Boss demands 16-hour days and weekend work, the employee quits and is thrown by their boss's reaction to their resignation: 'She has us work 12, 14, 16 hour days, weekends, and wishes we could work holidays'

At what point does having no paycheck outweigh constant stress?

I'm sure this is a question that many of us have asked ourselves at one point or another at certain points in our working lives. Many workplaces depend on the idea that employees should feel grateful just to have their job, demanding long hours and skipped breaks as a simple expectation. And, so, a growing number of the workforce is reaching the point where they are wondering where the breaking point is.

When every little thing creates some negative response, every little break becomes a question of commitment, and you can forget about any vacations or leave for personal tragedies, it really starts to wear you down somewhere deep in your core. Those late-night messages that started off as a one or two-off thing suddenly become an expectation

And many of us stay in these situations for longer than we should because the sheer exhaustion of the situation makes it that much harder to branch out and look for other opportunities. Constant stress and being put down make you question your abilities and whether or not it would be better anywhere else, or if you're just the problem. Then there's always the sunk cost fallacy and the idea that walking away from years of hard work would be quitting.

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I put in my notice and my boss cheered

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But it's all about reframing those things in your mind, realizing that you are capable, you have gained meaningful experience relative to your peers, and your boss's comments be dangled.
Hey, we're all just faking it till we make it anyway, it's just some people aren't worrying about what other people think of them and whether or not they're "good enough" for an opportunity. They'll simply say what they need to to land the job and not look back.
And don't worry about what other people think. At the end of the day, when it's time for you to move on, your current employer is probably going to come up with a reason why it was a good thing for them anyway. Inside, they know you are a huge loss, and that's just their ego refusing to acknowledge that fact.
That's definitely what this boss was doing when she suddenly became the office cheerleader and made a show of the fact that this employee had handed in their resignation. This was just one strong reminder why it was time to leave.
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