Reddit user u/Dcwiker05‘s boss decided to give him more work because he was doing a good job.
When the Redditor’s department was understaffed, the managers thought they could simply put all his work on his shoulders. “Do the job you were hired to do.”
So he did. He arrived at 7 am and left at 3 pm, the exact time he was hired for. The higher-ups realized that the business was not the same without him.
People work long hours all over the world, not just in Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
There’s only so much you can take.
This story is not a stand-alone case. There are grim statistics on burnout. A study done by the World Health Organization found that in 2016 488 million people were exposed to long working hours, with 745,000 dying from stroke and heart disease as a result. In one year, the average American works more hours than any other nation, according to a report published by the People’s Policy Project. Overwork is the single largest risk factor for occupational disease and has significant impacts on physical and mental health according to the WHO study.
“No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, urging governments, businesses, and workers to find ways to protect workers’ health.
“Between 2000 and 2016, the number of deaths from heart disease due to working long hours increased by 42%, and from stroke by 19%,” the WHO said as it announced the above-mentioned study, which is conducted with the International Labour Organization and call the first of its kind.
The study doesn’t cover the time when the Pandemic thrust national economies into crisis and changed how millions of people work. The authors said that overwork has been on the rise due to phenomena such as the gig economy and remote work.
“[Working from home] has become the norm in many industries, often blurring the boundaries between [the two],” Ghebreyesus said. “In addition, many businesses have been forced to scale back or shut down operations to save money, and people who are still on the payroll end up working longer hours.”
Just like in our story! We hope more of us are willing to stand up for ourselves.
People were glad to see everything turning out the way it did.
