I have a work dilemma. Let me preface by saying it’s so bad and I’m so anxious that I had a panic attack today when I hit my breaking point.
My boss is having me and my coworker do the work of 5 people over the course of the next 2 months. We’re 2 weeks in and have been breaking company records for the amount of work we’ve put out.
I tried telling the project leads well before we started what our parameters were and how much work we’d realistically be able to get done with only 2 people. My thoughts and input were 100% dismissed and unheard, on purpose I can only assume.
Well, we’re already so underwater right now that we can’t even get the amount of work done that we already have in hand before it’s deadline, and now today at 5 pm (of course as I’m logging off!) my boss tells me we have an extra load of work coming our way on top of the work we already cannot get done each week. I’ve told him time and time again that we are at our threshold, and we’ve already had to get other people to help us and we’re still not getting it all done.
When he told me about the additional work, I essentially, as professionally as I could, told him no. We simply cannot do it and I gave him an alternative option, which is he can find someone else on another team to take the work from us. He said he’d “chat about it tomorrow with ____ and I’ll get back to you”.
I’m a team lead, so naturally saying no feels very shitty to me because I’m very good at my job and always go above and beyond. I’m also hard on myself because my mom raised me to be a people pleaser. Just in the last two weeks, I’ve broken company records for the amount of work I’ve done, yet it still doesn’t feel good enough because this boss of mine keeps giving me more work without even asking if it’s doable. And I guarantee we won’t be recognized to the broader team for all of this work, because then everyone will know they worked us to the bone.
It’s like he’s saying “don’t get burnt out but also here’s all this extra work that you literally have no bandwidth for”. He doesn’t expect me to say no, but I am. And he’s gonna have to live with the consequences of his terrible business planning.
Any advice on not feeling guilty for setting work boundaries? I’m so anxious but I refuse to let this man and this corporation drive me to have another fucking panic attack.