Helena wrote that her boss knows she works faster than the other people in her department and lately has been putting her on the spot to work overtime after work, and on weekends. While she does get paid for the extra hours, she wants her free time to enjoy herself and relax. Helena is single, which is another factor for why she always gets asked. Co-workers with families act like they’re more entitled to their time away from work. Helena doesn’t want to alienate her boss but he’s been asking her to come in almost every weekend and she’s fed up.

Work requests can be hard to avoid if everyone else pitches in. But even when you’re singled out for more like Helena is, it can still be hard to say “no” without creating bad feelings—hard but not impossible, if you nicely break people’s habits of always turning to you to pick up slack on the job. Helena knew her colleagues wasted a lot of time on the Internet for personal business. Once actually had his own business on the side and managed it instead of doing his work. So she was angry for many reasons.

I advised her not to bring that part up. But she did need to set some boundaries, which meant breaking her boss’ habit of always turning to her to get the work done after work hours. Sometimes a little white lie can help facilitate this. I advised Helena to say she’d be away the next weekend she was asked to work. Her boss accepted that and asked someone else to come in. She agreed to work the next weekend but when asked to stay late said her mom was having renovations done and needed her help after work. That excuse served her well many times after that.

Helena still did overtime occasionally, which was fine with her, but it stopped being a regular thing. Her boss never got angry as her excuses sounded reasonable and he eventually got used to having other people help out. She was able to keep her good relationship with the boss and set boundaries that felt good to her. Her co-workers actually were more productive when they came in on their own since the boss could see everything they did. So it all worked out okay.

There are some jobs where it seems people almost live at the office. It’s hard to keep normal hours if you work in one. Leaving at 5 PM when you know people stay past 9 can get you a lot of bad vibes, or worse. You don’t look like a team player. In a situation like that, you have 3 choices: continue to work late and stew over it; look for another job with normal hours; or try to find a compromise. Karla came to me for counseling. She was sometimes staying till 9PM, with no extra pay, which was especially tough since her commute was almost 2 hours. She arrived home ragged, barely saw her husband and spent weekends recovering.

I told her to speak with her boss and explain the situation. He was tough but a decent guy. She explained that she loved her job and didn’t want to quit but couldn’t go on working so late. Her boss didn’t like it but understood. He said she could leave earlier, knowing it meant less chance for advancement and possibly smaller bonuses. Karla gratefully accepted those terms. She still stayed late for important things but not as a regular habit. She was so much happier after that talk.

When you’re put on the spot at work to do something you don’t feel is fair, find ways to speak up. Make up rational excuses if you must at first to break habits of turning to you with things that go above and beyond what your job description is or to work longer hours than you can handle. Love yourself enough to do what’s necessary! And if nothing helps, start sending out resumes.
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