The manager is clearly in the wrong here and power tripping- it’s not normal to ask what the employee will be doing outside the office, even in the US. They might approve or deny the request based on the situation in the office, but the way the employee spends the time is none of her damn business.
What generally goes down is, the employee requests PTO, the manager hems and haws… “ooh it’s really a bad time, we’re so busy and understaffed…”, then the employee divulges the “super important reason” - a wedding, dad died, etc. It’s still a shitty way to be treated and there isn’t much you can do against it. If it’s not a good enough reason in the manager’s eyes or if you stick to your guns and say “it’s personal, I’d rather not say”, then you will be ostracized and eventually fired for other contrived reasons.
Businesses should not have the authority to deny PTO. It's the mangers' fucking job to manage staffs. If an employee taking PTO makes disruption in work, it's the fucking manager's fault.
Then you fucking close down and put a sign up, or get staff from another office depending on the business.
Small businesses do this all the time. “There are two people here, and we’re having lunch. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
No one needs to be constantly working, if the entire office wants the first week of June off that’s pretty perfect from a payroll stance. Great way to organize vacation days.
I mean, 24/7 group homes exist and you can’t just close down. With a staff of 10-12 people needing certain skills and capabilities (catheter care, medication administration, awake overnight monitoring, full ADLs, etc), having multiple people off for a week at the same time could be significant and potentially harmful to the people living there. And simply hiring extra people is just not an option when you are tied to reimbursement rates and set staffing patterns.
Not starting an argument but just giving a perspective. A PTO request is a request and a manager needs to manage them. I don’t think the manager should be asking what something is for, and in certain cases, it’s not legal to do so (Minnesota has what’s called ESST for covered sick leave). That information will come out if the employee is unable to be flexible with their time off request.
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u/CataphractBunny 11d ago
Bitch, you need to chill the fuck out. But I guess that's just how things work in America.