The word vacation is not complicated to understand.

Yet some employers have a very broad interpretation of it.

Check out why this employee’s expectations didn’t align with his employer, who was very annoyed with him.

AITA for ignoring my boss’s texts and calls during vacation?

I took my 1 week vacation last week.

When my boss found out that I would still be in the country, she later mentioned in the team meeting that I would have to be on-call and work during my vacation.

It seemed like a straightforward situation.

While I was on vacation my boss texted and called me about an issue but I had enough and ignored it.

I don’t think they need me to advise and offer solutions but supposedly no one else in the company can.

When I returned to work yesterday, I opened my Microsoft Teams account to a great deal of missed messages and some deleted messages from my boss.

But the reality differed dramatically.

My boss immediately called a team meeting to criticize me and told me that I abandoned my duty during an emergency.

That I let my team-members down who had to work over-time and I show no care for my work.

That I knew I was supposed to be on-call and ready to work since I was going to be home all week and blindsided them.

I feel that if I’m on vacation, I should be allowed to take a break.

On the other side, I was at home all week and could have accessed my work laptop.

All of the VPs work a few hours every day during their vacation. I’m not a VP. I’m entry-level, but my boss relies on me for advice.

AITA?

Here’s what people are saying.

Excellent advice. It’s sad that it’s necessary.

A lot of people said to go HR. Good! This is outrageous.

Exactly! He made an example of you because your vacation exposed his incompetence.

That’s my question, also.

Good question, but I doubt he’d be sensible enough to cover himself.

You need to quit ASAP.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.