An assistant manager asked to SOMEUNREALISTICEXPECTATION, and said it had to be done within SOMESTUPIDLYCLOSEDAY.

I said, of course, I would not do it.

He answered "no problem, we can go with SOMEPARTOFTHEUNREALISTICEXPECTATION before SOMEEVENCLOSERDAY (ie: tomorrow).

I have already said a "no" before, didn't feel like saying no again.

After all, I said, what could possibly go wrong?

The time I left office, Friday night, it everybody's guess.

As long as I don’t get paid for it, I would never ever work longer then it is set in my employment contract. 40 hours a week. Additionally the german law restricts the maximum work duration per day to 10 hours.

@Sumafu And you are right. I didn't say "no" when I should have, and I paid the price, that was my mistake. The more I think about it the angrier I get.

Be careful about those "big ask - small ask" strategies, which are exactly built on the buildup of awkwardness/guilt due to repeatedly saying no. They are well known, just as much as "get someone to say yes during a conversation and he'll be less likely to say no after that", and although professional negotiators tend to undermine these broad strategies when giving talks, they still are relatively reliable (especially for low stakes) strategies that can and will be used to attempt to manipulate you.

If I were you, I'd have said that the partial feature required almost as much time as total feature, due to changes in the core required as a dependency to both, and that these changes alone can't be accomplished by the unrealistic deadline.

Also, NEVER accept "tomorrow" as a deadline for a non-trivial feature, that's just asking for troubles