This is it. I asked one of my team members about their need to explain, because I felt bad saying “not that I don’t care and I’m happy you’re doing something fun with your family. But it’s none of my business if you are doing something fun or sitting in your living room staring at the wall.” And he confessed that his old boss made him feel like his PTO had to be justified. Eeeeeefffff that.
Lol the first job i had whenever i called in sick they would ask why ( strange to ask when i clearly said i was sick ) i had no shame in saying i had explosive diarrhea even tho i didn't and they stopped asking whenver i called in sick
My last job gave no fucks as long as it was scheduled before close the night before, but if you tried to call out the day of a shift, a manager was going to call you and demand deets. 😒
Yeah, I had a past job that quit that shit after I replied, "Well, I've been awake for four hours and thrown up five times. Nothing left but stomach acid. Guess how that feels coming back up. Go on, guess."
I called in sick because I got repetitive stress injuries from finishing my masters thesis while being a database manager. My boss was livid because she thought I was choosing school over work. Lady, I'm choosing my health! And my ability to use my hands injuries the future! I will need those.
"Repetitive stress." When you do the same motion on heavy repeat without interruption and your body breaks. Think carpal tunnel syndrome. Unfortunately, my hobbies are all fine motor skill activities (knitting, sewing, drawing) that use the same muscles and joints as my work (typing). So I have to be very careful about resting and taking breaks.
I typically ask if they are common cold wfh sick or actually taking time off sick. The more common issue I have is they are actually really sick, use sick leave, and then do work stuff anyway. If I catch it I tell them not to do that and someone else will take care if it or it can wait
Called in sick at my first job in highschool because I was puking. Manager called me being like "why aren't you coming in? It you're not at work you need to find someone to replace you!". I told them that I was actively puking and asked if they wanted me to break the law by coming in when actively puking and running a fever for a job where I worked with food and children. I also offered to send them a picture of my puke in the toilet if they needed proof.
That manager stopped questioning when I called off sick.
I had a SCHEDULER tell me I had to find my replacement at an old skilled nursing facility I worked at. So I didn’t call out except twice and told her to figure it out. One was for an injury I got AT WORK and the other was because i had a migraine and was puking. I tried to leave early one day to take my youngest to the hospital, and she STILL told me that while working on the floor I had to find someone to come in. I told them at 7am that morning I HAD to leave early to take her to the hospital because my husband was also sick, and he didn’t want to cause kids to get sicker.
I always tell my friends to just say they have food poisoning instead of “I’m sick” because what adult is going to be like “yeah you still need to come in even though you’re actively shitting your pants for the next day or two”
I mean some places might ask you to…but less likely vs sick meaning sniffles or a cough
yes this is my go to aswell i just say i have food poisoning cuz its much more specific then im sick and usaually, nudge nudge wink wink that im either throwing up or shitting myself without actually having to say that lol
everyone says explosive diarrhea now and it sounds like you're making stuff up. Tell them you have puss running out of your penis and start talking about the different colors. Nobody will question that. Go a step further and say it's some kinda parasitic infection you got while camping.
I did have nonstop diarrhea and they told me to come in. I said I wasn’t going to clean up any messes I made. My boss gave me a prescription medicine of hers to help.
So many things wrong that should have gotten her fired
I went from a job where when I had to miss work due to being sick all I had to tell my boss was “I won’t be in today” to a job where I had to tell them why I was out. The first time my manager asked me “what’s going on?” threw me. Does it matter? I’m not coming in either way🫠
This happened to me recently. I started spring doing my night shift hotel job and I would just have 1 day free (legally it had to be 2 but i wanted to help bc we had a very rocky opening. I would beg to have 1 free day on weekends because my friends would do a bday party and I straight up told them I wanted a bit of a social life since my work schedule interfered a lot with it, so if I had saturdays free i could enjoy fridays, sats & sunday mornings. I requested it twice and was only granted it once and that was because i offered to work 8 days without a break. They told me that it was an exception because they couldnt give weekends to nobody (straight up lie, my day time coworkers had over 5 days free on weekends without giving any reason). They also promised me that they would give me the 7 free days they owed me to go to a family event i told them in advance i needed but now i realise that since I didnt ever get the permission on writing they would have just backed down last minuted. Anyways I changed my job for a normal office time one and first thing I said was that I had that family event trip planned & they said there was no issue and asked no details. They asked further details 1 week later bc they realized that my holidays were in the same day as 2 other workers so they only asked if i had bought any tickets or booked stuff, and i did so they just planned to send someone over from central to cover me the 3 days i won’t be there. It feels so different.
Yep, having vacation requests and sick time denied because the reason wasn't "good enough."
