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Can we talk about the day I got a promotion by turning down more work?
My manager pulled me aside on a Tuesday and said, 'We need you to lead the new Denver project, on top of your current load.' I told him I couldn't take it on without dropping something else, which felt risky. But I listed my current tasks and asked which one he wanted me to stop doing first. He actually paused, then came back the next day and offered me a team lead role instead. Has anyone else found that saying 'no' at work led to a better outcome?
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andrewreed20d ago
That's a great way to get fired at most places.
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spencer_coleman20d ago
My buddy got canned for that exact thing, @andrewreed.
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My last company had a formal policy about workload reviews every six months. It forced managers to actually look at what people were doing before adding more. The key was having that structure already in place, so a "no" wasn't seen as defiance but as part of a process. Without that framework, @andrewreed is right that it's often a huge risk. It really depends on whether your workplace sees capacity as a planning issue or a commitment test. The original poster got lucky with a reasonable manager in that moment.
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