Increasingly unrealistic expectations from managers frustrate me a lot. They try to squeeze as much as possible out of the employee, but they don't know when enough is enough. How do you deal with that? I get so annoyed when the manager, on top of everything else, starts to convince us that these are not unrealistic expectations at all, implying that we are bad workers.
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I deal with it by segmenting my day as follows:
8-9: Catch up on my Twitter feed
9-10: Check out new YouTube videos from my favorite content creators
10-11: General "hose-around" time; chatting with my colleagues about non-work items, etc.
11-1: Lunch
1-2: Jiggle the mouse around a bit while recovering from the bourb0n
2-3: Sneak in some sketch-vid viewing time to get the adrenaline pumping
3-4: Chatting part II
4: My eyes are pretty tired by this point so I knock off early
I'd bet money it's not coming directly from your manager. As a manager I've had to argue many times about what my team does, who has what skills, where/to whom work should be assigned, and when someone is not meeting expectations, or is being expected to do something they never should've been asked to do (and don't get me started on review comments!)
I'm gonna say it's your manager's manager, 1 to times removed that's being heavy handed on your manager. Refusing to hire the appropriate sized team, demanding your manager take on more work for the team, and having it assigned if they push back (don't ask me how I know)
I'm at least honest with my team, and let them know that I fought back, but lost, so this is where we're at now. The best I can hope for is that no one gets fed up enough to walk, leaving all of us (yes, I often do the same work as my team) to pick up the work they left behind, in addition to the other new work.
If only there was some sort of organization separate from the company that could negotiate on behalf of the workers. Some sort of collection of employees that would join together somehow.
But if that started to happen, the company would just close that location down. The only way a company could be vulnerable to such activity is if the company forced all workers into a few locations.
Good thing our company leaders aren't prodding the employees to form a union and into a few locations at the exact same time. They would have to be completely detached from the people who run this company if they started doing something like that.
What’s the penalty for failure? (There is none.) Do what you believe you get paid for only. The work will he there tomorrow.