Healthcare worker can't take vacation when colleague takes vacation, colleague makes last minute requests every time she takes vacation time: 'I reviewed the entire calendar... I noticed it's a pattern'

Few people in the workplace are craftier than a slacker.

After all, nobody likes the kind of person who leaves all their work for somebody else to do. It takes practice, skill, and a somewhat ironic amount of effort to avoid doing your job in a way that is successful and does not eventually lead to conflict. There has to be a plan in place that nobody would suspect.

However, it is fair to say that the kind of employees who prefer to slack off usually do not work hard enough to make their strategies foolproof. Unless they work a job that is genuinely low effort, somebody is going to notice at some point that their workload is increasing, and they are going to try to find out why that is.

It can be deeply frustrating and disappointing to realize that a colleague is not doing their job, but what can be even more awkward is the attempt to rectify that situation. They aren't likely to be the kind of individual who deals well with confrontation, and there is every chance that a manager has reasons for taking their side.

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Everyone deserves a break from their job now and then, and indeed, there are plenty of less fun, more practical life admin reasons that somebody may need to take PTO. It makes it all the more annoying when a coworker plots to sabotage this important time away from work.
In this story, a healthcare worker figured out that the colleague on her two-man team was intentionally taking last-minute PTO at the same time as she was, in an attempt to avoid doing work. Company policy was that only one person at a time was allowed to go on vacation, but their manager could often be more forgiving.
During these times when both employees took time off, the coworker often left a lot of her work to be done by her colleague. Realizing this had been a pattern throughout 2025, the woman looked for a way to talk to her manager about the issue.
How to deal with a colleague that requests the same PTO intentionally?

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