Corporate Catch 22

There are things going on at work that I am dying to write about … but … I can’t. I guess one of the drawbacks of keeping a public journal is not being able to write with a sense of anonymity. Suffice it to say, today was interesting. Despite my current work overload and the magnitude of stress I’ve been feeling, my boss decides that I have enough potential to handle even more tasks and take on even more responsibility. I am on the verge of laughing and crying at the same time. Honestly, I don’t know whether I should be flattered or ticked off.

One of my co-workers sympathetically told me that if you keep performing well and getting your job done, they will keep piling on more and more stuff for you to do. So true! But on the other hand, if you don’t perform well and don’t get your job done, you get fired. It’s the corporate world’s catch 22. Sadly, it has come to deciding how much “slacking off” you can get away with without getting fired and how good at work you have to be in order to keep your job but not get assigned with way more than you can handle! It seems these days it is a very fine line.

I guess I could tell my boss “no thanks” which would be tantamount to saying my boss is wrong and that I do not have any potential. Therefore risking looking bad in my boss’ eyes and having others think I’m not a team player. Or I could say “yes”, try to define boundaries and set priorities (which hopefully my boss agrees to and later on remembers), and take on the new challenges. At this point, I hardly have a choice in the matter, and so I went with the latter and will just hang on, do what I can, and hope for the best!