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I am severely overloaded at work and my direct manager does not seem to care. I have to sit in weekly status meeting with stakeholders and (I feel as though) it get portrayed as I am not competent in front of them. How can I let them know of my situation. I already work 11-12 hours days(not counting lunch) and plus weekend.

Added from comment: I do software testing for embedded system. So depending on the project, we could get outsource support for test scripting and I would just act as project manager acting as liaison between suppliers and stakeholders . But for this project, for some reason, my manager is not writing outsource contract so he gets credit for saving company money

Xavier J
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user46261
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    Talk to your manager and your project manager. We have no idea what you are doing and whether your deliverables if any are meeting their expectations. The fact that you are working 11-12 hours a day and weekends means nothing to me - I have no idea whether they are giving you too much to do, or whether you are being severely inefficient or both. – Vietnhi Phuvan Jan 16 '17 at 21:40
  • Why are you working so many hours? That's been proven to be unhealthy and counter-productive for extended periods of time. Also, if you think you're being portrayed as incompetent in the meetings, why aren't you coming to them better prepared? – Herb Jan 16 '17 at 21:40
  • I do software testing for embedded system. So depending on the project, we could get outsource support for test scripting and I would just act as project manager acting as liaison between suppliers and stakeholders . But for this project, for some my manager is not writing outsource contract. In some way, he is saving money to make himself look good. – user46261 Jan 16 '17 at 21:43
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    Sounds like you are being taken advantage of. Your manager considers you expendable. Tell him to find resources as you simply cannot keep up with the load. – paparazzo Jan 16 '17 at 21:59
  • paparazzi, exactly, the reason I do not want to confront him is because he has history of making things difficult for other employee when confronted. I guess when I started this job, I put more hours to get up to speed. But now 2 years later, knowing my job well, he is not allowing us to throttle down. Just keep throwing more project at us – user46261 Jan 16 '17 at 22:02
  • Classic abuse of the workers. There's only one fix: Find a new job. – Loren Pechtel Jan 16 '17 at 22:10
  • He said it is opportunity for me to learn project management that way – user46261 Jan 16 '17 at 23:36
  • @JoeStrazzere, he has "sweatshop mentality". He is extremely receptive to other group at the detriment of own direct reports. – user46261 Jan 22 '17 at 19:43

1 Answers1

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There's not any way you're going to be very competent working those kinds of hours. You are more prone to making mistakes when you are tired; the quality of your work is certain to go down when you get past a certain number of hours each week.

It's not complicated to just state that you are overworked and it's affecting quality of the work product.

Xavier J
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  • Thanks, I agree. The issue is they will listen and but dont care. Will just state there is no budget for additional resource. – user46261 Jan 16 '17 at 21:47
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    Don't worry about an additional resource. That's not your problem. Work a reasonable number of hours, and go home. Don't let them bully you. It's only happening because you've allowed it – Xavier J Jan 16 '17 at 22:03
  • codenoir, I understand/and agree your point about working reasonable hour and let them figure about resource issue. But the problem is he make us go to status meeting with stakeholder(project-specific). When project stakeholder ask " is it done "and I say no. I don't know if it is appropriate to tell them I have way too much on my plate. – user46261 Jan 16 '17 at 22:06
  • Your silence means you're okay with them believing everything's going great. Only you can change that. – Xavier J Jan 16 '17 at 22:18
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    It's not enough to say it's not done yet. Work out how long it's likely to take to finish assuming that you start working sensible hours. Then, next time they ask, tell them how long it's likely to take. If they don't like that, point out that you are the only one doing the work, so it's not going to get done in the timescale they want. – Simon B Jan 16 '17 at 23:33