What does going above and beyond at your job really do?

We’re always told to give all of our effort whenever we can. And this is generally a good rule of thumb to follow whenever you can. But what does this get you in the end? It might not get you as far as you’re hoping it will. Sometimes effort goes completely unappreciated, and you end up on the fast track to burnout before you know it. Sometimes doing a lot of work is only rewarded with more work. The higher-ups only see the bottom line, and they don’t always connect that to the effort you’re putting in on the ground. They see that you can handle a high workload, so they just give you more of it. The ones who managed expectations early on and set a reasonable workload are then singled out when they do something above and beyond. If you’re always going above and beyond, then it’s hard to tell.

This is one of the catch-22s of the professional workplace. This is where politics and self-management come in. There are so many unwritten rules that go into this kind of thing, and it can be difficult to always know whether or not you’re in the right. Sometimes you need an outside perspective to let you know whether or not you’re doing the right thing. That’s where the employee in this story was when they shared their question with the internet.