Today’s Pill (4): Your job is doing ”X” and then you get more (and more) unpaid work

Companies are constantly trying to adapt to the new problems. If you’re junior, your job is doing “X”, and your boss is asking you to do “Y”, which is not the task you’re paid for, and then comes with doing also “Z”, knowing you’ll never get more money for the extra work and the “possible” promotion is next year only, you might have two options: 1. Think the additional work will improve your skills and, if the additional work becomes business as usual and piles up to take you late in the night, you need to switch the employers (and the deeper set of skills will help;) or 2. Choose one carefully, like “Y” or other, so you take additional work on an area that adds value to your company (and your boss is happy,) and be good at communicating that doing also some other adjacent work, like “A”, which you like and would be great to get training into, might be beneficial to the company and also help in the solving of “Y”. No matter what, don’t take too much extra work so you get burnt, and, make sure this sprint won’t last forever. Should sprints never end, or the additional tasks become a stress cause, better leave the boat. This company’s culture is toxic.

Changing jobs is ok.