[2015] Being a Go-Getter Is No Fun

Recently there's been a lot of discussion about workplaces, and work as a topic more broadly than just being a member of a tech startup. This article recently came across my radar and thought it was appropriate to share here as some of the comments read here lately felt like they line up with the frustrations shared by study participants.

A separate experiment found that participants not only assigned more tasks to the go-getters—but underestimated how much work it would take to get the job done. "What looks easy from the outside may not feel that easy on the inside,"

Story time:

I can speak to this personally;having recently left a gig for this precise reason-and others in the article. Having been hired to perform as a business analyst, I quickly got assigned to help the project management office redesign some internal procedures and workflows-and because I was familiar with the specific work, we received great feedback from multiple points in the organization upon delivery and execution.

Soon after that I was asked to take a hand in some marketing endeavors. Specifically to take an active role in corralling our social media accounts. This was squarely out of my wheel house, I stated as such not to shirk the responsibility but to set the expectation that not being a marketing person, or someone trained in marketing, the specific duties I was asked to do may not get the best possible results.

After that I was asked to take on additionally out of scope responsibilities involving some major projects for the sales team-that would have ostensibly transformed my role from business analyst to sales support. Again I spoke up about it (this time more directly because A) I didn't want my work quality to further decline taking on duties I was not qualified for and B) I just really didn't want to be a support person on the phone all day), and mentioned that due to my lack of knowledge-either domain or task-oriented, that results may suffer.

It ended up with me leaving the company entirely as the stress of being expected to repeatedly perform tasks I just was not qualified or even had minimal domain knowledge of was becoming a sleep affecting problem-and one that showed no signs of letting up. Despite numerous discussions with my direct supervisor and her direct supervisor that my work was being affected and I was under intense stress, the only "help" I got was to double down on the expectations, and to continue on working inefficiently regardless of how much evidence I collected and quantified showing how the cards were stacked against any winning outcome.

By the end of it I was resenting my managers and taking hour long walks during lunch just to get away from the office. I stopped asking for help because I didn't trust anyone to actually provide any, I stopped calling out deficiencies in where my work was suffering because there was no trust that anyone would hear it, or proffer any solutions. No amount of showing or pointing to the problems, even when I had a solution at the ready to implement was going to fix it this environment. I had become a dumping ground for projects that had gone abandoned-or projects that the company just hadn't thought through as to what it would take to deliver and what the outcomes would be.

Things got to the point after an intense discussion with said manager that I quietly got up, packed my things, and delivered a one line resignation letter to HR-effectively quitting on the spot.

All because I successfully handled one internal project where existing knowledge did exist, resulting in the rest of the company dumping everything on my desk regardless if I had the actual ability to deliver.