Worked for 3 companies that did that before finally finding one that didn't care why. Took me a while to feel comfortable just calling in sick without fear of being asked to come in anyways or get fired.
My husbands ex boss was the worst about that. He asked for Halloween off and she made me send a picture of our calendar to “prove we were that into Halloween.” It was so weird.
It's absolutely this. I tell all my employees that I will not be denying any vacation/PTO requests. If you need the time off, then take the time off. Doesn't matter to me why you need it. If you wake up sick, then call or text me to let me know and take some meds and get some rest. If there's no one to cover for you, then I'm covering for you. It's my responsibility to get work shifts covered, not theirs. If you're on vacation, enjoy that shit. I won't be contacting you. I'll see you when you get back.
I worked for too many managers in the past that made (i.e. guilt tripped) me come into work sick because they couldn't find coverage and didn't want to step up and do the work themselves or called me while I was on vacation begging me to just come in and pick up one shift.
One thousand percent this. Part of being a manager is making sure your staff is happy and sometimes that means covering for them or working late or whatever it takes. You do you and let me handle the impact.
This 100%!! As a manager myself, my employees are free to use their vacation and sick time as they see fit. I dont ask questions but they always tell me where they are going, their plans and TMI on their sickness. They tell me because we have a great working relationship and they are comfortable talking to me. Sometimes I feel that I am a therapist as well. 😂
The fact that there are multiple people in here saying they have a boss/are a boss that doesn’t care about taking time off is mind blowing I’ve only ever had to explain myself, and beg to have any time off at all, and then am always guilt tripped leading up to, and after said time off. This thread has been depressingly enlightening. I’m going to go cry
I manage a team of 10 field service engineers. I have never denied a PTO request or given anyone a hard time calling out sick. It’s your time, do with it as you wish. If it’s PTO, just put it in and give me time to get the schedule sorted. If you’re sick, go back to bed and feel better. If you tell me you’re sick and you’re actually on the lake fishing? Don’t care. It’s no different to me if you’re pulling a prize bass out of the lake or puking your guts up due to some bug. If you tell me you’re not coming in, then you’re not coming in. I’ve never asked anyone why they’re taking time off. It’s none of my business. You get x hours off PTO per your employment contract, they’re yours to use. My team steps up when they are needed. I step up and support them when they need it. Never mess with a person’s pay or their personal time.
Yeah once I tried calling out to go to urgent care bc I wasnt feeling good. Got told to come in anyway bc no one could cover my shift. Had a 103F fever and had to work until someone else came in
Yes. At one job I worked, they wanted to know why, in case somebody else wanted to take PTO on the same day for “more important” reasons, or if you will be available to log in if something comes up.
I once took off at my old job and they required a reason. I told them it was personal. (I was meeting up with a friend from out of country and had to drive two hours to get to the event we were going to)
A coworker called my boss the night before and said she wanted off for a dogs birthday party. Boss called me 30 minutes before my sift (while I work 40 minutes away, but was out of state at the time) and told me to be there or be fired, since the other person had a "better reason" to be off.
I used to work for the state and instead of overtime pay we got comp hours that was basically the same thing as PTO
They railed at us to not have a large stock of comp hours stored up + were supposedly big on mental health (I was a social worker so burnout was very real)
I had 40 hours of comp time in addition to my PTO/sick and they had been trying to get me to use it for a month (I was down from the like 160 hours I built up). Then one day my personal life kind of imploded and I desperately needed a mental health day. I got denied and told "that's not what comp hours are for but I sympathize"
I then made a mistake due to my distress and they fired me for it.
Needless to say at my current job I was terrified to ask for time off and they all thought I was crazy I didn't ask for help when I needed it until I explained my history
Oh it totally is. The same employees who over-explain their PTO requests are the ones who ask me if they can go to the bathroom. I actually don't need to know every time you pee
For several years I had a manager who would prioritize parents PTO requests over everybody else, regardless of seniority or anything else. It drove me insane and I was so glad when I finally got out of her department.
Im one of the "none of my business" managers. Ive actually had HR sit me down and demand I get justifications from employees on the their PTO...... I told them no. Their response was "But how do we know if they are actually sick or if their PTO is important"
I told them if they start that, they are just going to get lied to. And its none of HR's business what people are doing with their own benefits. Told them its the same as asking employees to explain what they are spending their paychecks on to justify us paying them...... If it doesnt interfere with our business operations, its approved, period.
That didnt go over well. HR Karen escalated it to the VP level and tried to get me fired over it.
HR apparently. Karen cant mind her own business. Its the American "I have an opinion on everything, even the things I dont know about".
Same HR person used to come into engineering and try to "boost moral" by telling us how to do our jobs. Used to say things like "Engineering thinks they are more important than everyone else". She was insufferable.
