I'm in a Vacation pickle!

Last year, my grandmother decided to take the whole family on a cruise. It was a generous offer, and not the first time she did it. (last time my whole family went to Alaska). They planned it very far ahead, and looked at January 2008 as the date to go to the next cruise.

My aunt helped to organize everything. Many months ago, she told me she needed to know if I was definitely going or not. At the time, I was looking for a new job, but it was impossible to tell what my situation would be like so far ahead of time. I figured I might as well say ‘yes’ and hope I could work it out (rather than say ‘no’ and miss the opportunity). Well, I am kind of eating my words.

Well, I got a new job, but the process is incredibly slow (applied in June, start in late October :o ). By the time I complete the mandatory 8-week training, it will already be mid-December. This means I’ll be officially working for less than a month before I’ll have to take this vacation. For starters it doesn’t look good and to even get the time off will take an enormous amount of luck (I’ll have to chain together my vacation with floater holidays and hope I end up with certain days off anyway) and even if I do pull it off I’m pretty much burning up all my vacation time at the beginning of the year. That, and I’m going to be under probation, and I don’t want to do anything (taking excessive time off, for example) that would jeopardize this job.

I might not be able to even do it, but not only that, given the downside (using up all the vacation up-front) as appealing as going on a FREE cruise with my family is, it might not be worth it to me. If I didn’t go, I could pick another week for my vacation, perhaps one that was a little easier to get, and not have to use up all my paid time off at once.

The toughest thing about this is that I’ll have to confront my aunt, and as lame as this sounds, I have a lot of anxiety about the impending guilt regarding my bailing out of the vacation. I’m probably making it out to be more than it is, but I’m honestly having trouble sleeping at night because of this! If I can’t go because I can’t chain the vacation time togeter/I’d get fired if I tried, then I could just say, ‘well, my hands are tied. Sorry!’ but of course I’d have to wait till practically the last minute (December) to really know that for sure. Argh! :mad:

Three choices:

  1. Go back in time, and tell the prospective employer that you have a family commitment for the time in question and would have to be gone then. Get their understanding and approval for this.

  2. Go to your prospective employer now, and tell them you have a family commitment for the time in question, and will have to be gone then. Get their understanding and approval for this.

  3. Decide which is more important to you, the family get-together or the job.

I don’t know how flexible your job is. When I started mine in July, I knew that I was getting married in October. Since I started after the middle of the year, I had one day of vacation until the following year. I had a very understanding boss who let me borrow a week against the following year. The downside was that I only had a week of vacation the next year. The upside was I still got to go on my honeymoon.

Who is more understanding, your new boss or your aunt?

If I tell them now, they won’t even train me until February, which will put me in a worse place financially and seniority-wise. That, and they already hired a replacement at my current job. Everybody gets to bid for vacation time every December, so when I start I’ll be able to bid my week just like everybody else. But I feel like it will look bad. Argh I should’nt have said I would be able to go on the vacation! I’m definitely kicking myself for saying yes.

I’ll probably have to tell my aunt I can’t do it, as far in advance as possible. That choice has less negative reprecussions job-wise and it is easier to plan my own vacation (even if it wasn’t free). Maybe one of my cousins’ boyfriends can take my cruise ticket or something…

I’ve seen this situation a number of times. Any boss worth working for would be cool with it, as long as you’re upfront early enough.

I wouldn’t rock the boat on a new job, but all families are different. Mine would understand that Priority No. 1 is being self-sufficient, which means getting and keeping a job. They would also understand that being new to a job means you can’t take a week’s vacation in the first three months.

My only criticism is to sort of wish you had said to your aunt initially, “Well, I’m looking for a job, so I really don’t know what my situation will be early next year.” But now IMO the best you can do is tell her immediately that you recently were fortunate enough to get a job after X months of looking, and you’re sorry but that means you can’t go on the vacation. Three months’ notice should mean that she (or your gran) haven’t spent any money on you that they can’t get back, but I do think you should tell her ASAP.

And maybe I’m a shitty boss (actually, I’m not a manager at all anymore, yippee!), but if an employee came to me within the first three months of employment to take a week’s vacation AND they had not told me about the vacation previously (like when they were offered the job), I would not be cool with it. I’d still let the person go if they had the time or would take unpaid leave, and assuming that I could do without them – IOW, it’s not a firing offense or anything, IMO – but I would still think it was pretty unprofessional.

my tuppence:
You have 2 issues here: long-term vs short-term.

