Sadly I see people struggling with overwork, afraid to push back way too often. What I learnt from my personal experience is this: when you push back, people respect you more, not less.
I started my career in a small shop reporting to a toxic and abusive manager. Due to a combination of factors (my own upbringing, being a naive new grad, a bad economy) I didn't know how to handle the situation so I just took it silently. Those were some of the lowest points in my life. When I finally left, I decided I wouldn't allow myself to fall in the same situation again.
Then I realized something amazing. Contrary to my fears, when I pushed back against unreasonable requests, for the most part people respected me more rather than less. Of course there is always people who retaliate, and the secret is you want to be far away from those people.
This is my hypothesis of what is happening: most abusive managers are low confidence cowards which use their formal authority to bully others. Because they are cowards, if you stand up to them, most often they will be afraid of losing face, and will choose to bully someone weaker instead.
Of course it isn't easy to start doing this out of the blue. Once you trained your manager to assume that you'll work 12 hour days and always say yes, it's very hard to make them change their mind, and you'll face retaliation. If you are in such a situation, I don't have great advice, other than you should look for another place to work, and start asserting yourself, even if in small ways at first.
Unfortunately I know many people will ignore my advice. They'll say I'm being idealistic, or that it worked only for me, or that they can't afford to lose their job. But I hope that at least some people will follow this advice and we'll give less food to the toxic managers of the world.
I think a more fair interpretation is the managers don't fully realize just how busy you are and are following the path of least resistance. When you're more clear in your communication, it helps them understand.
I'm not saying there aren't assholes out there, but I would chalk your experience up to mostly misunderstandings rather than malice.
I don't think so. At least at the organizational level, I noticed that most companies try to screw workers, despite being in a country with one of the most protective labor laws. My former company did me dirty (I stayed only the trial period), my current company is fine but still not applying some of the laws.
When speaking of that with people the very large portion of them (like 90%) were like "keep it low", "that's how jobs are", etc. My own father mocked me when I spoke about fighting for my rights in my current company. One people encouraged me but added that they wouldn't have the courage to do it in my situation. It's astonishing how most people are carpets, ready to by walked on. Slaves who don't even entertain the thought of rising their voices.
Which brings me to the middle managers and why I think GP is right: most people just bend their head and accept to do whatever is thrown at them, of course surprised pikachu face happens when someone they no. Since managers manage slaves and slaves can't say no, mechanically it raises the question of the status of someone who is confident enough to stand for himself.
Amen. Establish your boundaries and enforce them hard. Be intentional about building a foundation to derisk if enforcing your boundaries causes a negative event.
Great advice if you can get a job in two weeks. This sounds like a great way to get fired yesterday. Employment is adversarial and should not be treated in good faith.
>...if you stand up to them, most often they will be afraid of losing face, and will choose to bully someone weaker instead.
After losing a birth mother our family is going through some shit... this quote of yours captures well how the eventual-lawyer-brother pitted other brothers against one-another, and joining in to not be the targeted brother.
I'm worried about neither job loss nor "whining," I just want to understand better.
Cal Newport talks about a similar concept - that work is assigned through a push system rather than a pull system. When workers are completely overwhelmed, they deny push requests - like "can you have this done by tomorrow". But, Cal hypothesizes that we set our "completely overwhelmed" threshold too high - resulting in us accepting pushes of additional work. He recommends lowering that threshold further (and, ideally, switching to pull-based work systems).
The analogy I used back when I managed a team was that our workload was like a funnel. You need some amount of overhead to balance the pressure and keep things flowing. If you put too much in the funnel, things backup and spill. It's faster to leave that little gap than it is to try to use the absolute maximum volume.
Indeed. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now with tasks assigned to me by the government, but I don't think I can say "no" to filing taxes and accounting paperwork, even when they make it continuously more work to do so. So now I'm off to the post office to have them verify my identity as part of a mandatory process to access their online tax-payment system.
I used to never say no and I worked 18 hour days. Not great.
I started to say no but that does piss people off. Not so great either.
Now, unless it's completely ridiculous request, I never say no.
I say something like "Happy to help! Sounds like this might take about an hour, I can pencil in that time for this project next week Thursday afternoon, looking forward to it!"
