Taking holidays/time off work

realscot

realscot

realscot

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Joined
6 Nov 2005
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2,317
Location
Aberdeenshire
I work for a family owned garage and including myself and my boss there are 5 mechanics. My boss is one of those greedy folk that work 365 days a year and are basically never closed. We've been told that if any of us want off on holiday we can only do it one at a time. That in itself isn't entirely unreasonable until you consider this.
Between two guys then have the 18th of August to the 26th of September booked off. That leaves me and the other mechanic to fight over whats left.
The problem is my other half has had 3 weeks booked of her work since the end of last year as she is spending 1 week in Ibiza for her birthday with friends and the other 2 weeks was supposed to be for us to go somewhere.
She's going to be off from the 16th August to the 5th September.
That means the entire time she is off I've been told i'm not allowed to take time off since someone else has already got it booked off.
To me it hardly seems that fair, because of my boss's greed and the fact he refuses to take even 1 week off himself the rest of us have to suffer. I still have 5 weeks holidays left to take this year as i've only used a couple days here and there so far this year. It's looking like now i'm going to have to just sit at home myself while the other half is working, and she will have to do the same basically. The only alternative being pulling a week long sicky, which is probably gonna land me with a P45.
I've been told employers have the right to decide when you get holidays. Is this true? Whats stopping them saying no holiday at all then like giving you the whole of december or january off just because it suits them?
I'm pretty ****ed off about the whole issue as it's basically spoiled any chance of going away for a few days and just ruined the entire summer for me.

Anyone else had any similar experiences?
 
TBH you should have booked that time off as sson as you could, especially if you knew only one person could be off at a time. That, or your missus should have booked time off coinciding with whatever weeks you could take.

PPPPPPP - learn it, live it, love it.
 
Deadbeat said:
TBH you should have booked that time off as sson as you could, especially if you knew only one person could be off at a time. That, or your missus should have booked time off coinciding with whatever weeks you could take.
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^This and your boss isn't being greedy he's running a business and not stopping you getting holidays if you do your part and actually book them when you should.
 
realscot said:
I work for a family owned garage and including myself and my boss there are 5 mechanics. My boss is one of those greedy folk that work 365 days a year and are basically never closed. We've been told that if any of us want off on holiday we can only do it one at a time. That in itself isn't entirely unreasonable until you consider this.
Between two guys then have the 18th of August to the 26th of September booked off. That leaves me and the other mechanic to fight over whats left.
The problem is my other half has had 3 weeks booked of her work since the end of last year as she is spending 1 week in Ibiza for her birthday with friends and the other 2 weeks was supposed to be for us to go somewhere.
She's going to be off from the 16th August to the 5th September.
That means the entire time she is off I've been told i'm not allowed to take time off since someone else has already got it booked off.
To me it hardly seems that fair, because of my boss's greed and the fact he refuses to take even 1 week off himself the rest of us have to suffer. I still have 5 weeks holidays left to take this year as i've only used a couple days here and there so far this year. It's looking like now i'm going to have to just sit at home myself while the other half is working, and she will have to do the same basically. The only alternative being pulling a week long sicky, which is probably gonna land me with a P45.
I've been told employers have the right to decide when you get holidays. Is this true? Whats stopping them saying no holiday at all then like giving you the whole of december or january off just because it suits them?
I'm pretty ****ed off about the whole issue as it's basically spoiled any chance of going away for a few days and just ruined the entire summer for me.

Anyone else had any similar experiences?
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Your employer only has to make sure you take the required holiday by the end of the year. He is legally obliged to give you the statutary requirement and he has the right to tell you when that is.

You should have booked as soon as possible or between you come up with a holiday rota. It has nothing to do with your Bosses perceived greed, but everything to do with your own lack of organisation.
 
He only sprung the 1 at a time rule on us last week, so I couldnt have known I wasn't going to get the time off. Originally he said to me that I would get time off when it was quieter, now he's changed his tune. I've only worked there since last summer so I never got any time off last summer, and I just took what days I was due when it was quiet in the build up to christmas last year. This is my first full year of sussing out exactly how he likes things done.
 
I think your boss is being unreasonable here. Are you willing to walk over this? If so, then say politely that you need those dates off and will consider your options if you can't get them. If you're not willing to leave then I'm afraid you just have to be better organised - can't your other half change her dates?
 
The only way out of this pickle is for the other half to swap her third week off with someone else, but she knows she can't get anyone to swap with her before what she already has booked off, so that leaves the last week of september onwards, and this is scotland... in september? may as well be at bloody work!
 
