Workloads

No matter what company you work for, no matter what occupation you work in, you have a "workload." A workload is defined as "the amount of work you are expected to complete, assuming you work 80 hours per week and forgo any semblance of a personal life." For various reasons, most people's workload is greater than what it should be - either because the team or company is short-staffed, or because management has unrealistic expectations of what their employees should be capable of. For whatever reason, chances are, you are expected to do more work than you are capable of doing, and if you manage to somehow complete all this work, you are rewarded with more work.

However, I have noticed a disturbing trend. It's possible that this is an isolated incident, but somehow I doubt it. First, a little background information.

In my company, there are a variety of different jobs, and many of these jobs have different levels or steps. If you work there long enough and do a good enough job, you could earn a promotion to a higher step within your job. This comes with a pay raise (in theory at least), and a title change. For example, in one job your title may be "Peon Level I" then you get promoted to "Peon Level II" - see the difference? Or maybe you get bestowed the title of "Senior Peon" or "Head Peon" or "Supreme Ruler of Peons." The titles may change from company to company, but you get the drift. (Note: I'm not referring to management positions here, just regular jobs that have different levels.)

At any rate, these higher levels are generally given to people who have proven that their knowledge of their job and their industry is superior to most others, and their dedication and hard work is rivaled by few others. Or management was forced to promote someone and chose the person least likely to call in a bomb threat. Either way, the person is recognized as being a leader and this usually means they earn a little more moolah as a result.

Back to the disturbing trend. One would think that people who are at the higher levels, earning more money, would be expected to either do more work than those at the lower levels or otherwise perform more difficult work than those at the lower levels. It only makes sense to have your most talented employees tackle the most challenging work, or at least tackle a larger amount of it, especially if the most talented employees are making more money than the rest of the group. But like I said, this would make sense; therefore, it doesn't happen.

Now, don't get me wrong - this isn't the fault of the employees. In fact, I'd be a hypocrite if I said I wouldn't want to earn more and do less. I challenge you to find me one person who would willingly take on more work and a pay cut at the same time. No one would, of course, and almost everyone would love to make more money and do less work. However, when it becomes apparent that the underlings are doing more work than the Supreme Ruler of Peons, and getting paid less to do it, it certainly doesn't foster a positive atmosphere in the workplace.

You may be asking, but how do you know the underlings are doing more work? It depends on what kind of job you do. If you work in an office and everyone uses a computer, you may be able to track the amount of work done by everyone in your group, especially if everyone gets their work from a central work list. If you work in a store or restaurant, you can probably witness firsthand the amount of work done by the Head Peon and compare it to the amount of work you do. You get the idea.

In my job, for example, everyone has access to view each other's workload. This is done for coverage purposes - if someone is out sick, the team can work directly off of that person's workload and keep things current. This access also shows which people have the most work to do, and which people have the least. Ironically, in my group, the people who have the least amount of work to do are also "Head Peons." Again, I want to point out that this isn't their fault, and the people on my team are not angry at them. Instead, it's management that is to blame and doesn't even recognize the problem. And how do you think your boss would react if you went to him and said that you do more work for less money than so-and-so and you want something done about it? Would he be more likely to say "You're right! Would you prefer a raise, or less work?" or "I hear Sanjaya needs a new hair stylist, how does your resume look?"

So what do you think it does for employee morale when people realize that they are doing more work than the people "above" them who are making more money? Does this situation occur at your job? Share your stories with us.