Dealing with Overload in a Supportive Workplace: Individual Strategies in Response to Unpaid Overtime Work

This article examines the subjective experience of work overload in a supportive workplace characterized by a non-intensive working time culture. Drawing on interviews with employees, we identify a typology of strategies used to cope with unpaid overtime work—embracing, bearing, avoiding, and concealing. These strategies are shaped by how individuals frame overtime and by their compliance with or resistance to the ideal worker image. Our findings show that responses are dynamic, with individuals navigating between strategies over time. By situating these dynamics in a supportive rather than intensive context, we refine understandings of both overtime and the ideal worker image, highlighting how passion and autonomy are mobilized to justify unpaid extra hours. In doing so, the study contributes to broader discussions on time use, temporal norms, and the lived experience of overload.