This is exactly the way I look at it. Paid leave is a benefit I have earned, and I no more need to ask permission for vacation than I do for my paycheck.
Now, you have to give reasonable notice and make sure your work will be taken care of in your absence (depending on the job – if you’re a janitor it isn’t your job to make sure the toilets get scrubbed during your vacation, but if you manage the Peterman account you’ll need to let Peterman know and make sure he isn’t expecting any deliverables, and probably provide him a backup person’s contact info in case he has any questions or emergencies arise when you’re gone).
Now, if they reject my request once or twice with good reason (say, I’m supposed to present at a conference next month and I hadn’t known that when I put in the request), I’ll try to work with them. But if they’re just being greedy dicks because vacation costs money or they have a grudge or whatever? Fuck them. Leave and pray the company fails while you’re away, it will be better for everyone.
What’s weird in the OP’s story is that the day off was denied because a co-worker had to use or lose his/her PLT. But now the OP is in the same boat; use the week of PLT by the end of September or lose it. Does the boss understand that? Because the treatment seems, based on what we’ve been told, unfair.
I’m going to also suggest maybe talking to HR about the situation?
It’s going to depend on your particular HR department, because talking to HR can always be sticky. But you can ask them about your options.
Just keep in mind - HR isn’t there to protect you, as much as they like to think they are or will tell you they are - HR is there to protect the company (/university in this case).
But they might be able to provide some other advice as well.
I work at a university as well. We have some written vacation guidelines that are pretty clear, for example, you cannot take more than two weeks consecutive without making a special request to your supervisor, you can take two weeks consecutive at most times of the year, there are some times of the year when you can only take single days.
It’s not really good HR advice, but if you like your boss (and your situation) otherwise, you might ask her “okay, when WOULD it be good to take the two weeks?” You don’t want to get in a position where your boss is picking your vacation forever, but her response might tell you if she is generally reasonable about vacation or if she is going to fight you on every single request. If it is the later, then go to HR.
While I will fully admit that your boss is being unreasonable, this attitude of “talk to HR and make your boss your permanent enemy!” attitude along with “quit your job because your boss is being unreasonable!” is nuts.
Short of someone physically assaulting me, I would never talk to HR about anything, EVER, because no good can come of that. Your boss is being unreasonable and I’m sorry about that, but I would talk to the irreplaceable co-worker, mention your need to see your Dad, and have both of you approach your boss to assure them that the two of you will not leave her stranded with no one to cover the position.
I work in a job where my position is also somewhat irreplaceable, so I ask for time off well in advance and make sure that a group of people can all cover for me and reach me even when I am on vacation in addition to speaking with all the people who usually cause disasters around the office to let them know I am going to be out. Then I can deal with at least some of their hovering catastrophes in advance that hadn’t yet thrown into my office.
I’m confused here. If the jam up is what backup person might do why not simply communicate with backup for an acceptable time slot (or slots) go the boss together and assure her that backup is onboard with your plans and will cover your time slot.
I was denied a last minute vacation request because my co-worker was also taking that week off, and I was the second most senior person in my department. Fair enough. Now my co-worker and I coordinate our vacations so that we’re not both off the same week.
I think you should stop putting in digital requests and have a conversation with your manager re your different expectations. 6 weeks is a lot of time and he/she can’t keep denying requests on the basis that he/she THINKS that days off are better than weeks off. Not his/her call. Nor should he be able to deny requests based on the possibility that your co-worker will ask for the same day. First come should be first served.
Recently, I was denied personal time off to go visit my dying father. The particular manager’s excuse? I wasn’t responsible enough to plan in advance and make the request two week prior to the requested days off. She said I could visit him at a later time, maybe next month. Keep in mind, she was told his death was imminent.
I went over her head and got it approved. Good thing, too - he didn’t last 8 days past the time I first made the request.
Of course, depending on circumstances it could backfire.
Since your father is in long term care you might look into the Family and Medical Leave Act.