If they insist it's for tomorrow I'll include in the discussion whoever needed me today and let them know there is a higher priority request. Let them fight it out. Turns out people are quick to ask for my time ASAP, but if they learn they have to confront someone else to negotiate for it, those requests die down. Or if it truly was so urgent, no problem, we'll rearrange.
When the lay-off happened at the workplace both the kinds of people - the "slaves" and the "it's 5pm, see you tomorrow, toodles.. nope, haven't got 5 minutes" - were laid off together, indiscriminately. So that's there.
I use to be in this situation but found a much better job. My hard work is actually appreciated now even though it is not as much work as my previous job.
Pretty sure the business strategy at my old job was to keep giving more work until the person quit or figured out a way to handle it. If you said no, you weren't going to be the one progressing.
I stayed to my breaking point, didn't over stay, but so glad I left.
I like difficult tasks, completing difficult tasks is really fulfilling to me. I just don't like impossible situations.
Yeah, that's not gonna happen in a lot of places. There's a decent chance no one can evaluate whether a task is done well or not - or whether it's done at all - so the overwhelming incentive is to do absolute minimum, check the box marked "done", and move on. With seemingly miraculous speed. Doing otherwise, not keeping up the velocity of this fiction machine, just gets you on the short list for the inevitable next round of layoffs.
It's so hard to say 'no' for me. Fear of negative consequences due to the way I was raised... And desire to please everyone around me also because of the way I was raised
I also find it difficult to say no, I like helping people. I have found a strategy though that is just like saying no but without saying the word.
I just tell people when it can be done without me shuffling my priorities around (or whatever shuffling makes sense in my head and doesn’t stress me out). Perhaps I’m lucky, but 95% of the time the person asking doesn’t care. People are really keen to “get things taken care of” but “I spoke to this person and then said they could get it by next Tuesday” often ticks that box just fine.
In that last 5% when someone doesn’t like the timeline I’ve provided for them, I just let them know what’s ahead of them in my work queue. 95% of the time after that they realize that they are talking to the wrong person if they want to cut in line. That last 5% of the 5% when someone really wants to press the issue, I just suggest we get a manager to help decide what the priorities should be.
Your mileage may vary though, I’ve been pretty fortunate to work at places that expect a lot but also don’t expect the impossible. I’ve definitely gotten the “can’t we find some way to get it done by X” I have taken to just responding “not unless you’d like me to work outside of our working hours.” It sorta flips the tables, I’m not saying “no” but I’m making very explicit the shitty thing they want me to do and I’m requiring them to take the affirmative action of saying “yes, I want you to work outside of working hours.”
I wouldn’t stay somewhere where that happened frequently, but being able to say that is a luxury many people don’t have. In any case, maybe you will find some success with these strategies, I’ve found them to be pretty effective and they seemed to be received much better than just saying “no” and it has the nice side effect of you looking reasonable and organized.
Step 1 is identifying the problem, step 2 is trying to fix it.
I was an absolute door mat style of people pleaser. I just started saying no to people about things that were low-risk, and seeing what happened. I still get massive anxiety from it, but I can say no like a champion now. Probably a little too often, if I'm honest.
I did not seek out therapy, but probably should've.
If you're looking for advice - spend some time on this. My experience is that people who have negative personality traits, and try to blame the way they were raised, are not taken serious as adults in the working world.
If you're not looking for advice - then just tell me to fuck right off back to where I came from. No problem, either way.
One thing I realized after some rather ugly burn out a few years ago is that I mostly created my misery myself - there were demands and questions if I can take on some work but no psychopath managers, no deadlines that couldn't be moved.
I created most of the pressure myself - my biggest sin was working more hours than being paid because I wanted the project to succeed. It was never appreciated and only lead to be being angrily called on Sunday if something was broken - something my lazier 9 to 5 colleagues never experienced.
So I'd say instead of practicing no, first practice setting boundaries and practice organizing yourself.
Additionally a perverted mechanism came into play because I cared and wanted to improve the product at the time - the others kind of said: do if you like but that came without any real support and it lead to me being kind of laughed at as a hot air talker just because I was the only one that wanted to improve things.
Looking back I should have quit way earlier and of all things I shouldn't work overtime for free.
Having to say no could have been avoided if I had a good schedule that I could have used to prioritize the orders and giving the person making the demands an overview of my workload.
Watch out if there is some unhealthy inertia in your organization and especially be careful doing important silent work. It won't be thanked.
