'So I stopped taking vacations': Security guard discovers company only pays them for 1 hour per day while using vacation time

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
May 12, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

One company must be confused about the meaning of "PTO." It stands for paid time off, aka those blissful days that some salaried employees earn to take vacation time without breaking the bank. There are few greater feelings than being relaxed on your vacation, safely away from your inbox and your boss, and still being paid for that. It's a lovely way to reward a company's hardworking employees. 

For u/ack1308, using vacation time wasn't that straightforward, though. They realized that the business they worked for was not really paying out those vacation days. They were under the impression that they could take time to relax and vacation with ease. This security worker only got halfway through their leave before realizing that they'd been duped! 

In the comments, other workers shared their own stories of workplaces that tried to ruin their vacation time, and a lot of these employees got some sweet justice. We all want to be that guy who gets to be "retired" for three years, all while the company is paying out their leftover vacation days. But just in case, maybe we should all just be taking our vacation days so we can relax a little bit in the meantime.

After that, check out the absolutely bizarre interior design monstrosities, like the bathroom made entirely of stones and gems. 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 9921064448
    via yang wewe on Unsplash
  • 02
    You won't pay out my annual leave while I'm on vacation? I won't take vacations.
    via u/ack1308
  • 03
    I've been doing security for about sixteen years now, and about ten years ago I was doing on-again off-again shifts at a particular site (not relevant where). Anyway, I had a decent amount of annual leave hours under my belt, so I decided to take a vacation in a city down the coast, visiting a friend. The understanding was that while I was on vacation, my annual leave hours would pay out as if I were still working (but with 17% leave loading, woo).
    via u/ack1308
  • 04
    So, about halfway through my vacation, the day after I'm due to get paid, I casually check my account, and the number is nowhere near what it should be. I go okay, maybe they're a day late.
    via u/ack1308
  • 05
    Four days later, after I get home, no improvement. So I ring up work and ask them what's the deal. What I get back is that when I'm on vacation, annual leave pays out on my regular roster hours. But I wasn't getting regular roster hours, so they were paying me for about one hour a day, instead of eight. I said, "Uh, I went on vacation to use up annual leave."
    via u/ack1308
  • 06
    They said, "Well, that's what the rules are." So I stopped taking vacations. My annual leave hours built up. And built up.
    via u/ack1308
  • 07
    The company doesn't like anyone holding a huge number of annual leave hours, because if someone decided to quit out of the blue, the payout would be AMAZING. (Saw one guy do this; he had enough hours to take the year off. Then he retired).
    via u/ack1308
  • 08
    So about six months later they came to me and said, "Why aren't you taking vacations?" I said, "I can't afford to. You guys don't pay out my annual leave hours while I'm off." Silence on the other end. Then, "We'll see about that."
    via u/ack1308
  • 09
    All of a sudden, the policy changed. I took a nice long vacation.
    via u/ack1308
  • 10
    Firestorm1995 We had a guy at my work who did this. He had over 700 hour of paid time off saved up. They told him he had to use it cause they were making a cap on hours. so he asked how long her could take. They said a month then you ha e to come back or your job can be given away.
    via u/ack1308
  • 11
    He took a month off, came back for one day, and took another month off
    via u/ack1308
  • 12
    engg_girl That is the dumbest policy I've ever heard. Good for you!
    via u/ack1308
  • 13
    Mintgiver My company reorganized a few years ago. If any high ups wanted to leave, they would get a buy-out of their full salary for ten percent of their tenure.
    via u/Mintgiver
  • 14
    One guy had started as a stock worker at 13 in his brother's franchise and worked his way up. He had 51 years in. They paid his full salary for just over five years. His retirement got magically better overnight.
    via u/Mintgiver
  • 15
    Salty Jake I guy I work with has been. pooling his time since he started on the job 32 years ago. Vacation time and personal time carry over is capped at the beginning of each fiscal year, but his sick. time, earned leave, differed OT>PTO is all unlimited.
    via u/Salty Jake
  • 16
    They refuse to change it because they can't afford to cash people out if they put a cap, so instead he'll get about 3 & 1/2 years of paid time off before he retires.
    via u/Salty Jake
  • 17
    Conman1984 I had a situation where I wanted to change locations and the boss wouldn't let me because we didn't have enough staff. I'd been there for years before he came on and flat-out told him we'd never had that many.
    via u/Conman1984
  • 18
    He refused to budge so I quit, got paid out 100+ hours of leave and got rehired at the other place the next day because it was one of the bosses I'd worked with before.
    via u/Conman1984
  • 19
    The best part was because I'd quit and been rehired so fast my pay still said I had all that leave owing. I left it and didn't say anything, figuring they'd catch it at tax time, but they didn't. And when I left 2 years later I got paid out again.
    via u/Conman1984
  • 20
    H-CBuckets I'm currently on 9 weeks of leave for this exact reason. Still got 6 in the bank, and long service entitlements. It wasn't that they didn't pay leave properly, they never approved any applications. Then had the audacity to complain I had too much...
    via u/H-CBuckets

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boss security workplace-stories jobs job malicious compliance bosses work malicious-compliance-reddit hours workplace leave malicious compliance reddit vacation
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