Bad Boss trying to ruin my Spring Break Navigator Cruise

I told my boss over 6 months ago that I was scheduling a cruise for Spring Break and that my counterpart at work had no plans for that time period. Last week at our staff meeting when we were discussing calendar items I mentioned my trip since she now had the 2015 calendar I wanted to make sure that she had my vacation down. She then asked if I had asked if another employee had wanted that time. I have been with the company for 25 years and the other employee only 5 years. I have twice as many vacation days and obviously more seniority – and I have to take second place?!?!?! Fortunately, my counterpart is a person of integrity and stood by what she had said several months ago before I booked the cruise.

If you are a boss – be a good boss. Don't screw with your employees vacations!

Thanks for letting me RANT!

I told my boss over 6 months ago that I was scheduling a cruise for Spring Break and that my counterpart at work had no plans for that time period. Last week at our staff meeting when we were discussing calendar items I mentioned my trip since she now had the 2015 calendar I wanted to make sure that she had my vacation down. She then asked if I had asked if another employee had wanted that time. I have been with the company for 25 years and the other employee only 5 years. I have twice as many vacation days and obviously more seniority – and I have to take second place?!?!?! Fortunately, my counterpart is a person of integrity and stood by what she had said several months ago before I booked the cruise.

 

If you are a boss – be a good boss. Don't screw with your employees vacations!

 

Thanks for letting me RANT!

I agree!! Especially if it's a CRUISE!!! :mad:

I can tell you, if they did that to me (25 years at my current position, essentially since inception of the company), I would be looking for a different position. (easier said than done, I know)

This is one of the reasons I retired early. Even though I notified my employer a year ahead, I book early, there was always last minute stuff. With over 20 years and many vacation days and early notification there should not be problems. If you can retire comfortably do it. It has been one of my best decisions. :D

We encourage our employees to take ALL of the vacation time they have!

We even offer them cruises as an added incentive for a job well done!!!!!

This is one of the reasons I retired early. Even though I notified my employer a year ahead, I book early, there was always last minute stuff. With over 20 years and many vacation days and early notification there should not be problems. If you can retire comfortably do it. It has been one of my best decisions. :D

Absolutely!:D In my case (I was a principal), I was tired of the politics and the bureaucracy. I retired in 2012 after 30 years in the same school system, and I haven't regretted it for a second!

We encourage our employees to take ALL of the vacation time they have!

 

We even offer them cruises as an added incentive for a job well done!!!!!

I want to work for you! [emoji2]

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We encourage our employees to take ALL of the vacation time they have!

We even offer them cruises as an added incentive for a job well done!!!!!

What type of work do you do and are there positions open? :D

Azmike480

I told my boss over 6 months ago that I was scheduling a cruise for Spring Break and that my counterpart at work had no plans for that time period. Last week at our staff meeting when we were discussing calendar items I mentioned my trip since she now had the 2015 calendar I wanted to make sure that she had my vacation down. She then asked if I had asked if another employee had wanted that time. I have been with the company for 25 years and the other employee only 5 years. I have twice as many vacation days and obviously more seniority – and I have to take second place?!?!?! Fortunately, my counterpart is a person of integrity and stood by what she had said several months ago before I booked the cruise.

If you are a boss – be a good boss. Don't screw with your employees vacations!

 

Thanks for letting me RANT!

You know, I have a few people working for me and there are two things that I hold sacred - a persons vacation and their pay. If someone wants time off then its my job to make sure there's coverage and if there's a dispute (I've never had one with anyone over vacation) then seniority rules. Period. Having said that, if someone was to tell me 6 months ahead that they have a special trip planned and are giving me a heads up, then its a done deal. It sounds like you have a good co-worker and maybe your boss meant nothing by her remark. Perhaps it was just an innocent remark to make sure there was someone covering. Don't read too much into it, perhaps she had a lot on her mind that day.

I totally agree!! I always put plan our cruises a year in advance and had the same thing happen to me. I had to take it to HR and than the boss back down.

We encourage our employees to take ALL of the vacation time they have!

We even offer them cruises as an added incentive for a job well done!!!!!

Are you hiring? I'll be looking in November!

This is one of the reasons I retired early. Even though I notified my employer a year ahead, I book early, there was always last minute stuff. With over 20 years and many vacation days and early notification there should not be problems. If you can retire comfortably do it. It has been one of my best decisions. :D

Unfortunately, I still have kids in school and College on the horizon, so retirement is not in the near future. But don't for one second think that I don't think about it EVERY DAY!

Watching the 401K and counting the days!

I told my boss over 6 months ago that I was scheduling a cruise for Spring Break and that my counterpart at work had no plans for that time period. Last week at our staff meeting when we were discussing calendar items I mentioned my trip since she now had the 2015 calendar I wanted to make sure that she had my vacation down. She then asked if I had asked if another employee had wanted that time. I have been with the company for 25 years and the other employee only 5 years. I have twice as many vacation days and obviously more seniority – and I have to take second place?!?!?! Fortunately, my counterpart is a person of integrity and stood by what she had said several months ago before I booked the cruise.