Either quit and look elsewhere or watch out that your workload is fair and similar to your colleagues even if that means to not solve that interesting problem because it's not your official job.
Interesting experience. For anyone considering switching jobs because they were in your situation, here is my survival guide of doing jack shit as a software developer:
- set medium/low expectation. To that effect don't work more than 5-6 hours out of your 6-7 hours day. This way you'll always have capacity to work more dor a rush and may be priced for that; conversely if you're always working at fill capacity and for some reason you can't deliver be you'll be criticized for it and your previous hard work will go unnoticed. Of course deliver acceptable output, preferably just above the bare minimum to keep the job.
- learn to shift blame. The CI is slow, code is crap, etc. Sugar-coat it with ideas for improvements. Those will realistically never happen but you'll pass as a bit more positive while the blame can be shift to the people making the decision not to improve things.
- know the laws applicable to you, and to businesses. Whoever has knowledge has an edge, and the HR department sure know a lot. Check primary and secondary sources. It's not because someone or the company say something that it's true, and some threat are simply inapplicables and bet on worker's lack of knowledge.
> For example, you might consider buying a house in the current, highly uncertain housing market: You really want the house but envision yourself in a few years, having bought right at the top of the market, just before a real-estate bubble bursts; then you imagine yourself struggling with the equity in your home being worth less than the value of your mortgage. So you rent for another year
What kind of struggle?
In this example, you bought that home because you wanted to live in it, not for generating income. Why would you even care about some abstract worth that other people are randomly assigning to it?
Suppose you lose your job while your house is badly underwater. You are unable to make mortgage payments and selling your house would leave you saddled with part of your mortgage still.
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I started my career in a small shop reporting to a toxic and abusive manager. Due to a combination of factors (my own upbringing, being a naive new grad, a bad economy) I didn't know how to handle the situation so I just took it silently. Those were some of the lowest points in my life. When I finally left, I decided I wouldn't allow myself to fall in the same situation again.
Then I realized something amazing. Contrary to my fears, when I pushed back against unreasonable requests, for the most part people respected me more rather than less. Of course there is always people who retaliate, and the secret is you want to be far away from those people.
This is my hypothesis of what is happening: most abusive managers are low confidence cowards which use their formal authority to bully others. Because they are cowards, if you stand up to them, most often they will be afraid of losing face, and will choose to bully someone weaker instead.
Of course it isn't easy to start doing this out of the blue. Once you trained your manager to assume that you'll work 12 hour days and always say yes, it's very hard to make them change their mind, and you'll face retaliation. If you are in such a situation, I don't have great advice, other than you should look for another place to work, and start asserting yourself, even if in small ways at first.
Unfortunately I know many people will ignore my advice. They'll say I'm being idealistic, or that it worked only for me, or that they can't afford to lose their job. But I hope that at least some people will follow this advice and we'll give less food to the toxic managers of the world.
I'm not saying there aren't assholes out there, but I would chalk your experience up to mostly misunderstandings rather than malice.
When speaking of that with people the very large portion of them (like 90%) were like "keep it low", "that's how jobs are", etc. My own father mocked me when I spoke about fighting for my rights in my current company. One people encouraged me but added that they wouldn't have the courage to do it in my situation. It's astonishing how most people are carpets, ready to by walked on. Slaves who don't even entertain the thought of rising their voices.
Which brings me to the middle managers and why I think GP is right: most people just bend their head and accept to do whatever is thrown at them, of course surprised pikachu face happens when someone they no. Since managers manage slaves and slaves can't say no, mechanically it raises the question of the status of someone who is confident enough to stand for himself.
It also reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD6uMxnYE9s
After losing a birth mother our family is going through some shit... this quote of yours captures well how the eventual-lawyer-brother pitted other brothers against one-another, and joining in to not be the targeted brother.
I'm worried about neither job loss nor "whining," I just want to understand better.
Deleted Comment
I started to say no but that does piss people off. Not so great either.
Now, unless it's completely ridiculous request, I never say no.
I say something like "Happy to help! Sounds like this might take about an hour, I can pencil in that time for this project next week Thursday afternoon, looking forward to it!"
If they insist it's for tomorrow I'll include in the discussion whoever needed me today and let them know there is a higher priority request. Let them fight it out. Turns out people are quick to ask for my time ASAP, but if they learn they have to confront someone else to negotiate for it, those requests die down. Or if it truly was so urgent, no problem, we'll rearrange.
