I never thought I would reach a point where simply seeing my boss’s name appear on my screen would make my stomach drop, but that is where I am now. I work for a small technology company that has been struggling financially for quite some time. When I first joined, I was excited about the opportunity and genuinely wanted to help the company grow. I knew working for a smaller company meant taking on responsibilities outside my official job description, and I was willing to do that. What I did not expect was for several people to leave, more employees to be fired, and their responsibilities to slowly end up on my desk without any meaningful support or recognition.

The company has been making questionable decisions for years, but things became much worse recently. Several coworkers were unexpectedly fired, including my supervisor, and suddenly the structure of our team completely changed. Instead of hiring replacements or redistributing the workload fairly, management simply expected the remaining employees to absorb everything. I ended up taking on responsibilities that previously belonged to multiple people. Some of the tasks I am now expected to handle would normally require specialized training or even an advanced degree in another company. Yet whenever I explain that I need more support, I am made to feel as though I am asking for something unreasonable.

My boss has also developed what I can only describe as an obsession with AI. Every conversation somehow comes back to artificial intelligence, automation, reducing costs, and how AI is supposedly going to solve all of our problems. He talks about our AI system almost like it is another employee sitting in the room with us. According to him, almost everything can eventually be automated, and if we simply work hard enough and “embrace AI,” the company will somehow recover. The problem is that our actual work is complicated and requires human judgment, communication, experience, and attention to details that an automated system cannot simply replace. I have tried explaining this several times, but it feels like talking to a wall.

What makes the situation especially frustrating is the contradiction. My boss constantly talks about how AI will make everyone’s jobs easier, yet somehow my workload continues to grow. If AI is supposed to reduce the amount of work we have to do, I have yet to experience that benefit. Instead, I am doing the work of two or three people while being expected to produce increasingly detailed reports, solve problems outside my qualifications, and somehow remain available whenever something goes wrong. Whenever I point out that the workload is becoming unrealistic, I hear another speech about cutting costs and doing more with less. Apparently “doing more with less” means one exhausted employee doing the work of an entire department.

The hardest part is that I rarely receive any recognition for what I actually accomplish. I recently went through two incredibly stressful weeks where I was working constantly just to keep everything running. I solved problems, completed reports, handled responsibilities that were not originally mine, and kept things moving when there was very little support from management. I did not expect a huge celebration or anything dramatic. A simple “thank you” would have been enough. Instead, I watched another coworker receive endless praise for doing a fraction of what I had been doing. He is extremely close to the boss and seems to agree with practically everything he says, so perhaps that explains why his work receives so much attention. Sitting there and listening to him being praised during a meeting that was supposed to be about my work was incredibly demoralizing.

There is also a constant feeling that my boss is looking for a reason to blame me. I have been told through someone in HR that he has asked more than once about my notice period. That information has stayed in the back of my mind ever since. It is strange knowing that someone may be trying to find a way to remove you while simultaneously depending heavily on the work you do. I know I am not doing anything wrong, and I know how much of the company’s daily operation depends on me, but that does not make the situation any less stressful. I constantly feel like I have to prove that I am useful while also wondering whether my job is secure.

The frustrating thing is that I would probably leave tomorrow if I had another realistic option. I have reached the point where the money is not enough to compensate for the stress, the lack of appreciation, and the constant uncertainty. Unfortunately, the job market where I live is extremely difficult right now. Finding another position is not as simple as updating my résumé and sending out a few applications. I have been looking, but opportunities are limited, and I cannot afford to walk away without having something else lined up. So I am stuck in this uncomfortable position where I desperately want to leave but also need the stability of a paycheck.

What scares me most is how much anger I have started carrying around because of this job. I never considered myself someone who could genuinely hate another person, but lately I have found myself feeling an intense level of resentment toward my boss. I dislike the way he treats people, the way he talks about employees who are no longer around, the way he constantly focuses on money, and the way he seems completely convinced that everyone else is the problem. I know holding onto that anger is not healthy, and I do not want this person to occupy so much space in my mind. Yet after spending so many hours dealing with him, it has become difficult to simply switch those feelings off when I leave work.

I am trying to remind myself that this job is only one part of my life and that eventually I will have other options. I do not want my boss’s behavior to determine who I become or how I feel about myself. I am still doing my best to perform my job properly, even when the circumstances are unfair and exhausting. Maybe the most important thing I can do right now is stop expecting this company or this particular boss to suddenly become the source of appreciation and stability I need. I cannot control his obsession with AI, his management decisions, or whether he recognizes my efforts. I can only control how much of myself I allow this situation to consume while I work toward finding a better opportunity.

