Your Asian mom

There was a stretch of time when I genuinely resented my job. Not the casual, end-of-day kind of frustration, but the deep exhaustion that settles into your bones when you’ve worked more than 30 days straight without a real break. No pause. No reset. Just work bleeding into the next day, over and over again. At its core, the job was draining because of how much was expected of me. My boss wanted everything under the sun—bigger ideas, better execution, and results that outperformed competitors at every turn. Ambition in itself isn’t the problem. The problem was that while the standards kept climbing, the support didn’t. Instead, responsibilities meant for three people were quietly dumped onto me alone, as if that were normal, or sustainable. Then came last year’s so-called “promotion.” On paper, it looked like progress. In reality, it added a new layer of stress I hadn’t asked for. I was suddenly responsible for managing at least ten part-timers, many of whom behaved less li...

There are days when being “the most reliable person” at work feels less like a compliment and more like a curse. At my company’s headquarters, I’ve somehow become the one person they depend on for everything — and because of that, I’m constantly stretched thin, treated like a machine rather than a human being with limits. Recently, the company pushed a massive project worth at least RM1 million , expecting everyone to give their all. But while others work a single shift a day with two off days a week, my reality is very different.  I’m alone, handling the workload of multiple people, and answering to at least three different bosses every single day. None of them coordinate with each other. None of them ask if I’m coping, sleeping, or even functioning. Most nights, I’ve worked until midnight, only to wake up and continue first thing in the morning. And still — not a single word of concern. Not even once. When I finally got my off days, I thought I could breathe… but no. My boss dec...