A rant but also need advice.
I work as an I/O psychologist at a firm of 11 employees. My boss called a meeting with me. Three months prior to this meeting, I missed a deadline once after taking on too much work when I was their only psychologist; they need at least three, but I didn’t know how much work I was really taking on.
Still, it was my fault, and ever since then, I’ve been sure to not miss deadlines.
She started by saying to me that she was glad I was not missing deadlines, but it simply wasn’t enough since it felt “last minute” to her. I asked what she meant.
She said there was an issue where I had gotten a document due Friday in a largely completed state on Wednesday but I said nothing. I had replied, by email that day, that I needed to check for errors. This is because I got criticized for making mistakes in the past.
Then she noted that I declined to help with a side project that would take four hours of my time. I said I missed that deadline before by accepting too much work, so I wanted to be careful.
She paused and said, “here is my main issue. You work from 7:30 to 3:30. You aren’t missing deadlines, but you also seem to be working in such a way where I cannot assign you more work. You need to know that this is not a 40-hour work week. Do more.”
I didn’t say anything. I’m just furious because I took steps to correct my issues and am basically being asked to work for free. I was off yesterday due to a late Juneteenth that the new CEO granted us in retrospect, but I still got emails from work for tasks needing to be done. The irony wasn’t lost upon me.
I get that some places have work weeks larger than 40 hours, but if I’m salaried for 40 and not given comp time nor overtime, why is it so bad I only do 40 hours? What should I do?
Thanks for reading.