My boss finally rewarded my hard work by giving me the projects of the two people who quit last month. I spent my lunch break crying in my car because I’m already at a breaking point with my current workload. It’s like the better you perform, the more you’re punished with extra labor. Is it better to just not be a high performer at this point?

I’m so sorry, this keeps happening to me too. I don’t have any answers, I’m currently looking at how I can afford to quit.

Been there myself. Happened to me, doing multiple people's jobs. Was absolutely worn out. Then when layoffs came, I got laid off and they used interns (cheap labor) to do the work. Honestly, I think the only thing you can do is muster the few hours you can scrape from your sleeping hours and weekends without falling over from exhaustion to look for a new job. In thr meantime, ask if you can use any assistants or even interns that need work experience to help you do any of the things that you're not the only one able to do.

Yep never ever work harder than your pay grade they will abuse and use you!

Just left my job I was having to work the job of 4 ppl sometimes! I would suggest finding a new job. Then reward them with handing them their hard work back. You don’t deserve that! U have a heart attack or stroke from working too hard they will replace u tomorrow with no apologies. I left and went to a better place rather than continue allowing abuse.

Leaders do need to stop burning out their best employees but part of this is in your hands as well and this is the conversation starter “since you’re giving me these other two projects what am I letting go of in order to take these two over?“ Your renegotiating becausenot everything is urgent and if everything is urgent, then nothing is urgent.

It's like the old saying, no good job goes unpunished. It's always a dilemma, it's good to put in a good effort, but all too often that means having more work handed to us. It's important to set some boundaries, if you're now expected to pick up the work of other people, you need to stand your ground and get that adjusted. If you don't push back it will just get worse.

Doesn’t sound like much of a reward to me. It seems like there’s a reason so many people are jumping ship. If I were you, I’d seriously consider looking for other opportunities—they’re clearly taking advantage of you.