weeks just to stay on top of everything.
So, I started coming into work exactly on time, taking my time through a luxurious hour lunch break, and leaving promptly at 6 PM.
During that time he also pulled me into several projects of his, on top of my other clients.
The boss had no choice but to change his mind.
Every night when I let him know I was leaving, he would look at me with disbelief and remind me of all the outstanding work left on his projects.
I cheerfully told him I was approaching my overtime limit, and would be happy to continue working on it the next day.
After a few weeks of angry client emails, he quietly told me not to worry about my overtime approvals, and to just get the work done.
I can’t wait to quit this hellscape of a job.
I think I’d prefer not to work overtime under those circumstances. It sounds like they’re short staffed.
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Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person can’t work overtime.
Another person makes a good point.
This person shares something their brother said.
Here’s a suggestion to hire more employees.
The real solution is to hire more employees. Of course, what the boss is probably really hoping will happen is that the employees will work overtime without reporting it. Obviously, he can’t really say that, though.
You can only get so much work done in the workday. Expecting employees to do more than that is just wishful thinking.
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