That's another thing that's nicer about the working world: there's a lot more room for negotiation if too many tasks are piled on you, or if The World intervenes to prevent something from being done on time, or whatever. And true deadlines (as in: your work will be worthless and dropped in the trash bin if you miss it) are pretty rare. Plus if you work with people who aren't flexible about that kind of thing—you can find another job! Overall there's just a lot more communication and respect and people are way more understanding and laid back, which is weird because adults are supposed to be far more responsible than kids, but the expectations are totally reversed in my experience.

One of the weirdest things to me about high school vs. "real life" is that high school treats everything so very much more seriously and rigidly than most situations in real life that I've experienced. There are hell-jobs out there that are as bad or worse, I'm sure, but at least leaving a job like that on a timeframe of fewer than four years is totally possible.