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Antiwork

Boss doesn’t want me doing overtime

I know this sounds weird at first, but hear me out. I work at a nonprofit where it's extremely important that a certain facility is fulled staffed during operating hours. To that end, we have multiple on-call 'shifts' to cover in the event that someone is sick/out, and staff from other departments are allowed to do overtime to cover shifts when needed. I personally like it very much-it pays very well, I get to help out my other staff, and I can choose when I pick up these shifts. One of the bosses of my current department has always had a problem with this, saying that it could contribute to burnout. For…a couple of reasons, I don't necessarily believe his intentions. Obviously, it's generally positive for your boss to care about your well-being, but it seems like he's just pushing me to not do any of this overtime at all.…


I know this sounds weird at first, but hear me out.

I work at a nonprofit where it's extremely important that a certain facility is fulled staffed during operating hours. To that end, we have multiple on-call 'shifts' to cover in the event that someone is sick/out, and staff from other departments are allowed to do overtime to cover shifts when needed. I personally like it very much-it pays very well, I get to help out my other staff, and I can choose when I pick up these shifts.

One of the bosses of my current department has always had a problem with this, saying that it could contribute to burnout. For…a couple of reasons, I don't necessarily believe his intentions.
Obviously, it's generally positive for your boss to care about your well-being, but it seems like he's just pushing me to not do any of this overtime at all. He's chastised me for any amount of overtime, from working 40 extra hours in a week (I admit this is too much) to just picking up one singular shift.
It seems like every single time he sees me or does a supervision with me, he's saying that this overtime is a 'problem' and we need to 'fix' it somehow. I want and like the extra work, the other facility wants the extra help, but I have to consider how he feels about it.
It's particularly aggravating to think that I, as a grown adult and professional, am not trusted to be able to handle my personal affairs to balance work and play. Just this week, I offered to pick up a shift this weekend for a coworker who needs the time to study for an exam, and I was also called in while I was on-call. Both times, I was thinking in the back of my head that my boss would get mad at me for doing something that was obviously very helpful to my colleagues and the facility's continued success.

After some private discussion, we suspect that the overtime that's hugely profitable for us may be an unwanted expense for the nonprofit. I would totally understand if they wanted me to limit my overtime because it was costing a lot of extra money, but this current conversation is extremely infantilizing. It doesn't make sense to me that I would be entrusted with my current job responsibilities, while also not being trusted to manage my life outside of these responsibilities.

Ideally, I could speak to him and try to convince him to let this go, or to explain the hidden reason behind this stuff. However, because I don't believe this is an appropriate use of his authority, I don't see a way to explain the issue without a bit of necessary harshness, explaining how and why I hate his attitude about it.

TL:DR-My boss doesn't want me to work overtime because (allegedly) he can manage my life better than I can. What do I do?

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