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You took a five day vacation in August that you didn't have accrued PTO for and knew you had plans for another vacation that you also didn't/wouldn't have accrued enough PTO for. When did you plan on accruing enough PTO to "pay your self back"?
Whether or not your employer approved the time off, you knew you were digging yourself into a PTO hole. If everyone has this same mentality at your workplace, no wonder they decided to crack down.
You got caught trying to get away with something that you had not earned. I'm not sure what you will do now.
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pinetreelover
You took a five day vacation in August that you didn't have accrued PTO for and knew you had plans for another vacation that you also didn't/wouldn't have accrued enough PTO for. When did you plan on accruing enough PTO to "pay your self back"?
Whether or not your employer approved the time off, you knew you were digging yourself into a PTO hole. If everyone has this same mentality at your workplace, no wonder they decided to crack down.
You got caught trying to get away with something that you had not earned. I'm not sure what you will do now.
I may be misinterpreting the OP's situation, but I've frequently been allowed to use vacation I haven't accrued. For example, at one place I got 20 days of vacation a year. It was accrued at the rate of something like 1.66 days a month and the accrual started in January.
Technically, in January, I only earned 1.66 days. But I could still take 10 days in January if I wanted to. Made it much easier for management to spread employee vacations out throughout the year.
IF they will not allow you the PAID vacation time that had been approved when you talk to them about the fact you had gotten it "approved" and financially committed to the trip, then perhaps they will allow you more "unpaid" time off so you can take your trip as scheduled. Since you stated you got some unpaid time off imposed on you, that might be the lesser of the evils should they strictly enforce the PTO policy now.
Did you buy trip insurance for your cruise?? If so, that might also help should you not be able to go.
I have a problem at work and am hoping for some advice. Please point me in the right direction if need be.
Last June I put in for vacation for 8-days. I got a approved within the week. Yay!
Per policy, I waited for approval to book things. I booked airfare, booked the cruise, got my passport, etc.
Before I go on further, it is also policy that we need sufficient PTO to cover the vacation, but it is never enforced. Not only was I approved for this 8-day period, but also a 5-day vacation in August without sufficient PTO. Furthermore, I I was given extra days off with my 5-day vacay in August, not apart of my vacation because my manager does not know how to schedule us. So, not only was I approved for two vacations without enough PTO to cover either, but I was given extra unscheduled days for the hell of it.
About the time that I went on the 5-day vacay, an e-mail was sent saying they were going to start enforcing the policy that we need enough PTO to get vacation approved. Luckily, I was already approved.
Here I am now. Yesterday I got an e-mail that my 8-day vacation was not approved because of sufficient PTO. That is weird, it was already approved. Do I have proof? No, it was taken away. Our unit's vacation book was was cleaned out in a very uneven manner. Some, but not all, of the months are missing the vacation request, including November where mine is.
What is my next step? Should I go straight to HR? Meet with my manager? I checked the policy. It says nothing about a vacation being unapproved for PTO once approved, but they trashed my original approval.
(I am in Chicago, IL)
Hmm, interesting situation. it raises a country me questions that aren't totally clear.
Is it the company policy that you have to have accrued PTO at the time you "schedule" your vacation, or at the time you "take" it? In other words, when you take this cruise, will you have the time. or will you be going in the whole?
The second question was already asked, but I'll ask it again, because it is important. If there is no record that your PTO was approved, how did they know rose d you an email canceling it?
If you are in fact going into the hole each time you take vacation, that is a problem. Your post suggests you have been there a while (long enough to witness a trend). I would have to ask why it is you do not have accrued vacation time, and ask whether you might be one of the reasons the company has decided to start enforcing their policy
Lastly, intended or not, your post comes off with a bit of an entitled tone. Your company allowed you to take leave that you didn't have, then you blame it on your manager for. "not knowing how to schedule," as if it had nothing to do with you. Did he/she force you to take those extra "unscheduled" days against your will?
Your best course of action is to throw yourself at your manager's mercy and ask him/her to make an exception to the policy for your having payed for the trip. Own the fact that you may have a role to play in this, and assure them that you have every intent to comply with the policy in the future. As someone else mentioned, a possible compromise solution might be to offer to take unpaid vacation time. After all, isn't it a bit presumpt to expect the company to front you pay for time you have not earned? Approach this humbly, and with any luck, you'll be on your cruise.
