There’s nothing better than when you get a day off from work.

It’s even better when you get to use PTO for it!

This person has has planned leave, but her managers aren’t having it.

Let’s dive in…

Denied leave on a day with no work, so I’ll take them on days I have work

“I’m a teacher at a small, new school.

We currently have 2 year levels, so our teaching schedules are incredibly light.

This means every teacher has at least 1 day where they have no classes, and it’s common to take leave on that day. Mine is Friday.

I realized we will move to a ‘full’ schedule next month, and figured I might as well use some excess leave and applied to take Fridays for the rest of the month off.

Things didn’t go as planned…

Later, I was told my leave was denied because “its not nice that you get to have multiple long weekends when your colleagues don’t”.

And I responded with “so you’re saying just because my lesson-free day is on a Friday I don’t get to take leave even though the science teachers can take every Tuesday off, language teachers take every Thursday, and so on?”

He kind of waffled around that it “doesn’t look good” and that I still have to consider a homeroom ‘lesson’ I have Fridays (which is a student-led activity time I’m actually not supposed to do anything/intervene, just be present while students handle everything) that “someone else will have to cover”.

I’ve always asked and gotten my own covers before applying for leave, so HR has never even had to do anything.

So they told them the truth…

Anyway, I told him straight up that I don’t mind if they want to deny my leave, but to remember that I’m there because I want to be, not because I need to be.

I told him “okay, but just so you know it was a courtesy on my end to use my leave on days with the least impact.

So you’re essentially telling me you’d rather me take leave on days I miss actual classes, which I have no qualms doing”. He kind of mumbled something and then I thanked him and left.

So that Friday I came in, and then the following Monday I called in ‘sick’, and missed my class.

I have about 20 leave days to use over the next ~7 months (not counting school hols) that make up the final year of my contract here, and I plan to use all of them.

They stood their ground…

I’ve also told them on a separate occasion that there’s literally no downside to me whether or not they approve/deny my leave requests because 80% of the leave I’ve taken the past 2 years has been unpaid, because I don’t care about the money.

Once, they denied a 3-day unpaid leave request and I told a colleague, “I can just not show up. What are they gonna do, not pay me? That’s literally what I asked for in the first place so either way I get what I want.”

And the truth comes out…

They need me more than I need them, as the sole teacher of the most popular elective subject in the school.

It’s somewhat niche, so it’s not easy to just find a replacement. Not to mention I have both qualifications and experience in my subject’s industry, so any replacement they do find is probably going to be ‘not as good’.”

So what does Reddit think?

This commenter had some funny advice.

Another Reddit user thinks they should stick it to management.

A commenter pointed out who this actually hurts, though…

The biggest lesson from this story: don’t mess with my PTO!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.