Short term problems :
option 1 : standing sheepishly in front of your aunt, explaining why you can’t join the cruise.
option 2: standing sheepishly in front of your boss, explaining why you can’t join the company’s training program till February.

Both are uncomfortable, but temporrary.

Long term problems:

  1. possible damage to your status in your family, which results in…???
  2. possible damage to your status in your company, which results in…???

Ask yourself what will happen in the family, say, 4 years from now, when there is a vacation/wedding/celebration, and you are/are not treated in the way you prefer.

Ask yourself what will happen in your company, say, 4 years from now, when there is a promotion/layoff/salary review, and you are/are not treated in the way you prefer.

I’d ignore the short-term issues, and decide which of the long term ones is most important to you.

don’t look at the immediate problems (getting a guilt-lecture from your aunt, getting a begging

Good point. I think that, as an adult, I should present the matter in a mature manner, with the expectation that my aunt will treat me accordingly. So she might be pissed, or just miffled (“Oh, I thought you wanted to go…are you sure you don’t want to go with us?”)

For some stupid reason, I have it in my head that I’m treating it like “I got an F in Algebra please don’t beat me!” which is silly but I guess I end up getting in these kind of pickles because I don’t like letting people down and sometimes you make decisions in life where SOMEONE has to be let down one way or another. Oh well. I’ll tell her that I can’t make it, because by the time I know for sure, it will be too late to back out, and at least they’ll have time to find someone else who can go instead (seriously- my 3 cousins each have boyfriends/fiancees- let them bring one of them along! :stuck_out_tongue: )

Yes, your aunt will be disappointed. But, if I may say, it was a bit irresponsible of you to make a commitment to something when your life was in a state of flux. You were hoping to “work it out” later, in other words, putting off the consequences. I understand your aunt needed an answer that day, but you were still not sure whether you could go. You should have said no. Who knows, she might have scheduled the cruise for a later date to accommodate your job search.

Well, now you’re in a bigger pickle now. I think you’re going to have to suck it up, apologize to your aunt, offer to reimburse her, and get going on your new job.

You need to tell your aunt now that you had circumstances happen that will prevent this trip. Let her know now so she has a chance to give the space to someone else, or cancel the spot. She’ll be more pissed if she can’t sell the space or let another person take the unused spot.

I concur with ivylass that you should certainly step up and pay any cancellation cost for the already-booked cruise. It’s reasonable to plead changed circumstances that make it unwise to abandon your new job, but it wouldn’t be reasonable for anyone else to have to take a financial hit because of that.

I’m with you when you say it would be awkward and perhaps ill-advised to take a vacation while on probation for a new job. I’m NOT with you when say that it would also be nice not to have to use up all your vacation so early in the year. Sorry, but you knew all along that the cruise was in January and had ANY of your job prospects panned out, a week’s vacation in January was going to present a problem.

If you’re unwilling to delay training for 3 months so that you can follow through on your word, then the very least you can do is to pick up the phone (NOT e-mail) and call your aunt TODAY and explain to her that an opportunity presented itself and, for the sake of your future, you must renege on your commitment. Bend over backwards to sound sincere and contrite. And then offer to pay any cancellation fees.

Oh, and at the risk of being obvious, I wouldn’t expect any more free cruise invitations from my grandmother.

If your aunt can get a refund, I think it’s a no-brainer.

That said, even though as an HR person I am usually pretty uptight about job stuff, vacation commitments by new employees happen all the time. It is definitely something to ask about after receiving the offer and before accepting it. Keep that in mind for next time. I’ve had to do this at least 3 times myself, and never got turned down.

Anyway, if your aunt can’t get a refund or substitute someone else in your place, it probably isn’t the kiss of death to ask for the time off. One reason I say that is January is a slow time for vacations on most jobs. The crunch is summer and Thanksgiving through New Years. Unless there’s something in particular about your job that would make January a crunch, they may be just as happy to have you get it out of the way early. Maybe an experienced employee can give you a heads up on how this would play.

I’m with the others who say that you should address this ASAP with either your employer or your aunt. If you do try to take the vacation, I would couch it as a request, not a demand to your employer. As I think you’ve learned, next time, bring this kind of thing up as soon as you are made an offer. I’ve done this with weddings, etc. when I started a new job and as long as it’s not a surprise, I’ve never had an employer say no.