In the future, print out of copy all your important policy, vacation, schedule emails, updates and advisories.
Once it's posted, our schedule is in the system for all to see. Once my name is in a grid for vacation, or I get an email back saying approved you better believe I print that sucker out. Boss doesn't have a copy.....I DO!
Years ago when we switched locations...somehow previous emails were lost. I learned a lesson. Any email that shows the boss owes me money or time, get printed out for a hard copy.
Hmm, interesting situation. it raises a country me questions that aren't totally clear.
Is it the company policy that you have to have accrued PTO at the time you "schedule" your vacation, or at the time you "take" it? In other words, when you take this cruise, will you have the time. or will you be going in the whole?
The second question was already asked, but I'll ask it again, because it is important. If there is no record that your PTO was approved, how did they know rose d you an email canceling it?
If you are in fact going into the hole each time you take vacation, that is a problem. Your post suggests you have been there a while (long enough to witness a trend). I would have to ask why it is you do not have accrued vacation time, and ask whether you might be one of the reasons the company has decided to start enforcing their policy
Lastly, intended or not, your post comes off with a bit of an entitled tone. Your company allowed you to take leave that you didn't have, then you blame it on your manager for. "not knowing how to schedule," as if it had nothing to do with you. Did he/she force you to take those extra "unscheduled" days against your will?
Your best course of action is to throw yourself at your manager's mercy and ask him/her to make an exception to the policy for your having payed for the trip. Own the fact that you may have a role to play in this, and assure them that you have every intent to comply with the policy in the future. As someone else mentioned, a possible compromise solution might be to offer to take unpaid vacation time. After all, isn't it a bit presumpt to expect the company to front you pay for time you have not earned? Approach this humbly, and with any luck, you'll be on your cruise.
You admit that the company sent an e mail stating it was going to enforce its policy "about the time" that you went on the 5-day vacation for which you didnt have PTO time. Did you, at that time, talk to your supervisor and get an assurance that you'd still be able to take this 8-day vacation? Or did you just assume that, because it had been approved, you'd be exempt from enforcement of the company's policy.
I feel bad for you but I also think it's not prudent to assume that you can get away with ignoring company policy just because that policy hasnt been enforced in the past. Obviously, there were enough violations of the policy that it drew the attention of HR (or someone else).
I hope that you can work out a deal with your company to let this 8-day vacation, or whatever part of it you dont have enough PTIO time to cover, apply to next year's PTO.
Very good point. The OP could have avoided the second vacation situation had he/she just asked after receiving the email.
OP,
You need to ask your boss. I suggest that you do so with more humility than you have displayed here.
What does the handbook say? Technically, if it says that you cannot take vacation without accrued PTO, even if they have done it in the past, it's actually against policy. When the company sent the email stating that they were going to start enforcing the rule, they really should have made some reference to grandfathering any already approved vacations that didn't initially have accrued PTO. It would have avoided this type of situation, and was rather short-sided on their end not to have a clause.
I'm guessing that instead of asking your supervisor if your 8 day vacation would still be approved, you decided to say nothing, just in case he/she said no. This way, when the time came, you could claim that it was already approved and that it was too late to change plane/cruise tickets. I'm also guessing that you're part of the problem that led to them finally enforcing the rule.
Do you have any type of proof that the 8 day vacation was already approved? A form, a copy of the "time off page," an email, something? You should always have some type of hard copy, just in case. Those "missing vacation requests" sound a bit suspect on your company's end (if that's, in fact, true). Though, as others have stated, if you got a recent email stating that your 8 day vacation was now denied, then the company/supervisor clearly does have some type of record.
So, to repeat, in August (around the time of your first vacation), you knew the policy was changing. You said nothing. In mid October, they reneged on the 8 day vacation approval for November... of which you (yourself) have no proof of, though they probably do. And, from June (when you put in for your 8 day vacation request) until now (mid October), you still haven't accrued enough PTO. Why not? Essentially, you were abusing the system.
You should speak to your supervisor and HR. Though your handbook might not say anything about an unapproval after an approval, if it explicitly says that you must have PTO, they could say, "Tough ish." If they like you, they may agree to let you slide, especially if you've already paid for tickets. But honestly, you dug your own grave and I have little sympathy. I also suspect that you have omitted some details of this story (or backstory), to make it seem like you have been wronged.
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