If you are a boss – be a good boss. Don't screw with your employees vacations!

 

Thanks for letting me RANT!

I pretty much had the same thing happen to me for Navigator cruise in early 2013 but a little different. At that time I had been working there for 9 years. Boss knew and approved our planned cruise a year before, everything is all paid for and 2 days before we were to leave I was told I might not be able to take the cruise because it looked like the upcoming trial was going to go as scheduled in a few weeks. Talk about heart failure, OMG, OMG. I told her you don't understand, the trip is PAID for.

As it turned out the trial did get moved to another date, I did get to go on cruise but not without mega stressing beforehand.

I will celebrate 20 years at my firm next Friday. I have 4 weeks vacation as well as 10 personal/sick days.

I used to put in my vacation requests on January 2nd of each year. With kids you always know the schedule so it's easy to do. A few years ago, they stopped allowing that, and asked that we only put in vacation 1-2 quarters ahead.

I have 2 co workers that do my type of work, but only one would cover me if I'm gone. However, the company now says that the other co worker and I cannot be out at the same time, even though I don't do her work and she can't do mine. It's more a "same department" sort of thing.

She started here the very end of 2012, and without my knowing, she purchased air tickets to fly back to the UK to see her mother (with her husband and kids) for Christmas 2013. I usually take that week off, and that particular year had my kids (under my custody agreement). However, because she had asked someone else first and not out supervisor, she was approved and I was told I could not take time. Given the fact that I worked here 19 years and she only 1 yet she got priority.

So here at my firm, seniority actually works against us. If you ask for the same week too many times, you actually are told that you've had it too many times and they will allow others with less seniority to take the week.

This is particularly difficult when I have to deal with school holidays, but these others do not have children so they would be more flexible. But it is the way it is and I'm not quitting my job over it.

So I didn't take Christmas holiday vacation in 2013, and since I don't have my kids this year, I told my supervisor and this same woman that she can have it (her daughter is having her bat mitzvah the Saturday before Christmas and family is coming over from the UK). So I figure next year (2015) when I have the boys again, I'll get it with no question.

Everything in e-mail!

I had a lot of coworkers leave a company to work for our next door neighbor that was also in aerospace. That company would mandate so much over time they actually had to create a policy for reimbursing people for missed vacations. I know one engineer they reimbursed for a full cruise and airfare for him and his wife, so he could work 80 hours that week. They operated like that for years (and still do to a lesser extent), just seemed like horrible management to me.

I've known engineers there that have taken off less than 5 days a year, multiple years in a row (including weekends and holidays). Not my thing.

I am the HR Manager at my facility...17 years now. I can't tell you how many times I have had to go toe-toe with a department head because they would mess with their staff's vacation time...sometimes approving something and then as the time got closer trying to deny it because their staffing levels weren't so great...or not allowing people in the same positions but working completely different shifts to be off the same week, in a department of over 100 employees...completely unacceptable. I hold staff's vacation time, as well as my own, sacred. It should NEVER be an employee's responsibility to find coverage for their own vacation...that is the department head's problem. It is crazy to me to offer someone the benefit of vacation and then make it so hard for them to use it. I want my people to take every day off they have coming to them. The one benefit of being the only person who does what you do...I am the whole HR department...no one does my job while I'm gone...is that I don't have to coordinate with anyone else to take time off...I just have to work like the dickens when I get back to catch up...but it's worth it, especially if vacation was a cruise!!

I told my boss over 6 months ago that I was scheduling a cruise for Spring Break and that my counterpart at work had no plans for that time period. Last week at our staff meeting when we were discussing calendar items I mentioned my trip since she now had the 2015 calendar I wanted to make sure that she had my vacation down. She then asked if I had asked if another employee had wanted that time. I have been with the company for 25 years and the other employee only 5 years. I have twice as many vacation days and obviously more seniority – and I have to take second place?!?!?! Fortunately, my counterpart is a person of integrity and stood by what she had said several months ago before I booked the cruise.

If you are a boss – be a good boss. Don't screw with your employees vacations!

 

Thanks for letting me RANT!

I can understand , glad it worked out. I don't speak favorably about my company, but this is one area they and my boss shine. Whomever puts it on the official online calendar first gets it. It goes ahead 5 years, so I have already claimed my time for Freedom and Oasis. It helps since there use to be 10 of us and we are now down to 3 doing the same job. We cooperate with each other though. The other 2 still have kids in school and I seldom take off time around the holidays or school breaks.

Absolutely!:D In my case (I was a principal), I was tired of the politics and the bureaucracy. I retired in 2012 after 30 years in the same school system, and I haven't regretted it for a second!