Read Story…

Disdain for my AI psychosis boss is consuming me

Hi girls, I’m slowly going insane and I’m sure some of you are in a similar situation right now.

I work in the tech industry and the small-ish company that I work for has been going down the drain for the past year. Realistically speaking though, my boss is a complete moron, who has been making bad financial decisions since the beginning and is overall an insufferable person to be around. We’ve never been in the green despite 10+ years of existence. It’s the classic case of a start-up having huge success at the beginning, expanding way too quickly and then crashing and burning.

We offer software in a specialised field that is related to the arts, mostly because my boss is obsessed with becoming a status symbol and looking well-read and educated.

The downfall really started when a few coworkers were unexpectedly fired last year with my supervisor fired shortly after, then coworkers finding out that they were being underpaid according to the reuglations in my company. The team I lead has really been struggling since then and my boss makes no secret of how little he repected my supervisor and still goes off and complains about them regularly. Fortunately for him, after getting rid of them, there was another person he could focus in on – me!

Naturally, I am now doing the work of 2+ people, have very little support and am expected to do tasks that I don’t have any qualifications for. Any other company would expect a Master’s degree in a business related field for the stuff I’m expected to do. He’s been hounding me since February, expects bogus reports from me and asked HR for my notice period multiple times (was told that my friend in HR), but since I don’t do anything wrong and a whole branch of the company depends on me, he hasn’t been able to get rid of me.

Since we’re not making money, my boss has gone into full AI psychosis, talks about our AI agent as if it’s a living breathing person and just assumes that all of our work can be automated with AI, when that is absolutely not the case. If I need to listen to one more AI talk about how we need to cut costs and need to stick it out together to save this company, I will take it upon myself to bury the company myself.

I’ve just had the two most stressful work weeks of my life and I don’t even get a “thank you” for anything that I do, but need to listen to my coworker, who is 24/7 up his boss’s ass and is widely disliked by everything else, being praised into the heavens for the minimal work he does – and all of that in a meeting that was about my work and reports lol

If I could quit right now, I would do it in a heartbeat, but the job market is so bad in my country right now, that it’s been nearly impossible to find something new.

What’s really bothering me though is that I have developed such an intense hatred – I didn’t know just how much I could despise a person until I had the displeasure of meeting this man. I can’t find a single ounce of sympathy for him in me, because everything he stands for is the opposite of what I would deem moral and just. He lies constantly, takes joy in other’s misfortune, is greedy and just a deeply unkind and unhappy person.

Really trying to find joy and not letting all of this get to me, but my depression and anxiety haven’t been this bad since high school – ugh.

Not looking for any advice, but maybe someone has words of encouragement or just wants to vent about their own situation.

TLDR: Boss is an idiot, economy is bad, depression also bad.

Food is vegan duck with spring rolls and veggies

How My Dream Tech Job Became My Biggest Source of Stress

I never expected a job in the technology industry to become the biggest source of stress in my life, but that is exactly what has happened. When I first started working for my current company, I was genuinely excited about the opportunity. It was a relatively small company, and I liked the idea of being part of a team where my work actually mattered. I knew that smaller companies could be demanding and that employees often had to be flexible. I was completely prepared to work hard, learn new things, and occasionally take on responsibilities outside my official role.

Advertisement

At the time, I believed that the extra effort would eventually be appreciated. I thought that if I proved myself, helped solve problems, and consistently delivered good work, management would recognize my contribution. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened. The more responsibilities I accepted, the more responsibilities were given to me. Somehow, being reliable became a punishment rather than an advantage. Whenever something needed to be done, my name seemed to appear on the list because everyone knew I would eventually figure it out.

The company itself has been struggling for years. Despite existing for more than a decade, we have never really reached a stable financial position. There was a period when things looked promising, and management apparently believed the company was going to become much bigger than it actually did. The business expanded too quickly, expenses increased, and eventually the growth stopped. What remained was a company with too many problems, too few resources, and leadership that seemed unwilling to admit how serious the situation had become.