You think you got it bad.....

Guy i work helped the company out by covering while 2 managers was off, now he will loose out on about 3 weeks holiday because it has to be taken by 25 of july and as there is only 3 people in our department he can't have no holiday because the other guy we work with is off for 3 weeks straight.

When he complained guess what they said...........TOUGH!

You need to organise yourself a bit better and speak to your work freinds find out if they really need that time off.
 
Collapse in front of your boss holding your stomach, get a friend to come with a fake ambulance and voila. No need for a sick note and two weeks off! :p

Just explain away the tan, saying the hospital were testing a new treatment for bowel cancer or something... (Oh and remember the big bandage when you get back!)
 
Quit, get a job somewhere else. Sounds totally lame. What if you wanted to take a month off or something at a time for a decent holiday to somewhere nice? Unacceptable way to work that. Get out of there.
 
I told the boss at lunch time today during the time my other half is off he can shove his overtime, i'll be going home at half 4 every day and he won't see me on saturday.
He wasn't very happy about that either, but overtime is optional after all.
 
It's a perfectly normal setup. Our department can only have 5 off at one time and there are 30 of us. If everyone takes their holidays at the same time, how is the work supposed to get done in your absence.

It's just unfortunate the company has so few employees, which means your boss has to be pretty inflexible when it comes to allowing multiple people off at once.
 
[TW]Fox;16894149 said:
Quit, get a job somewhere else. Sounds totally lame. What if you wanted to take a month off or something at a time for a decent holiday to somewhere nice? Unacceptable way to work that. Get out of there.
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I did consider that, but to even match the salary im on i'd have to travel into aberdeen every day (80 mile round trip and at least an hour either way with traffic) so my current average 9 hour day would turn into an 11 hour day, and 400miles on my car every week + the fuel. Even if the pay was better i'd get the same as I make at best after travel costs.
As it is i'm a 3 minute walk from my house to my work, i get to go home for lunch every day, you just can't beat that! I guess i'll just have to bluff him into giving me 1 week instead of 2 off at the end of august.
 
Sucks tbh, I appreciate your boss has a business to run but there has to be some give and take
 
JBuk said:
Sucks tbh, I appreciate your boss has a business to run but there has to be some give and take
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There is - give appropriate notice, take annual leave.

With only 5 people there including the boss, I'm honestly surprised you thought there'd be two of you off at any one time. Even though there are about 15 people staffing my lab, I personally work in a team of 5 that run two of the departments between us, and I couldn't imagine having more than one of us off at a time - it's hard enough when anyone's off at all!
 
Your boss is being perfectly reasonable.

You work in a small company - you have to expect that you will compromise far more than if you worked in a company of thousands.

Why cant your other half move her holiday? Have you spoken to your colleagues to see if any of them can move their holidays?

Putting your bosses back up about not doing overtime just seems to be digging a hole.
 
Lopéz said:
It's a perfectly normal setup. Our department can only have 5 off at one time and there are 30 of us. If everyone takes their holidays at the same time, how is the work supposed to get done in your absence.

It's just unfortunate the company has so few employees, which means your boss has to be pretty inflexible when it comes to allowing multiple people off at once.
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Like Lopez say, this is perfectly normal.

I'm a resource planner for a large (150 FTE) site - We allow 15% of a team off at any time, nothing more.

[TW]Fox;16894149 said:
Quit, get a job somewhere else. Sounds totally lame. What if you wanted to take a month off or something at a time for a decent holiday to somewhere nice? Unacceptable way to work that. Get out of there.
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Many employers will not allow annual leave for a period of more than 2 weeks without approval from a senior manager. I hardly think that protecting his business from understaffing is an unacceptable way to work.
 
Deadbeat said:
There is - give appropriate notice, take annual leave.

With only 5 people there including the boss, I'm honestly surprised you thought there'd be two of you off at any one time. Even though there are about 15 people staffing my lab, I personally work in a team of 5 that run two of the departments between us, and I couldn't imagine having more than one of us off at a time - it's hard enough when anyone's off at all!
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He was giving nearly 50 days notice if I've worked it out correctly , that is appropriate imo, it could have been ok if his boss hadn't decided this:

He only sprung the 1 at a time rule on us last week
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Not everyone has the luxury of booking holidays months and months in advance.

As for your situation, well it sounds like you're understaffed if you can barely cope without anyone having time off.
 
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