About six months ago I really stepped up my work ethic and my job and made a decided effort to crank up my productivity and efficiency. Why, you ask? Because I was tired of always being behind, playing catch up, and constantly being stressed to the brink. I figured I would rather work really, really hard and at least be able to leave my office everyday with everything I needed to do be done. And I did. I am absolutely killing my job. I even had one day where it was lunch time and I literally had nothing left to do. But it was because I was putting in the WORK. And how has my boss responded? Probably no surprise, but she just started absolutely piling on work for me. All new assignments-me. Other co-workers responsibilities-me. Office projects-me. I am doing more work in every measurable way than anyone else in my office, and the more I do, the more gets piled on. I’m also one of the newer hires and almost certainly being paid less than my coworkers in my same position. It is the most counterproductive, de-motivating(is that a word?) thing. I’m almost back to being completely behind and underwater again. And every day it’s something new. I’m to the point now that I’m doing 2-3 times what I used to do, and any efficiency’s increase I find, is just an opportunity for me to do more of someone else’s work. All this is somewhat expected and would be more than acceptable to me if my pay was increasing to reflect my performance. But no, I just got my annual review and there was a nice 2% Merritt increase to my salary. Absolutely unbelievable. I try to keep a good attitude, but it’s getting hard.