My boss has always been a difficult person to work with, but the situation became significantly worse over the last year. Several employees were unexpectedly fired, and shortly afterward my supervisor was also let go. That completely changed the structure of our team. People who had been responsible for specific areas suddenly disappeared, and instead of replacing them, management simply divided their responsibilities among the employees who remained.

I was one of those employees who remained, and I quickly discovered what that meant. Work that had previously been divided among several people started appearing on my desk. At first, I tried to be understanding. I told myself that this was probably temporary and that management was simply trying to survive a difficult financial period. I thought things would eventually settle down once everyone adjusted to the changes.

They never did.

Instead, the workload continued increasing. I eventually realized that I was doing the work of more than two people while still being treated as though I had the same responsibilities I had when I started. There was no meaningful adjustment to my position, no additional support, and no recognition that the amount of work being assigned to me had become completely unrealistic.

Some of the responsibilities I am expected to handle now are not even things I am formally qualified to do. In another company, some of these tasks would probably be assigned to someone with a specialized background or an advanced business degree. In my workplace, apparently the requirement is simply that someone needs to do it, and if I am available, then that someone is me.

My boss also seems to believe that asking questions is a sign that someone does not understand the future of work. Whenever I explain that a task requires additional resources or specialized knowledge, the conversation somehow turns into another discussion about efficiency. According to him, everyone needs to be more flexible, more productive, and more willing to adapt.

This brings me to the biggest source of my frustration: AI.

My boss has become completely obsessed with artificial intelligence. I have never seen someone become so convinced that a single technology can solve practically every problem inside a company. He talks about AI constantly. It comes up during meetings, in emails, during casual conversations, and whenever we discuss the company’s financial problems.

He talks about our AI system almost like it is a real employee. He describes what “it” can do, what “it” will eventually accomplish, and how “it” is going to transform the company. Sometimes I genuinely have to remind myself that we are discussing software and not an actual member of our team.

The strange thing is that our company’s work is not nearly as simple as my boss seems to believe. We work in a specialized field connected to the arts, and much of what we do requires human judgment, communication, interpretation, and experience. There are tasks that technology can certainly assist with, but that does not mean every responsibility can simply be handed over to an AI system.

Trying to explain that distinction has become exhausting.

Whenever someone points out that a process cannot realistically be automated, my boss seems to interpret it as resistance to innovation. It does not matter how practical the concern is. He hears “this cannot be automated” and seems to translate it into “this employee does not understand AI.”

Meanwhile, the irony is that the people who are supposedly being helped by AI are working harder than ever.

I am constantly being told that AI will make our jobs easier. Yet my job has never been more difficult. I have more reports to prepare, more problems to solve, more responsibilities to manage, and fewer people available to help me. If this is what an AI-powered workplace is supposed to look like, I am struggling to understand where the promised convenience is.

My boss frequently talks about reducing costs. I understand that companies sometimes have to make difficult financial decisions, especially when revenue is low. What frustrates me is that cost-cutting seems to mean removing employees and then expecting the remaining employees to perform all of their work.

Every time someone leaves, the remaining workload increases.

Every time management mentions efficiency, another responsibility seems to land on my desk.

Every time someone mentions automation, I somehow end up doing even more manually.

It has become a ridiculous cycle.

My boss also expects me to produce reports that sometimes feel completely disconnected from reality. I am asked to provide numbers, projections, explanations, and analyses despite not having access to all the information I would need to produce meaningful reports. When I explain the limitations, I am often met with frustration rather than understanding.

There is also this constant pressure that I might somehow be blamed for the company’s problems. I have been told by a friend who works in HR that my boss has asked about my notice period more than once. I do not know exactly what his intentions are, but knowing that he has been asking about it makes me uncomfortable.

The weird part is that I have given him very little reason to complain about my actual performance. I show up, complete my responsibilities, solve problems, and continue working even when the workload becomes unreasonable. A significant part of the company depends on the work my team does, so I know that replacing me would not be particularly simple.

That does not make me feel secure, though.

It actually makes me feel trapped.

I feel like I am constantly being watched for mistakes while simultaneously being expected to keep everything functioning. If something goes wrong, there is a possibility that I will be questioned about it. If everything goes right, it is treated as though that was simply what I was supposed to do.

The lack of appreciation has probably been one of the hardest parts.

I recently had two of the most stressful weeks of my entire working life. I worked incredibly long hours and dealt with problem after problem. I handled tasks that should have been divided among several people and tried to keep everything moving despite having almost no support.

I did not expect some huge reward.

