Manager turns an approved short vacation into layoff ultimatum, leaving 5-year-strong loyal employee stuck and unsure: ‘I've worked every holiday, hardly call out or request days off, picked up shifts, and never had any issues’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Mar 13, 2025 9:00 AM EDT

It makes perfect sense, really. When a dedicated, years-long employee dares to request one measly week off, the obvious solution is to suggest they not work for you at all anymore. What's more logical than that? You'll teach them a lesson—how dare they momentarily prioritize their own life over the sacred workplace grind. Clearly, the best way to encourage dedication is by dangling their job security over a pit of corporate absurdity.  

If you fire them, it's no big deal. They'll just take their years of experience elsewhere, leaving you with the positively delightful task of combing through the countless highly experienced workers who are absolutely lining up for the chance to work under your seasoned, visionary management style. Once you lose this employee who's been carrying weekends, holidays, and last-minute shifts on their back for years, the floodgates will surely open, and you'll be overwhelmed by a tidal wave of eager applicants desperate to join this bastion of workplace respect and good judgment. 

Or, you know, you could just let them take the time off, be happy for them, and welcome them back recharged and ready to work. But no, why choose sanity when you have the opportunity to flex your authority in the most counterproductive way possible?  

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  • It takes a special kind of managerial brilliance to see loyalty and dedication as a threat instead of an asset. So here’s a round of applause for whoever thought that punishing reliability was a sound business strategy. Well done, truly.

  • "Threatened to be fired for wanting a week off, what should I do"

    "I'm threatened to be fired for wanting a week off"
    via FG Trade

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I've been working at the same restaurant for 5 years. In November, I was offered by some friends/co-workers to go out of town for a music festival in May. I
    via inconvenient_sloth
  • requested it off by December and it got approved that same day. All of my managers have been aware since I was offered to go however, a newer manager is telling me that I need to find
    via inconvenient_sloth
  • cover for that week I'm gone or else I won't have a job to come back to, along with needing to make up the hours by ignoring my availability and he's said the same thing to the people that I'm
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  • going with. I've spoken to my general manager about it and he does not agree with the new managers comment, but will avoid the conversation whenever I bring up the issue. I've worked
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  • every holiday, hardly call out or request days off, picked up shifts, and never had any issues. Is he able to do that and what should I do? To add some detail: it's a
    via inconvenient_sloth
  • Cheezburger Image 10478895104
    via mantinov

    Oh, your vacation is approved?

    How 'bout 'I don't think so'?

  • chain restaurant that isn't low staffed, so it's not like I'm ☐ the building over. Sorry for the long paragraph, I'm just a bit stressed :P
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  • Best Market4204 Just go... 1 - you can give in and ask around for the coverage
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  • 2- You can meet in the middle and find some and let the manager deal with the other days
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  • 3 - you can play hard and tell the to be a manager like he should be and make the schedule
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  • Cheezburger Image 10478894848
    via kemalbas

    Boss took a U turn. what about you?

  • Either way you should be looking for a new job... f that dude. no 2 week notice
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  • cjroxs Go on your planned vacation. If they fire you for going on a pre-approved vacation than so be it. This is the definition of a toxic workplace.
    via cjroxs
  • Designer-Carpenter88 I love those "you need to fund coverage" guys. Bulls that's your job as the manager
    via Designer-Carpenter88
  • SuzeCB 5 years at the same restaurant is a loooong time. Your new manager is counting on the idea that you'll figure you have too much time invested there to risk leaving.
    via SuzeCB
  • You have too much of YOUR time invested to waste any more if you're not appreciated.
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  • The Sr. manager not telling the new one to back off is a good indication of where things are going. New manager may have connections higher up the chain.
    via SuzeCB
  • Any place you apply to will know you're a good catch because you survived 5 years at the same place. If the hiring mgr has a functioning brain cell, s/he'll put it together that someone screwed you over and you left - and probably also that anything negative they say about you will be BS.
    via SuzeCB
  • Tell the new manager your leave was already approved and that he makes the schedules. CONFIRM THIS IN WRITING!!!
    via SuzeCB
  • Then take your leave. You will be fired. Apply for Ul and look for another job. They will try to block your UI by saying you did a no-call-no-show. You can show them the email/text that they knew, and that your leave had been approved.
    via SuzeCB
  • Good luck and absorb this - lesson in loyalty. Companies are never loyal to employees unless it loses the coffers somehow. 1
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  • No Use 9124 Just go. But look for a new job first. Take him at his word. He says you'll be fired if you go. Assume that's true and find something else now that starts when you get back.
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  • Few Cricket597 Go on your vacation. If they fire you that is most likely good news. You don't want to work for them anyway.
    via Few_Cricket597
  • ShockValu3 If you have it in writing somewhere that it was approved. Take the vacation. Get Fired. Sue.
    via ShockValu3

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management boss workplace-stories hr toxic-workplace manager bosses work PTO managers supervisor workplace Horrible Bosses work-life balance
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