Pretty sure the business strategy at my old job was to keep giving more work until the person quit or figured out a way to handle it. If you said no, you weren't going to be the one progressing.
I stayed to my breaking point, didn't over stay, but so glad I left.
I like difficult tasks, completing difficult tasks is really fulfilling to me. I just don't like impossible situations.
Deleted Comment
I just tell people when it can be done without me shuffling my priorities around (or whatever shuffling makes sense in my head and doesn’t stress me out). Perhaps I’m lucky, but 95% of the time the person asking doesn’t care. People are really keen to “get things taken care of” but “I spoke to this person and then said they could get it by next Tuesday” often ticks that box just fine.
In that last 5% when someone doesn’t like the timeline I’ve provided for them, I just let them know what’s ahead of them in my work queue. 95% of the time after that they realize that they are talking to the wrong person if they want to cut in line. That last 5% of the 5% when someone really wants to press the issue, I just suggest we get a manager to help decide what the priorities should be.
Your mileage may vary though, I’ve been pretty fortunate to work at places that expect a lot but also don’t expect the impossible. I’ve definitely gotten the “can’t we find some way to get it done by X” I have taken to just responding “not unless you’d like me to work outside of our working hours.” It sorta flips the tables, I’m not saying “no” but I’m making very explicit the shitty thing they want me to do and I’m requiring them to take the affirmative action of saying “yes, I want you to work outside of working hours.”
I wouldn’t stay somewhere where that happened frequently, but being able to say that is a luxury many people don’t have. In any case, maybe you will find some success with these strategies, I’ve found them to be pretty effective and they seemed to be received much better than just saying “no” and it has the nice side effect of you looking reasonable and organized.
I was an absolute door mat style of people pleaser. I just started saying no to people about things that were low-risk, and seeing what happened. I still get massive anxiety from it, but I can say no like a champion now. Probably a little too often, if I'm honest.
I did not seek out therapy, but probably should've.
If you're looking for advice - spend some time on this. My experience is that people who have negative personality traits, and try to blame the way they were raised, are not taken serious as adults in the working world.
If you're not looking for advice - then just tell me to fuck right off back to where I came from. No problem, either way.
Dead Comment
(saying no doesnt mean you say it out loud. there are a thousand ways to say no)
Dead Comment
I created most of the pressure myself - my biggest sin was working more hours than being paid because I wanted the project to succeed. It was never appreciated and only lead to be being angrily called on Sunday if something was broken - something my lazier 9 to 5 colleagues never experienced.
So I'd say instead of practicing no, first practice setting boundaries and practice organizing yourself.
Additionally a perverted mechanism came into play because I cared and wanted to improve the product at the time - the others kind of said: do if you like but that came without any real support and it lead to me being kind of laughed at as a hot air talker just because I was the only one that wanted to improve things.
Looking back I should have quit way earlier and of all things I shouldn't work overtime for free.
Having to say no could have been avoided if I had a good schedule that I could have used to prioritize the orders and giving the person making the demands an overview of my workload.
Watch out if there is some unhealthy inertia in your organization and especially be careful doing important silent work. It won't be thanked.
Either quit and look elsewhere or watch out that your workload is fair and similar to your colleagues even if that means to not solve that interesting problem because it's not your official job.
- set medium/low expectation. To that effect don't work more than 5-6 hours out of your 6-7 hours day. This way you'll always have capacity to work more dor a rush and may be priced for that; conversely if you're always working at fill capacity and for some reason you can't deliver be you'll be criticized for it and your previous hard work will go unnoticed. Of course deliver acceptable output, preferably just above the bare minimum to keep the job.
- learn to shift blame. The CI is slow, code is crap, etc. Sugar-coat it with ideas for improvements. Those will realistically never happen but you'll pass as a bit more positive while the blame can be shift to the people making the decision not to improve things.
- know the laws applicable to you, and to businesses. Whoever has knowledge has an edge, and the HR department sure know a lot. Check primary and secondary sources. It's not because someone or the company say something that it's true, and some threat are simply inapplicables and bet on worker's lack of knowledge.
I think your reply shows perfectly well that guarding your boundaries is not exactly laziness.
What kind of struggle?
In this example, you bought that home because you wanted to live in it, not for generating income. Why would you even care about some abstract worth that other people are randomly assigning to it?