Employee Resigns After HR Reprimands Him For Excessive PTO Despite Taking the Same Time Off Every Year

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jun 9, 2026 8:00 AM EDT

Can you imagine being told that the vacation time you took, which you rightfully earned, was suddenly considered excessive?

It's safe to say that this is not how you treat a loyal employee who has been working with you for over half a decade. This man, who shared his story with the r/antiwork subreddit community online, found himself taken aback when, on the first day of the same annual leave he had been taking for five years, he was notified by a coworker from human resources that he needed to come into the office to discuss his "excessive leave."

For context, not only was this the same amount of time off he always took each year, but the argument from HR's perspective also incorporated the bereavement leave he took earlier this year when he was handling a personal family matter involving his grandmother. It was company policy that bereavement leave and paid time off were not one and the same, so we find it interesting that all of a sudden, when it suits upper management, they have deemed that they can, in fact, conflate the two. Not to mention, there seems to have been zero expression of empathy for what their employee has been going through with his family.

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employee work stories annual leave i quit satisfying quitting story PTO human resources resignation vacation
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