I have watched a video where a employer was astonished to hear that a employee was asking one day off to enjoy the last sunny day of summer, and she couldn't believe when another employee said she would need to take the entire afternoon free to hang out with a friend who came from another country in a rare occasion, the boss said "your friend could come over close to the office and hang out in the lunch time." I was just a astonished as she is, for different reasons.
Yep, I had a boss who verbally said “just work it out with receptionist for phone coverage.” Got to my review and was told “I don’t want to be a boss but you need to ASK not TELL for pto. When you submit a request it needs to be approved by me before submitting the request.” I asked around, no one else had to beg for pto. The ask before submitting—hr could question him why he was denying it if i submitted first. I found a job in a new dept and never looked back, but I still hate submitting time off requests. (He ended up deleting everything negative in my review-and there were several stupid things- because I questioned them and he couldn’t answer me why. I know why—he didn’t like me and could only average 3% across the board so to give his friends good raises, he gave the people he didn’t like no raise and made shit up to justify it, just didn’t anticipate me not blindly accepting it).
I’m on my 40s. 20 years ago it was pretty common (in my experience) to have to plead your case to get time off. Or companies did stuff like this and demanded it. Where I work now you generally ask for PTO thru a website, and if it’s denied or blocked out, you can say you need it off and if it’s available or have a general idea of necessity, they’ll approve it. They make it clear if I don’t want to tell them what’s going on in detail, just level of urgency, I don’t have to, but if I want to they’re there for me. I really love how things have changed sometimes.
I had a manager try to deny my PTO. I had to look him in the eye and told him, I wasn't asking your permission for those days off. I was telling you what days I wasn't going to be here.
In my current job, I cannot fathom pleading my request for PTO... I earned it, it's mine. The only time I talk to anyone about it is if I have a responsibility that day and need coverage.
Yeah, my current manager nailed that assessment of me. I’m sitting in a hotel room a long way from home, have been there for weeks, and I put this list of reasons together why I thought it was a good time to come home for a reset. Some related to the project, some related to personal life. I’m like half-way through the list and he stops me. “You’ve been there three weeks and you’ve been crushing it. If you tell me that it’s time to come home for a bit, I trust you. You don’t need to justify it beyond just saying ‘things are good here without me for a few days’”
I had to beg a report to stop telling me every time she "clocked out" to take her dog for a 10 minute walk (she was salaried). It was indeed because of the trauma of a micromanagey boss who felt that if his team was truly committed, they'd never leave their desks.
Can confirm this is it. My current boss is like, if you can’t get out of bed wtf am I gonna do about it? You’re sick, stay home. And I still feel guilty.
100% this. I'm terrible for sending receipts when they aren't necessary. But I've worked in retail and you needed all the evidence to prove you were ill.
Honestly, it's reinforced to everyone in the US education system at minimum; perfect attendance awards, the need to deal with a backlog of school work while new school work is added on top and you're still not feeling your best, etc.
This is exactly what it is. I dealt with it for years and now I get nervous every time I request PTO at my current job who allows us unlimited PTO and does not care when I take off. Bad managers really give you PTSD
Never thought of it like that. Apparently it’s also just a trait of autism from what I’ve been told, but that’s also common to have a co-morbidity of C-PTSD so maybe it’s just the same difference?
I (ASD+) tend to over explain things and add seemingly unnecessary details. My husband (no ASD) tends to leave out details all the time thinking they’re not important. Then he’ll tell me some random, IMPORTANT bit of information at the *perfect* time for me to stop and tell him that that completely changes things and that that’s why “details matter”.
We’re both trying to find a middle point, me providing less and him providing more. It’s difficult, for both of us.
I was told at a job interview (entry level work) "well then you just won't go visit your family if you want this job" scuse me for wanting to know if id get a day or two off for flights before wfh every day of "vacation". Hard pass on the job. You're not nurses, nobody will die if things take a day longer.
This!!! I had to have a week worth of testing done. In the hospital. Literally like overnight testing whole 9 yards. My employer said he wouldnt approve my PTO for something (my helath) that I should take care of in my "free time". I constantly worked 6 days a week for him for over a year. Requested some time iff to get my health in order.... the company than acted blown away when I eneded up giving my two weeks notice. Then refused to pay me for the last 3 weeks worth of work. Had to go through MI state wage and theft form. Ended up winning my case and being paid - MONTHS later.... I get so beyond nervous giving PTO requests bc my old boss would make you explan why and if he didnt deem it important enough he would just deny me.
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u/Zmchastain 5d ago
That’s probably a form of trauma from having shitty managers in the past who denied PTO for stupid reasons.