Underpaid and Overfunctioning: Reclaiming Your Value at Work

I have this vivid memory from my first real job. I was making $32,000 a year in the DC area, putting in nights and weekends to prove myself, and one morning I walked in at 8:10 and my boss dramatically looked at his watch and smirked. Didn’t even say hello. Just wanted to let me know I was fucking up.

That moment captures something I spent years unpacking: the belief that our worth is something we have to continuously earn through output, availability, and self-sacrifice. That asking for more (money, time, respect, capacity) is somehow dangerous.

For business owners, it shows up as undercharging, over-delivering, being available at 10:30pm, discounting before anyone even asks. You add "just one more thing" because you want to be exceptional — but over time, exceptional becomes the baseline expectation, and you're resentful and exhausted. For employees, it looks like saying yes to projects outside your scope, staying late to prove commitment, doing work above your pay grade without advocating for more, and avoiding the raise conversation because you don't want to rock the boat.

The reframe that matters most: excitement is a sustainability metric. If your work feels chronically heavy, underpaid, or draining? That's data. Think about how much of your life is spent working. This is not a small thing. Asking for more isn't the risk. Operating indefinitely without clarity is. When you ask, you find out what's actually possible. When you don't, the answer is always no.