Work rant - Need advice, or just want to hear me rant

[jerseygirl1]

OK, so back in July I put in for vacation days for the end of the December, four days, in all. I never got denied nor approved by my manager, who is the General Manager of a 300+ employee company, but manager of only about 10 people in this department. There is a supervisor in this same department, however, I do not work for him. Confusing, but it works. Now, I have to add, I work for a branch office in NJ, whereas my manager is in Illinois with our corporate location. Nuff said. Going back to my vacationtime, I put in for some remaining personal time off and get denied, because I have not used up all of my vacation time, but technically, I have. So, I ask the supervisor - "what's up, no one accepted or denied my other vacation time"
He said, wait until next week when my manager comes back from a trade show that ends this week. Whoa, I check the schedule, and two other people were approved for time off AFTER i had put in for mine. One of these works for my manager, the other works for this supervisor.
Would you be angry? I am fuming and foaming at the mouth right now. And nothing I can do til my manager comes back next week. I feel extremely slighted. I know he forgot, but jeeze, an email to HR may just be in order. This

 

[jerseygirl1]

no one? Jeeze, I feel so unloved

 

[WingingIt]

I'm confused. Did the same person who told you to wait approve the other two? Or were they approved by the other managers/bosses that you mentioned? I think you need to remind the person you submitted your request to that you had submitted a request first and were told by them to wait, so they need to go fix the mess. They probably aren't going to want to unapprove leave for another employee....so maybe come up with some kind of *trade* that they can give you to make it up to you, in case they ask. Good luck.

 

[sonew123]

Id be ticked too

 

[rebecky1305]

I would be upset too. But at least you have a little while to plan what to say so you don't say something out of anger that will make the matter worse. Good luck.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Since there was less than a half hour between your first post and this, I think you are over-reacting.


To answer your question, you need to look at your policy manual. Quite frankly, unless it impacts your job or your own benefits, when other employees have requested vacation time and been approved or denied is none of your business.

It would not surprise me if your company policy requires that you use vacation time before taking personal time. But you need to read the manual. It may be that you can take vacation now and personal time in December. Also, does your policy manual give a timeframe for which vaction requests must be answered? If you asked in July, and it is now September, I would think you would have checked the status with your boss at least once or twice by now.

I do see a correlation between not checking on your vacation request, being upset about others' vacations being approved and your impatience on wanting an answer immediately on this thread.

 

[jerseygirl1]

Quote:
Since there was less than a half hour between your first post and this, I think you are over-reacting.


To answer your question, you need to look at your policy manual. Quite frankly, unless it impacts your job or your own benefits, when other employees have requested vacation time and been approved or denied is none of your business.

It would not surprise me if your company policy requires that you use vacation time before taking personal time. But you need to read the manual. It may be that you can take vacation now and personal time in December. Also, does your policy manual give a timeframe for which vaction requests must be answered? If you asked in July, and it is now September, I would think you would have checked the status with your boss at least once or twice by now.

I do see a correlation between not checking on your vacation request, being upset about others' vacations being approved and your impatience on wanting an answer immediately on this thread.

Trust me, I am not over-reacting - it is my business since those people have now been granted prime vacation time that I requested BEFORE them
So, think about it - yes, I am impatient because I reuested in July, it is now September - two other people requested in September and they got those sam day soff

IMPATIENT - Yes - Entitled to it - absolutely

I also had the cleaning guy give me the finger when I pulled into the parking lot this morning because I was making a left the same time as him, go figure

Back to the original - I have been here 10 years - there is no manual. The issue is that people who requested time off AFTER me were granted the same time off days I reuqested, by the same person.
Company policy AND protocol is that the manager approves all time off prior to the deadline, which would be one day before the requested time, IE, December 22nd. It is not I who am supposed to 'remind' the boss - it is his responsiblity to approve/deny all vacation time - he's the one who makes the big bucks

And yes, the same person who approved the other two does have the authority to approve mine, but probably messed up and forgot about it so now he's left it for the big boss to decide, in which case I could go to HR and submit a grievence if it is denied, based on certain things.

Edited for spelling

 

[jerseygirl1]

The other thing to ote - I know they got those same days off because we all share a calendar - meaning, only three people at a time can have off on certain times of the year
So, yes, it is my business if other people have gotten time off the same days I requested.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Work is generally basically unfair. People get favors and people get passed over all the time. If you let it bother you you will drive yourself crazy; it's everywhere. Too, someone has to work those hours during the favorite vacation month. Sometimes the person with less seniority or the less prestigious position, or the one who is really good at something gets stuck working holidays; sometimes it's the single person that gets stuck; sometimes it's the lady who didn't participate in the cookie raffle. It's just basically unfair. You can come here and vent when you're annoyed.

Speaking as the single-for-many-years person who got stuck working hour 1 day 1 of y2k when all the 'woops we forgot about that' stuff broke, and also every other holiday when the family men were home for the whole week.

As companies get more and more distributed and there are more and more 'cooks' (managers) or people are managing more and more responsibilities as companies try to flog more productivity out of us, it can even simply be, 'woops, I forgot' or 'woops, I get 700 emails a day and I didn't see the request'.

Your managers aren't always passing you up, though. It could be that someone else screamed louder or more often, or that they got pressure to put more people on the line in December.

What you MUST do though, is not be angry about it at work. Just come here and blow off steam, and DON'T discuss it with anyone else at work. Be cool and calm and smile at work. I know it's hard. But we have to show the A Game at work and keep our resentments to ourselves.

If you wind up working those days, tell you what you do. Make SURE you do something extra that's been needing to get done, and be SURE your boss and his boss knows about it. If it could be something that makes your boss look good so much the better.

If there isn't something like that that needs doing hanging around, ask for something extra to do. Make sure you make the very, very best of the situation you can. Work stinks, but you can always take lemons and make lemonaide.

Don't let it get to you. Almost everyone has to go through this. I worked one place where I didn't get a single day of my vacation time for five years. Some of it was learning how to play the vacation game; some of it is learning to balance impressing people at work with the needs of private life.

These days, a person can't keep any job unless they are able to just ignore a lot of that kind of thing and kind of roll with the punches. If you don't, they can always find someone who will put up with it.

One of my old bosses told me they let go older people because they started demanding realistic working conditions and refused to do the 15 and 20 hour days for salary without overtime. 'I just love those Hungry Young Turks' he would say whenever anyone had the gall to ask to use some of their time off....yeah...I know....but that's the reality.

 

[ranchhand]

One more thing- don't post about it on facebook, either. Yikes! Hope you get your time off.