I did not need a bonus.

I did not even need a formal recognition ceremony.

I honestly just wanted someone to say, “Thank you. We know this has been difficult, and we appreciate what you are doing.”

Instead, I received nothing.

What made it worse was watching another coworker receive enormous amounts of praise for doing what felt like a fraction of the work. This particular coworker is extremely close to my boss and seems to agree with almost everything he says. Other employees generally do not seem to like him very much, but that does not stop my boss from praising him.

There was one meeting recently where this became particularly obvious. The meeting was supposed to be about my work and the reports I had prepared. I had spent an enormous amount of time putting everything together. Instead of discussing the actual workload or acknowledging the effort involved, my boss spent a significant portion of the meeting praising this other employee.

I sat there listening to it and honestly wondered whether anyone understood how absurd the situation was.

I was exhausted from doing more work than I could reasonably handle, while someone else was being celebrated for doing comparatively little.

That was probably the moment when something inside me finally broke.

I started thinking about how different my experience at this company had become from what I originally imagined. I joined wanting to contribute. I wanted to learn. I wanted to be proud of my work. I wanted to feel like I was part of something meaningful.

Instead, I spend most days trying to survive the workload.

The job market in my country is also making everything worse. If there were dozens of opportunities available, I would probably have already left. I would hand in my resignation and never look back. Unfortunately, finding another job right now is incredibly difficult.

I have applied for other positions and looked at opportunities, but nothing has worked out yet. Leaving without another job would put me in a financially difficult position, so I cannot simply walk away because I am unhappy.

That leaves me stuck between two terrible options.

I can stay somewhere that is damaging my mental health, or I can leave without knowing whether I will find another source of income quickly.

Neither option feels particularly good.

The worst part is what this situation has done to me emotionally. I have developed an amount of anger toward my boss that honestly scares me. I never considered myself someone who hated people easily. Even when I dislike someone, I usually try to understand where they are coming from.

With him, I struggle.

I find myself thinking about his behavior long after I leave work. I replay conversations in my head. I think about things he said during meetings. I get angry about decisions that were made weeks ago. Sometimes I realize that I am sitting at home still thinking about something that happened during the workday.

I do not want to be this person.

I do not want my boss to occupy so much space in my mind.

I do not want someone I dislike to have that much control over my mood.

But after months of stress, resentment, overwork, and uncertainty, it has become difficult to simply switch everything off.

I have also started noticing that my mental health is getting worse. My anxiety has become much stronger, and I have been struggling to find the same enjoyment in things that used to make me happy. I feel mentally exhausted before the workday even begins.

Sometimes I wake up already dreading the first email.

Sometimes I see a notification from work and immediately feel anxious.

Sometimes I finish work and realize that I have spent the entire day tense.

That cannot be healthy long-term.

At the same time, I am trying very hard not to let this job become my entire identity. I remind myself that the company’s financial problems are not my personal failure. My boss’s management style is not a reflection of my worth. His obsession with AI does not determine whether I am competent at my job.

I am trying to separate my own identity from the chaos around me.

Maybe that is the hardest lesson I have learned from all of this.

Being a reliable employee does not mean you have to sacrifice every part of yourself.

Working hard does not guarantee appreciation.

Doing more does not necessarily mean you will be rewarded.

And sometimes being the person who can always be relied upon simply means people will keep giving you more work.

I still want to find another job. I still want to leave this company. But until I can realistically do that, I am trying to protect whatever energy I have left.

I am reminding myself that this situation is temporary, even if it does not feel temporary right now. Companies change, jobs change, managers change, and circumstances change. Eventually, I will have another opportunity.

Until then, I am trying to do my job without allowing it to consume me completely.

And perhaps the most ironic thing about the entire situation is that my boss keeps talking about how AI is supposed to make everything easier, while the humans around him are becoming completely exhausted.

He talks about automation.

He talks about efficiency.

He talks about cutting costs.

He talks about the future.

Meanwhile, there is an actual human being sitting at her desk, doing the work of multiple people, barely holding everything together, and wondering when someone will finally notice.

I do not know how long I can continue like this, but I do know one thing: I am not going to spend the rest of my life believing that being overworked, underappreciated, and constantly anxious is simply the price of having a job.

I am going to keep looking for a way out.

And until I find it, I am going to try my best to remember that my boss, his AI obsession, and this struggling company are only one chapter of my life—not the entire story.