dry drowning

I read recently about the case of a boy who died of 'dry drowning.' Essentially, he got enough water in his lungs to start the shutdown of the lungs but not enough for anyone to really notice anything was amiss, other than a general lack of energy and lassitude. Poor kid took a nap and never woke up.

My job is slowly dry drowning me. Just enough at a time that I don't storm out cursing all of them to perdition, but still drowning me, nonetheless. My job should be done by 2.5 people (the .5 working half in German inquiries, half in other organizations) and right now, there's just me. What I remind myself is that I have extraordinary job security (compared to many in the American workforce at the moment) and that the job itself is interesting enough to ignore a lot of the unhappiness that comes attached to being overworked and undercompensated. I wonder how long I'll be able to continue to convince myself of that....