Burn out? Yeah, we got 'em.

So I just realized that I’m fairly protective of the people in my team.

I had a quick chat with one of my guys who casually asked how to flex out some accumulated overtime after a stretch of late hours.

I was like,

“No problem. Ask me, I’ll check the schedule, and you go enjoy the weather.”

He goes,

“Yeah, but it’s hard since we’re still swamped in the project. They even implied we should work weekends, so I did 8 hours on Saturday.”

At that point I was honestly shocked, especially because this has happened before and it didn’t exactly end well.

I was like,

“What the fuck?"

"Who?"

"Why?"

"What did you just say?”

I mean, sure, sometimes projects demand more hours than what’s realistically available. That happens. But I don’t know, shouldn’t I have been informed, considering I’m the manager? Or at least given some time to prepare for the questions that come with ordered overtime?

Stuff like this makes me feel like a fucking clown at a circus. Like, is the work I do really not important enough for me to actually be part of managing my own team?

And honestly, the more I write this out, the more frustrated I get. Mostly because this isn’t the first time.

Where’s the respect in this?