Moto, you have my sympathy.
Long story short - been in similar situation, made me ill to the point of not being able to work for a while - and I swore I'd never go into a similar position.
Two years later I went to Uni, got an Engineering degree (graduated last summer) and am now in a good job with excellent employers (that's not to say there is no pressure and no problems, but the support is there if needed).
The lesson I learned is that no job is worth making yourself ill over - you are doing no favours to yourself, your employer, your customers or your colleagues by overworking to the point of burning out.
If your employer has made a strategic decision to cut staff at the expense of service then - and this sounds harsh - let the service levels drop. It's crap for your customers, and a bit demoralising for yourself and your colleagues - also it dents your professional pride, but it's the only way that strategic level management will realise that they can't just cut the staff and expect the rest of you to work double hard to keep things going.
A question: if you mananged to work your colelctive a55e5 off for the next year, to the point of all four of you burning out, but you managed to keep the service levels up - do you expect your managers would:
a) Say "Thanks guys, have a payrise, and we're increasing your team back up to 8 to take the strain off you. aLso we appreaciate the effort you've put in - have an extra week's holiday - it's on us!"
or
b) Say "Four staff can adequately cope with the workload therefore there is no need to spend money on more staff."
I would STRONGLY recommend the four of you have a meeting outside of work to discuss the situation and how you are going to deal with it. If you do not talk about it, the most likely thing is that all of you will feel under pressure to work as hard as possible so as not to cause hardship to your colleagues. This will just create stress (already experienced by yourself) and resentment (experienced by your two colleagues falling out).
PS - I ended up walking out, feeling crap about leaving my colleagues in the lurch, but knowing that if I'd stayed I would have become seriously ill.
Best of luck Moto - I hope it works out for you, but I wouldn't expect any help from the upper echelons.
Regards
Rich
