Employee Goes On Vacation And Their Boss Kept Pressuring Them To Cut It Short. So They Took A Permanent Vacation

Man, this is annoying…

It didn’t even happen to me and I’m annoyed!

A person wrote a story on Reddit about how they dealt with a pain-in-the-neck boss who couldn’t get it through their head that they were on VACATION.

Read on to get the full story…

“This is the story of my former employer.

I work in the northeast US and my employer at the time was a very small company (Boss and 5 employees) in a very specific industry where 90% of our work was on construction sites and finding a well-qualified person in this very specific industry is a very very hard thing to do.

This person had a pretty awful boss.

My boss was the kind of boss that every employee can’t stand. Corners were cut every possible way in order to keep overhead costs down. On top of that he would constantly overbook on jobs (like signing contracts for 6 projects during the same week knowing full well that he only has 5 employees) which would result in the employees often working 14 hour days or more….which really sucks when you’re on salary (no overtime).

And he had one really bad attribute.

His worst attribute by far was approving time off and then during your time off calling or texting you asking if you would be willing to work a day or cut your vacation short. Sometimes he’d even ask you to move your time off to the next week or next month “when the workload lightens up” (hint: it never lightened up due to his constant overbooking).

After working at this company for 6 years I got used to all the aforementioned annoyances. But then things changed, my son was born. In the months leading up to his birth I made it very clear that I would be taking a 5-week unpaid leave of absence once he arrives. The state we’re in allows new parents to take up to 8 weeks of unpaid leave.

This person was willing to compromise after their son was born.

I told my boss that I know 8 weeks would be a huge strain on such a small company so I was willing to take 5 weeks but those 5 weeks would be completely “off the grid” meaning dont call me, dont text me, if youre going to ask me to do anything work-related the answer will be no so don’t bother. I’m going to be spending time with my family. He 100% agreed.

Fast-forward to my son’s birth. He was born on a Friday and after a short stay in the NICU (don’t worry, he’s fine) was released on Monday and we took him home. Tuesday morning (yeah…the next day) I wake up to a missed call, an email, and 3 texts all from my boss asking me to call him back ASAP.

But this boss clearly did not get it at all.

For reasons still unknown to me to this day I call him back and he tells me there’s a slight emergency (code speak for he screwed up the scheduling and has a job with no employee at it) and asks if I could maybe come into work that day and maybe work a couple more days that week until he finds someone to cover it.

I lost it. I literally felt something in my neck snap and unleashed a verbal assault on him that I still feel bad about now, a year later. I ended my rant with an apology…as much of a jerk move it was for him to be calling me in that situation it was still completely unprofessional of me to say what I said to him. Obviously he wasn’t a big fan of what I said and after a small rant of his own ended with the sentences that made this whole story possible.

The boss continued to press them.

He said, “You’ve got a pretty good gig at this company that most people your age would be thankful for. I’d be impressed if you could find a better job in this field because I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I know how small this industry is and trust me, good jobs like yours don’t come along very often. Think about that.”

So we ended the call and I did what he said. I thought about it. After thinking about it for about 30 seconds I got out of bed, sat down in front of my computer and started looking at job postings.

And then it was time to go back to work after their break.

5 weeks later my time off came to an end and my first day back I came in to work, walked into my bosses office and handed him a piece of paper.

Boss: “What’s this?” Me: “I thought about what you said about how you be really impressed if I could find a better job than the one I have here. …so I did.”

My boss reads over what I handed him…a job offer from a competitor for the exact same job I was performing but at a 25% higher salary, an extra week of paid vacation compared to what I had AND a stipulation that company policy was that work hours are capped at 8 per day meaning that once I hit 8 hours on a job I pack up and leave it until tomorrow. No exceptions.

The person had made up their mind and it was time to GO.

Boss: “Well then…ummm…can I have the day to crunch some numbers to come up with a counter-offer? Me: “No, don’t bother. I just wanted you to see it because I know you wouldn’t have believed me otherwise.”

Gave my two week notice and left for whatever job site I was on that day. That was a year ago and I could not be happier with my new job. I get to spend lots of time with my boy and that’s the best job perk there is.

For all you bosses and managers out there. Dont mess with your employees…especially the good ones. Treat them how you’d want to be treated.

Most employees don’t quit their jobs….they quit their bosses!”

Check out how people responded.

One person talked about how their job works when it comes to stuff like this.

Another person sounds like they have a pretty good gig.

This Reddit user said it’s all about negotiation.

Another individual asked a great question…

It’s called vacation for a reason!

Leave the guy alone!