This happened to me last year, and I'm still feeling the consequences to this day. I work at a big Fortune 500 company, where I started my first job two years ago. Last year, one of the managers on the floor asked around the office if anyone knew how to use photo editing programs. Eager to help, I mentioned that I graduated from art academy and knew the ins and outs of Adobe Creative Cloud. The manager quickly requested access for Photoshop, and within a couple of days, I had it up and running on my device.
Initially, it started with simple edits here and there, but soon this manager, along with multiple other team managers, began reaching out to me for various graphic projects. I even created posters for individual team-building events!
I wouldn't have had any issue with this if graphic design was my only job. Unfortunately, I was expected to do my regular tasks in addition to editing, drawing, and printing any creative task any random manager thought of. In a nutshell, I was working two jobs at the same time, which resulted in a huge burnout as I continuously logged overtime after overtime.
After a year of this torture, I finally decided that I couldn't and wouldn't do this anymore, and I revoked my Photoshop license on my own. I then had to explain to my manager, as well as multiple other managers, that I simply couldn't do two jobs within an eight-hour workday any longer. I even suggested they hire some of my colleagues who graduated with me and were looking for creative jobs or had their freelance gigs. The only response I got was that they didn't see the point in hiring anyone when people within the company could do just fine. I was seething!
Not only were they overworking me to my limits, expecting me to work two jobs while getting a paycheck for one, but in hindsight, I also took someone's graphic design job. Someone looking for exactly that kind of job didn't get it because it was cheaper to overwork me and pay me only for what's in my contract.
I was definitely too eager to please at my first job and agreed to everything without thinking too much about it. The bottom line is, never do something you're not getting extra pay for!
To this day, the managers who were commissioning countless projects now don't even acknowledge me when I bump into them. It's as if I offended them or asked for something absolutely outrageous when I denied their requests and asked to focus only on my work tasks.