We must be about the same age Cindy. I thought I wanted to teach and tried it for a year and saw the politics and bureaucracy back then. My Dad offered me a job and I went to work for my family in the energy business. Now I am the boss and don't have to ask anyone when I can take a vacation. Trouble with cruising is I feel so out of touch with the office. Gerry

We encourage our employees to take ALL of the vacation time they have!

We even offer them cruises as an added incentive for a job well done!!!!!

Are you hiring ? :D

OP, you're right, you have a bad boss with serious control issues! I dealt with this for many years. Every time I had a vacation scheduled she would pile on extra work that had to be done before I could take my leave. I was always thoughtful of my fellow employees who had school age children and planned my vacations when it would not interfere with families with limited time for vacations. I always worked over the Christmas holidays and Thanksgiving so people with children could take leave when the children were off from school. (I worked for the US federal government for 38 years). When I decided to retire, my boss told me it was up to her to decide if I could retire or not, her decision not mine! I had already discussed it with her supervisor, much to her surprise! That being said, don't burn your bridges if you need the job!

OP, you're right, you have a bad boss with serious control issues! I dealt with this for many years. Every time I had a vacation scheduled she would pile on extra work that had to be done before I could take my leave. I was always thoughtful of my fellow employees who had school age children and planned my vacations when it would not interfere with families with limited time for vacations. I always worked over the Christmas holidays and Thanksgiving so people with children could take leave when the children were off from school. (I worked for the US federal government for 38 years). When I decided to retire, my boss told me it was up to her to decide if I could retire or not, her decision not mine! I had already discussed it with her supervisor, much to her surprise! That being said, don't burn your bridges if you need the job!

Oh, HELLZ, no!

OP, you're right, you have a bad boss with serious control issues! I dealt with this for many years. Every time I had a vacation scheduled she would pile on extra work that had to be done before I could take my leave. I was always thoughtful of my fellow employees who had school age children and planned my vacations when it would not interfere with families with limited time for vacations. I always worked over the Christmas holidays and Thanksgiving so people with children could take leave when the children were off from school. (I worked for the US federal government for 38 years). When I decided to retire, my boss told me it was up to her to decide if I could retire or not, her decision not mine! I had already discussed it with her supervisor, much to her surprise! That being said, don't burn your bridges if you need the job!

Not burning any bridges - just wanting to vent. And you know what? It has help hearing all of your stories.

And you hit the nail on the head with the term "Control Issues!"

My former manager asked me on a Tuesday if I could cancel my cruise that left on Thursday of the same week. My daughter was actually in the air on her way to join us at the moment my boss made the request so I wasn't canceling anything.

My boss had accidentally given another employee time off for a routine colonoscopy on the same Thursday. The other employee and I had completely different roles and worked in different states. My boss needed someone working that day, besides herself, who was authorized to send mass emails to customers in case our system went down. (No I didn't work for Royal Caribbean.)

I actually felt bad for my boss as I knew she was under tremendous job pressure from above. I told her that she could call me up until the time the ship left if she needed me to walk her through the email blast process. I told her I would have to turn off my phone for the muster drill. It put a little damper on usual boarding day euphoria. Fortunately nothing broke at the office that day.

I retired several months later, but work for them periodically on special projects so the company still has some control over me.

Carolyn

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Not burning any bridges - just wanting to vent. And you know what? It has help hearing all of your stories.

 

And you hit the nail on the head with the term "Control Issues!"

Could be some jealousy on the part of your boss, too?

For my staff, I create the vacation calendar in October the year prior. I send it out to everyone and ask they schedule at least 2 weeks of vacation time (they are required to take 1 full week every 6 months..the remaining 2 weeks and personal days, etc. can be scheduled ad hoc throughout the year).

When I get it back from each person, I look to see if there are any "conflicts" and if there are (which is surprisingly rare), then I talk with them to see if someone has something planned, paid for, etc. Seniority would generally rule, but sometimes they just take a stab at a week, knowing they might change it when it gets closer.

If someone ever comes to me prior to the calendar being released about a particular week (for a cruise, or other planned vacation) then they would get priority. If it's after the calendar and they didn't ask for it and someone else already had it scheduled that would conflict, then we work it out. I'm not going to take that week away from a less tenured employee because someone with more seniority wants it now. I've never had a problem.

That said, I have had people rotate their Christmas vacations. I have some very tenured folks on my team. One with 25 years, another with 22 years. Should the one with 22 years never get Christmas week off because someone has 25 years? I think it should be fair. If I were the one with 22 years and could never take the holiday, I would find another company (or team) to work for. Fortunately, it all seems to work out. But there is a balancing act around the holidays. I have often cancelled my plans so my team can be out instead. (But then again, I've never booked a Christmas cruise..lol)