That's what I do at work, even though I'm salary.
Management decided to hire a new guy and then have a round of layoffs within 6 months, effectively canning someone to replace him. Since then, we've had multiple times where we have hundreds of tickets sitting unassigned because there's more work than people. So shit sits and falls through the cracks until someone has time or something is on fire.
It fucking sucks, but eventually the bean counters will see that we actually needed that extra body....