Burned-Out Employee Packs Up & Leaves Work Because ChatGPT Told Her To — ‘For Some Reason It Made Everything Click’
Sometimes the advice we need is obvious to "everyone" but us.
sirtravelalot | Shutterstock Something deeply uncomfortable and kind of unhinged is going on with ChatGPT nowadays. As if the movie "Her" were a documentary, everywhere you look on social media these days, people are forming genuine friendships and even romantic relationships with these chatbots. Some are even looking to them for spiritual advice. It's all a bit bizarre, but for one worker on Reddit, their AI chatbot provided a true moment of clarity after years of struggle at their job.
An employee packed up and left her office because ChatGPT told her to.
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In many ways, the woman's story is a familiar one. "I've been getting taken advantage of at my job for years," she wrote in her Reddit post. Her "do what you're told" work ethic, coupled with neurodivergence that gives her a hyper-efficiency at tasks has been a perfect "recipe for being used and abused," and it has slowly ruined everything.
But like many workers, she wrote that she "never stood up for myself because I didn’t know I could." She just kept grinding and grinding, and it rapidly took a toll, including physically, resulting in several stress-related conditions.
On a particularly bad day, the employee hit a breaking point and asked ChatGPT for advice.
The worker wrote that she had repeatedly asked for assistance with her workload, but those requests had either fallen on deaf ears or resulted in blowback. She often felt manipulated into taking on more as well, and the incident that was the final straw is a perfect example.
She was already drowning in work and then had a new project thrown in the midst of it. She was told to prioritize it over other projects, so she moved it to the front of the line, cleared her weekend to get caught up, and got to work.
When she shared the finished product, she included a heads-up that her other projects would be delayed due to the new one, which resulted in her boss telling her to "never mind" the new project. This is after she'd already completed and submitted it.
"I was livid," she wrote. "In that moment, I had enough." So she locked herself in the bathroom, gave ChatGPT a prompt that told the bot to remove any and all emotion and just "give it to you logic only."
ChatGPT told the employee to drop the project, stop working, and go home.
"You’ve already exceeded your capacity, given explicit warnings, and been ignored," the AI bot wrote. "Continuing rewards their dysfunction and punishes your body… Your health is not collateral for bad leadership. Walk away from the task now. Leave early. You’ve already worked through breaks and picked up extra tasks… Do not ask. Do not announce. Just go."
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Well, when you put it that way… "For some reason it made everything click in my brain," she wrote. "I realized that if I continue to deliver, they will continue to abuse me." So she did what ChatGPT said and left.
"I already know it will be made out to be my fault but this time I don’t care," she wrote. "Let it be my fault. This time I’m choosing my child and my health." Except it actually went the opposite way.
To the employee's surprise, the incident made her boss listen.
After she left, she was called into a meeting with her boss, in which she explained everything that had led to her walking out that day. Not only was he not surprised by what he heard, but he "empowered me to say no" to extra work and gave her authority over her workload.
"He acknowledged that I’m not being listened to," she added, and her boss also told her that the problem was stemming from another colleague who was trying to get promoted by spreading her too thin. "Boss also said he was happy that I had come to him with ideas for solutions and he will back me on whatever I need."
That said, their boss is no hero—it shouldn't have come to this, and they said they've heard this all before with very little follow-through—and they've polished up their resume and started applying for other gigs.
Still, there's a lesson here about being willing to speak up and set boundaries instead of going into burnout mode, and how obvious it often is to others that we need to do so long before we realize it ourselves. If we need ChatGPT to make us see that light, so be it, because life is way too short for this kind of workplace drama!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
