Help! My boss is going to kill me!

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Is anyone familiar with karoushi? It means "death from overwork" in Japanese. I feel like I'm going to wind up in that situation if something isn't fixed soon. I counted, and I have not had one weekday this week where I worked under 12 hours (counting time I was handling work at home). One day went to 16 hours. Today, a Saturday, I still went to the office and put in five hours, plus another 2 once I got home. I got zero hours of downtime last weekend because we had an event. I am going to have to put in more hours tomorrow.

My boss keeps claiming that she wants us to take time out to rest, but she's lying. Her lies are revealed by her actions, since she keeps sending us stuff to do at any hour of the day and gets annoyed if it's not dealt with promptly and perfectly. I think she keeps claiming she wants us to take down time in order to assuage her own conscience. We were supposed to have this weekend to recoup. Now, we won't. Or at least, I won't. I was hoping to visit my parents this weekend, if only to get my medical records before a psych appointment next week. I'm not even sure I'm going to be able to do THAT now.

My supervisor (not my boss) pulled me aside in order to ask why I was so stressed, but when I even started to explain, it turned more into a lecture about how they can't have me breaking down now, etc. etc. My supervisor started telling me that I was getting a taste of what the rest of the office had to deal with in December, never mind that I was still staying until 7:00 or 8:00 then, and still stressed out because I tend to feed off of everyone else's stress. She keeps telling me that I need to communicate better, but like hell I'm going to tell her what I really think - that I need weekends that are genuinely mine. I'm sure they'd find a way to can me if I did. But I don't even have enough free time to hunt for another position! I'm stuck!

Can you get another job?

Read: "But I don't even have enough free time to hunt for another position!"

I'm very sorry. You can tell I went tl;dr can't you?

Do you know anyone who has the time to look for another job for you?

No problem. Can people do that?

What your boss is doing doesn't seem legal.

So, quick update. Crap blew up early on in the week, and now I'm not certain if I'm going to be canned or not. Sunday and Monday turned into a shitstorm of work, and on Tuesday, a giant misunderstanding almost got me canned. Being too trusting may still do so.

Here's what happened: on Thursday, my boss sent an email out that reminded everyone that Monday was MLK Day, and anyone who wanted an extra day off this month should let our supervisor know. I took that to mean that we got MLK Day off plus one additional day redeemable any time this month. I chose the day after, which is my dad's birthday. Since he lives decently close, I figured we could grab a nice birthday lunch, and then I could come back to work on Wed. I asked my supervisor, and he approved. Well, surprise surprise, MLK Day was supposed to be the "extra day." My supervisor hadn't noticed that I had asked for a different day. When my boss found out, she wrote an email that sounded like she was on the verge of canning me. I immediately started calling my closer coworkers to see if I could get them to vouch for me, and everyone who worked closely with me was willing to. All of a sudden, my boss reversed herself, and my supervisor called to say just come in Wed. Then she called again later in the afternoon, saying to take the time with my father and come in on Thurs. Then she sent me an email yesterday to say to take time off till Monday.

I think they're still thinking of canning me. Over the weekend, I was on the verge of a breakdown and admitted to a close coworker that I had at one point been thinking suicidal thoughts. I know that he did try to vouch for me when my boss was thinking of canning me, and I suspect that, in an attempt to be helpful, he may have told my supervisor and boss that. Now, I think they're either giving me time off to recover, or they're trying to figure out how to can me nicely. Or something. In any case, no one's responding when I try to help out with work from home, so I'm scared. I'm spending some of the time I have relaxing and recovering from a cold, and the other portion trying to get in touch with people to find a new job, but can anyone tell me what they think I should do?

You might contact a legal aid organization to know what your rights are to be able to defend yourself. I would just try to be prepared for any outcome. When I run into these situations, I try to be ready to negotiate - suggest something to reduce confusion like "I will not just assume but will restate to you how I understood your memo". Good luck. This sounds like a very stressful job.

Do you know of any good legal aid organizations? This was my first real paying job, so as you might imagine, I'm not exactly used to this sort of thing.

The Legal Aid Society. Also, many law schools provide free or inexpensive legal assistance if you have universities in your area. What I looked up is in the United States.

Thanks! That's a huge help.

Where are you located, yamato? Laws and expectations vary by country, and in the US by state. Also by field.