If you are a working professional, you spend most of your waking hours at work (now – with your laptop).
While we all seek appreciation for our work, it is also true that we may not always get the accolades we deserve. But it gets extremely tough when your boss starts to take you for granted.
You are given work at odd hours, you handle the most work yet you are loaded with more, not to forget that you are treated badly too.
The fact remains that you put up with these expectations and that’s why they are thrust upon you.
This sort of relationship can get extremely toxic and debilitating to one’s self esteem and confidence.
Hence, to avoid this outcome, it is first crucial to look out for signs that your boss is taking advantage of you.
1. They keep assigning you tasks even before you finish one
Some bosses are workaholics, to an extent that they don’t realize it gets out of hands when they keep assigning tasks to one person over and over again. They give you a task to do, you agree to help out, they give you something else in between and ask you to drop the first task. Later, they realize the first task wasn’t done and then blame you for not completing it.
2. They use your success as an indication of theirs
Some bosses feed on their employees’ success. If you’ve always trained under them and worked well under them, they will want to take the credit for your success. In fact, they will also gauge how successful they are relying on your success. They always keep praising themselves for doing an excellent job at training you. They state that because of them, all the projects are successful when it’s really you who is putting in all the necessary effort.
3. They approve everyone’s vacation but yours
When it comes to taking a few days off, your boss thinks way too much to allow you those leaves. But when it comes to others, they approve their leaves in one go. They keep telling you that they need to verify with others who are taking a few days off to check if it doesn’t overlap. In some cases, bosses don’t let their employees take off days around the time they themselves want to go for a vacation.
4. You are called first when someone else abandons a project
Your boss makes sure you’re the first person they contact when some other team member doesn’t take up the job due to some reason or the other. They will just put the extra project that someone else was assigned on you. They even ask you to start working early for a few days in order to complete that extra project. And when you start to reason them why you can’t take up more work, they will try to do everything to convince you to take up the project anyway.
5. You are never given the promotion you deserve
You know you’ve been performing well at your job. Your boss counts on you each time they need you. They even go ahead and praise your work in front of other team members. But when it comes to giving you a promotion, they always step back and give it to someone else who hasn’t ever worked as hard as you for the promotion.
