How to Deal With a Boss Who Asks Too Much

A Survival Guide for Anyone Doing Three Jobs for One Paycheck
By Nate Quigley

It is 4:58 on a Friday. Your coat is half on. And then you hear it: "Got a sec?"

Nobody has ever had the sec that question is asking for. "Got a sec" is how a four-hour project introduces itself.

How to Deal With a Boss Who Asks Too Much is for everyone whose to-do list has a waiting list. It's a genuinely funny survival guide with a real spine: underneath the jokes are the actual skills that stop the pile-on, protect your evenings, and somehow make you look more professional the whole time.

Inside, you'll learn:

• A field guide to the seven species of overasking boss, from the Idea Faucet to the deadly Kind One
• The four intake questions that size a request before you say "sure"
• The magic sentence that hands the overload back to the person whose job it is: "Happy to. Here's my list. What should move?"
• Six ways to say no without ever using the word
• The recap email, the scope log, and the Friday three-bullet update that ends the "what do you do all day" question forever
• The Emergency Test that separates real fires from anxiety in a deadline costume
• How to tell whether your job is having a bad season or a bad climate, and what to do about each
• Nate's Cheat Sheet: every script, question, and test from the book on one page

Every chapter ends with The Part You Can Actually Use: the tool, minus the jokes.

Your boss is probably not evil. Your workload is just invisible. Time to turn the lights on.

Pairs with its companion volume, How to Deal With an Employee Who Has a Smart-Ass Comment for Everything, written for the person on the other side of the desk. Buy one for yourself and one for them. Anonymously, if necessary.