I started a job a year and a half ago. I quickly found out that a large portion of the staff had quit/retired in the 6 months leading up to my hire due to unrealistic deadlines and overwork. Company could not train incoming employees when I started, so it took 3-4 months to train myself and others. The following 6 months had me working with a team of 5 on a large number of deliverables. I quickly realized that I was being underpaid as I wasn’t doing any work in my job description. I asked for a moderate pay raise one the 1 year mark citing increased responsibility and the drastic change in job requirements. I was asked to wait 4 more months. At 4 months I received the standard cost of living increase and told there wasn’t enough money in the budget for a raise because upper management didn’t budget properly.
After that, the whole team was reassigned except me leaving me to complete the final bits of work. Over the past 4 months the work of one now equals the work of 5 with me pushing back deadlines due to reprioritizing based on who is yelling the loudest. I’ve now moved to working remotely 4/5 days a week with maybe 20 hours put in each week. I’m burnt out, tired of the constant changes to my project final design, and now looking for a new job. I’ve reached the point where I don’t care about work anymore. In a meeting today, I was asked in a managers meeting why my deadlines keep sliding and I told them that’s what happens when 1 person can’t do the work of 5. Let’s just say that was a long 20 seconds of silence. I’m hoping they fire me so I can get unemployment and severance, but the company can’t afford to replace me due to deadlines, staffing issues, and training timelines. Company is still repeating the same mistakes and now have 5 young engineers heading for the exists with no replacements applying.
I feel bad for my coworkers that are being affected by my inactivity, but I’ve reached my limit. I’ve been enjoying World of Warships, Zelda: TotK, Digimon Cyber Sleuth, and a bunch of TV shows. All I do is a few hours of work each day and make certain to answer emails quickly.