My workplace is small, <20 ppl, and has chronic capacity issues. The CEO genuinely doesn't gaf about capacity, he'll take on work til we all collapse. We're all high-achievers and perfectionists. The company really uses that to have us "act up" ALL the time and stretch our capacity and get really so stressed.
So naturally in this workplace vibe I have burned out. It's been months in the making but when I cried over a Word format error I realized this is ridiculous and not sustainable and that I would rather be fired and go on EI than continue my descent into madness (they don't have a habit of firing people, it was just a worst case scenario exercise with my therapist to help me feel less stuck). The company purports to be all about work-life balance etc. so my therapist and I decided to call their bluff by me telling them I'm burnt out, need support, and need things off my plate.
My sr. manager is supporting this, and I've started a set period of 80% workload (let's see if that's actually honoured, but that's the plan) so that I can recover a bit and learn boundary maintenance. So far so good. But my colleague and IRL friend is now getting even more work on their plate, and they're saying yes because they hope it'll earn them a raise. It's the carrot we've all chased and in our case it would equal at most <$50/week increase in take home pay (our pay brackets are strict). My friend is reasonably freaking out about workload in our group chat and complaining about the impact on their personal life and every time I try to pose the option of saying no they have a reason not to.
The whole company is like this. I feel like I'm letting them all down by taking care of myself–clearly that's a red flag of a vibe, and some of it is totally my own stuff, but until I get to leave this place how do I deal with being in a company where I'm the only one saying “no, I am at capacity, I will not do that?”