Years ago I knew of a pair of sysadmins who were extremely overworked, often staying back late and working weekends, etc. Eventually they got a meeting with a h

Years ago I knew of a pair of sysadmins who were extremely overworked, often staying back late and working weekends, etc. Eventually they got a meeting with a higher-up and the opportunity to make their case that they should probably get raises and hiring another person or two would be a great help. They didn't get more people to help, but they were told they only had to work 4 days a week instead of 5, so, you know... That's a raise, right? Problem solved! More money for less hours in the office! Except for the fact they still had the same amount of work that kept them back at night on the weekends. Sysadmin #1 left the meeting, went to his office and wrote his resignation letter. Sysadmin #2 went back to his office. He was found a short time later with slashed wrists and not in a very healthy state. He was taken to hospital, patched up, and put in to a psych ward for a while. After a few months he returned to his job in a very medicated state, and just wandered around having hard to follow conversations with people. He couldn't really do his job any more, but the employer either felt guilty about letting him go, or wasn't legally able to. I'm not sure. Sysadmin #1 successfully resigned, and was hired back as a contractor, setting his own hours and getting paid at a greatly inflated rate.