Passion is an interesting word. It’s often tossed around in terms of interests and artistic pursuits, but should it apply to your employment as well? Ideally, you work a job that you love to do. It inspires you, challenges you, and gives you a reason to get out of bed in the morning. But most people are not passionate about their jobs. They wouldn’t sacrifice everything for it. Most folks put their personal lives first, knowing that that’s the thing that really makes them happy. That doesn’t mean they are not committed to their jobs, quite the opposite. They just have boundaries around their work life to make everything run a little bit smoother. Good managers know this, and respect their employees’ boundaries, knowing that it generates better work in the long run. But not everyone gets this. 

Some managers will try to squeeze as much as possible out of their employees, hoping they don’t notice that they’re being taken advantage of. That’s what happened in this story when an employee, who by all accounts was great at their job, was reprimanded for not going «above and beyond.»