Borrow some of my bad attitude, Steph. I've got a shitton going on at work and yet I'm sitting here unwashed, covered in cats at noon because I'll be DAMNED, they don't get my damned vacation hours. Even if I don't use them well.

We don't owe our jobs our mental health (says the rage bomb since July. Working on it...)

I feel like if I don't do it, they'll fire me and find someone who will. I don't really have any sense of proportion here.

Teppy, are these hours all the time or just for a short period? You can probably power through if it's just for a week but if they expect this amount of work all the time, that is untenable. NOBODY can work that way all the time. My DH is a freelancer and he has crazy 80-hour weeks sometimes, but he also has more normal weeks in between to recharge. It took him a while to learn to set boundaries, though. Some clients will just keep piling on more and more work and won't stop until you tell them to.

On a totally unrelated note, I have to share an online dating story my friend told me last night. She met up with a guy whose user name was ilovetofu (or similar). She asked him how long he had been a vegetarian, and he said he wasn't, but he was a VAGetarian. Yeah, his user name was actually ILoveToFU.

Oh NO, Jesse!

Teppy, are these hours all the time or just for a short period? You can probably power through if it's just for a week but if they expect this amount of work all the time, that is untenable.

All of last month and probably all of October. September was rough but I got through it because I thought it would just be the one month, but then my boss said that they're going to keep having me do the 2 jobs while the new person is transitioned into my job, which I understand and I want them to know I'm reliable and a team player so I do whatever they send me but it was literally more than twice as many hours in September than I've worked for them in any prior month. And I can't keep doing that but I feel like I can't refuse or they'll fire me. I don't really know what boundaries I can reasonably set and still stay employed. I mean, I get that I can set ANY boundary I want, but at the same time, they ALSO can say, well, if you won't do this, we need to fire you.

I just don't know what's reasonable. They're not unreasonable people, but doubling my hours is...I don't know if they're just not paying attention to the amount of work they're giving me or if it's just something I have to do or otherwise I get fired. And, you know, I need to be employed.

Jesse, that is so euw. I so hope that was followed by a swift deletion,

In car news, I just get approved for a credit card at my car repair place, so the new tires and heater core won't be such a big hit.

Steph, all I can add is, I work insane hours fairly often, and don't imagine that I don't complain about it! Because I do. My co-workers and I complain a lot! It's the nature of the beast, with my job and the way we do things; either the day's work takes three hours to finish, or 14 hours. But you still have to set boundaries. If the long hours are a temporary push, that's one thing, but if it's becoming a "normal" thing, to work more than 8-10 hours a day, then your employer is asking too much. You can't work that much all the time. I know; I've tried! It leads to depression and exhaustion and less-than-perfect work and messy houses. So if this isn't a temporary thing, don't be afraid to tell your employer it's too much work; you either need help or an extension of deadlines. You're not a whiner.

eta:

I just don't know what's reasonable. They're not unreasonable people, but doubling my hours is...I don't know if they're just not paying attention to the amount of work they're giving me or if it's just something I have to do or otherwise I get fired. And, you know, I need to be employed.

This is when you talk to the person who's giving you the work and be frank about your concerns. There's something in-between "do whatever they want and hush" and "refuse and get fired". Talk to them, tell them you want to keep the job but the workload is untenable, what can we do?

Kind of having a panic attack. Hyperventilating and seeing spots. I think I didn't have breakfast or lunch.

Do you have something quick and easy to eat, Teppy?