The work you’re doing that nobody sees

Before you read any further, write down everything you’ve taken on in the last 12 months that isn’t in your title.

Don’t edit. Don’t minimize. Come back to the list at the end.

When Google laid me off in May 2024, my job didn’t disappear. It landed on someone else.

She called me as soon as she found out.

“I just learned you were laid off. Now I have to take over your team and your responsibilities. I have no details. I’m not getting paid any more. And I’m being held responsible for your number.”

She had less than six months to hit it. She still had young kids at home, and she was worried about how she would balance all of it.

I was the one on my way out. She was the one I felt awful for.

So we worked it through together. I told her three things:

Where the upside was. The customers who could still move that year.

What not to chase. The deals that looked alive and weren’t.

Who she could count on. Each person’s strengths, and the one who could lead the extra effort with her.

Then we hung up, and I never spoke with her again. I don’t know how it turned out.

I gave her a plan for the work. I never told her to have one more conversation, the one with her manager.

That’s the conversation most capable people skip.

When a job lands on you, the instinct is to absorb it. Work later. Cover more. Prove you can handle it. Capable people don’t want to look like they can’t.

So they handle it quietly. Leadership assumes it’s covered. And when promotion season comes, the extra work counts as table stakes instead of a bigger role.

This year, waiting to be noticed is a worse bet than usual. Workday’s October workforce report found that moves into new internal roles fell at 57% of employers, and promotion rates were flat.

Nobody is coming to name what you’re carrying. You have to name it yourself.

Keep the request short:

“I’d like 30 minutes this week to walk you through how my scope has changed since [date] and agree on priorities for the rest of the year.”

Name it.

“Since [date], I’ve taken on [team, accounts, responsibilities]. That’s the scope of [the role it used to be].”

Put a number on it.

Revenue you now own. People you now lead. Hours a week it takes. One number beats a paragraph.

Say what you’ll drop.

“To deliver [the priority], I’m going to stop [the thing]. Can we agree on that?”

This is the part people skip, and it’s the part that protects you.

Ask for a date.

“Can we set a date in Q1 to revisit title and compensation based on this scope?”

You may not get a yes today. The date is the win. It turns a favor you’re doing into a commitment you both wrote down.

“Thanks for the time today. To confirm what we agreed:

My scope now includes [X].

For the rest of the year, I’m prioritizing [A] and stopping [B].

We’ll revisit title and compensation on [date].

Let me know if I missed anything.”

That email is the part people remember at review time. Without it, the conversation never happened.

A senior leader I work with spent weeks deciding how to approach a new executive. She was drafting long explanations and planning to go through his assistant first.

We cut it to a four-line email asking for 30 minutes, sent directly to him.

The short version is harder to write. It’s also the one that gets answered.

Look at the list you wrote at the top.

Reply with the one thing on it that nobody above you knows you’re carrying.

One line is enough. I read every one, and I’ll write you back.

With clarity,

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