Restaurant boss says all leave requests will be denied going forward, staff asks him if he's making an April Fool's joke: 'He was not'

Dodgy off-book leave policies are something that you just come to expect after a while of working in the restaurant or retail world. From the first time you go to book leave and are met with the strong insinuation that maybe you shouldn't be taking any leave at all, giving you reasons of being too busy or too understaffed to possibly afford to be a "man down," you're going to be feeling that old resigned feeling of knowing that this is going to be that kind of place. The reality is that you're always going to be "understaffed," and management isn't going to do a thing to address it because of how good it looks on the books when labor percentages are calculated. No, despite what they say, they don't regard the business to be understaffed at all; in fact, they regard it to be well-staffed—just as long as nobody is ever sick or tries to take leave.

Of course, this is before we even get into the quagmire of suffering that is constant backpedaling on on-record policies and benefits for employees, with the benefits only ever sliding backward as an organization grows and tries to maximize profits—never moving in a positive direction that actually benefits employees.

So, it's of no surprise to anyone that the staff of this restaurant awoke to find a message from their boss notifying them of a new, stricter, and possibly illegal policy regarding PTO, banning employees from taking leave after April 11th to "ensure that the restaurant is fully running." Unfortunately, leave "blackouts" when employees are banned from requesting leave during busy periods are not foreign to anyone working in this industry, but the announcement was so swift, broad-sweeping, and oppressive that staff couldn't help but ask if it was an April Fool's Day prank done in poor taste. It, of course, wasn't.

See the responses below, along with some clarifying comments from the original poster, an employee of the restaurant.

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Posted by Brad Dickson