To ask my manger to stop being so demanding

[Coffeep]

I’ve been with my employer for 15 years and in the last 2 I’ve had a manager who is very demanding.
She proudly states that she demands the very best from her team and from herself. She is nice enough but works crazy hours (till 2 in the morning), she doesn’t ask people to work long hours but given the workload and the deadlines people often have to and she turns a blind eye. I log of at 5 and log back on at 9 and work till 11 at least 2 nights a week.
many of my colleagues are contractors based offshore so they don’t complain.
i feel like asking her to reduce my workload for a month so I can get myself together but I fear she will mark me as a underperformer. One permanent colleague and two contracts have been booted out in the past 3 months for performance issues.
My other option would be to take some leave but she won’t sign off more than a week off.
I was thinking of just calling in sick for a week but the work will be there when I return.
I have started looking elsewhere but it’s taking longer than I thought and there are limited roles in my company.

I log of at 5 and log back on at 9 and work till 11 at least 2 nights a week.

Is that what you are paid to do? What does your contract say?

Personally I would find another job. Life is short. Unless there is no alternative better job that you can find why work in such an unrewarding, demanding environment.

Who is HER manager op? Can you discuss the unrealistic workload with someone higher up or a HR department? You should not be working until 11pm and she shouldn’t be creating a kind of company culture where that’s acceptable. I’d definitely not be accepting that! You (and she) will end up ill and burning out.

Life is much much too short to be devoting so much of it to this job. I hate this American-style "the company is your life" attitude. It is so destructive to health and well-being.

Is there an HR department? Can you talk to them? What does your contract say about hours of work?

Too many people work their tripe out and then get sick and die when they retire. Assume that is going to happen to you, and base your decisions about this job on that - it should concentrate the mind.

Have you talked to your manager so you and she are clear on what are the top priorities ?
Have you raised with her "If I work on X, Y and Z, I then won't be able to pick up A, B and C in this time" ?
Do you think she knows how long items of work take you - have you discussed with her ?

Before going off sick or job hunting, make sure you've had those conversations (apologies if you have already done this, wasn't clear from your post)

Call in sick for a week to get a breather and focus on looking for another job.

She sounds like a dope with no life

Work your contracted hours and nothing more. Tell her the workload is too high and has been for a long time and you need more staff.

In the meantime, look for alternative employment in all those hours you're not working extra.

read up on 'quiet quitting' its a new thing that all the youngster do.

my contract is 35 hours a week but the whole company is, ‘work until the work is done’

Her manager is similar to her. Speaking to HR will basically mean raising a grievance.

You can't "work until the work is done" if there are insufficient staff. Doing all this unpaid overtime sends a message to management that there are sufficient staff when there isn't.

This is the message HR needs to hear.

And you should be "work til the paid hours are done"

I hope you're getting well paid at least for those silly hours.