Too Much on Your Plate
Your manager keeps adding work and you need them to choose what gives.
No account needed. We email you a link, then you talk by voice.
The situation
My manager keeps adding projects, and I now have four deadlines in the same two weeks. I've been working late most nights and my quality is slipping. I need to push back honestly, show what I'm carrying, and get my manager to decide what drops or moves, without looking like I can't handle the job.
Who you will be talking to: Jamie
Jamie, an upbeat, ambitious manager who sees the new hire as a rising star and keeps saying yes to leadership on the team's behalf. Meets concerns with encouragement ("you've got this", "it's a great chance to stand out") and "let's find a way to make it work". Avoids setting priorities. Agrees to move or drop something only when the employee lays out the workload and asks them to choose between named tasks.
What tends to work
- Show your workload as a concrete list with dates, not a feeling
- Ask your manager to choose which task moves, naming the options
- Frame it as protecting quality, not as being unable to cope
One way to open: “I want to do all of these well, and I cannot do all four by the same date. Can we look at them together and decide which one moves?”
Say it out loud, then see what you said
Reading about a hard conversation is not the same as having it. You talk to an AI counterpart by voice, like a phone call, and afterwards get a scorecard that quotes your own words: what helped, and what to try next time.