My guess is the boss is trying to encourage people to take their time off one day at a time. The advantages of this for the boss is they can just cover for somebody for a single day; do some extra work the day before you take a day off and then catch up by doing more extra work the day you get back. From the boss’ standpoint, it’s like you were there the whole time.
But while you can usually stretch things to cover a day, you can’t do it for a week. If you take a week off, it involves rescheduling. Somebody will have to cover your job. And somebody will have to cover that person’s job for the week they’re covering your job.
Knuckle under he’ll never see his father again and the rights and privileges he is supposed to have as an employee will be further eroded. Which is more important, family or working for someone who will use you as she pleases then discard you like used tissue when you no longer submit to her petty rules?
Do you want to be a human being or a slave? Your choice.
My vacation requests were routinely turned down at my former employer. The reason was twofold – one was that I was bounced around so much that I didn’t have what’s called a “home store” and therefore didn’t have a “home manager” or anyone official with whom I could discuss vacations or other HR stuff. The other reason was because I was the vacation/holiday/FMLA fill-in: If I took time off, who would they get to take my place? I took that very personally.
The end result? In my almost 15 years working there, I think I only had PTO twice the entire time, and both times it was before I became the fill-in. OTOH I socked away paychecks and made so much OT that I’d built up a pretty good nest egg.
Keep in mind, too, the OP isn’t asking for time off for a vacation in Aruba with hookers and blow, it’s to see a family member unable to travel. I would recommend “over her head” for the former, but I do think it’s justified for the latter.
And if that is going to permanently put you on someone’s shit list you’re already on their shit list and they’re going to find some other way to get you out the door.
I’ve been on the shit list of a few bad bosses over the years. It was a constant series of battles. If you don’t battle such jerks, you’ve also lost the war.
I can get on board with an employer not being able to spare you on certain key weeks of the year, but in general the default should be that vacation gets approved if requested in a timely manner. I understand some factories with specific shift work schedules have to stagger vacation and such, whatever.
But I also should remind you that you shouldn’t get in a position of losing vacation days. You have too many days stockpiled and should probably use them more aggressively so you don’t run into this scenario in the future. That’s an aside, I still think your boss should give you the week off in September.
After speaking to the cover person, make sure everything is in writing. Even if you speak to your supervisor in person or over the phone, then put it down in an email, send it to them, saying “just to follow up on our conversation earlier, I wanted to check that I’ve got everything right…” Otherwise it’ll be he-said she-said (or whatever pronouns).
If they really can’t let you have the time off then ask for the time to be carried over to next year or for extra pay to make up for it. You have been flexible for them so it is reasonable to ask for it back.
The OP should get hold of the university’s leave policies from HR. Should be able to do that without starting a war. Once in possession of those, he should have a better idea of whether he or the boss has the policy on his side.
The other thing he should check is, whether he gets to keep the use-or-lose time if he can’t use it because his vacation request is denied.
True enough. But if they’re giving employees up to six weeks’ vacation per year, they presumably think (at the institutional level, at least, regardless of what the OP’s boss thinks) that’s not a huge problem.
It could be they get more like 3-4 weeks a year, and are allowed to carry x weeks over until they have a maximum accrual of 6 weeks. That’s fairly typical, a lot of places will let you carry over an amount more than you get in a year, but they cap the total carry over amount. The two big reasons being, lots of employers want to make employees at least take some vacation. I’ve worked with and have known a lot of people who without “use it or lose it” policies would NEVER take off, because their lives are so defined by their job they would never not work willingly. The other reason is massive leave accruals represent a big pay out for some companies that have “pay out” policies on such leave. So they could conceivably have a 20 year employee who has never taken a day of vacation retire and “cash out” 20 years worth of vacation days all at once.
If OP doesn’t necessarily need to take vacation now, I suggest he/she talks with HR about being allowed to carry over the maximum. Every where that I’ve worked that has had vacation carry over caps, it’s discouraged but if you make the case that you were simply unable to schedule the hours off and don’t want to lose them, they will often grant you a one time exception and let you use them. But then you’d need to make sure you used all of those extra-accumulated days PLUS any other days next year that you’d need to use to avoid going over the cap again.