No one likes to change plans at the last moment - especially if it is related to something very pleasant, such as a long-awaited vacation. Imagine - you have already bought tickets, booked a hotel, you're sitting and counting the days until the start of the holiday - and then everything changes!
And if it's also connected with the suspicious forgetfulness of your boss, as happened with the Reddit user ImplyingVolatility, this is absolutely terrible. However, the Original Poster (OP) turned out to be brave and smart enough to outplay the boss.
More info: Reddit
A guy told Reddit how he asked for time off twice beforehand and his boss agreed twice
Image credits: FTTUB (not the actual photo)
It worked so well that a story posted on the antiwork subreddit four days ago was upvoted more than 21k times and garnered 575 comments and counting.
So the OP has been planning his vacation for months. Of course, he told his boss in advance, and verbally got no objections. As time went on, the OP bought plane tickets, and decided, just in case, to check once again if everything was OK with the time off he wanted so much. The boss didn't mind again. And so, when the desired vacation was already on the way, something unforeseen happened.
Image credits: u/ImplyingVolatility
The tickets had been bought, but the boss suddenly canceled the time off
Image credits: u/ImplyingVolatility
Suddenly, the boss claimed the application for time off dates did not go through the appropriate channels - which meant the employee formally did not have any right to leave. Like we said, tickets were already bought, the vacation was extremely important for family reasons - and everything was now threatened.
Reconcile and deal with that? No way! Actually, commentators immediately remembered another Reddit user who had to work even for his own honeymoon. But our hero was not like that. He had the heart to call the boss once more.
Image credits: u/ImplyingVolatility
Since OP didn't feel like he had much of a choice, he declared he would quit, which didn't give much of a choice to the boss
Image credits: u/ImplyingVolatility
So he called to face the boss with the fact that if there was no time off, the OP would have to just quit immediately. Oddly enough, in the boss' words he could now hear not only anger, but also some notes of fear. Obviously the OP was a crucial part of the team and nobody wanted to lose him out of the blue.
The boss reminded him about two-week notice before leaving. It didn't help - apparently the OP knew the two-week notice was not a federal law, but just a tradition, some kind of respect for the employer. But what kind of respect can we talk about if the boss did something like this?
Image credits: u/ImplyingVolatility
Image credits: David Grant (not the actual photo)
Image credits: u/ImplyingVolatility
The boss gave up in ten minutes and finally approved the time off
Image credits: u/ImplyingVolatility
In fact, the vacation was supposed to start in a week, so the OP just offered one week's notice. The boss panicked even more and asked to clarify whether the OP would stay if he got his time off.
Having received a positive answer, the chief asked for some time to think about it, and after ten minutes, he called back. Now there were absolutely no problems with the time off.
We do think apparently some problems await the boss himself as, after all, the OP not only understood how incompetent his boss was, but also appreciated his own importance to the company. The OP also realized he wasn't ready to work with a colleague who could frame him at any moment and it would be worth starting to look for another job.
Folks had a lot to say on the topic - everything from what to do next to comments of support
The original poster is not alone with his situation
It's interesting there were a lot of similar examples in the comments - especially in family businesses, where even parents sometimes turned out to be this kind of a boss. People noted that family leave is a real thing and any employer denying this is going to get absolutely crushed in court.
And, of course, almost everybody supported the OP in his desire to find another company with a less toxic environment. As the fairy tale says, evil is finally punished. Furthermore, we've got a few more stories on the staff successfully fighting against the injustice of employers. By the way, have you ever experienced something like this?