Vacation policies vary from company to company, but some companies allow their employees to roll over unused vacation time to the following year. This means they can save up quite a bit of vacation time to enjoy in the future.

What would you do if you worked for a company with a vacation policy like that but then the policy suddenly changed so that you had to use all of your vacation time by the end of the year?

This employee was in that exact position and had his boss help him with his plan.

Let’s see what he did.

I have to use the rest of my vacation time by the end of the year to prevent critical understaffing issues? Okay then.

I’m an analytical chemist in the petroleum industry (boo! hiss!).

I’m attached to a refining pilot plant where we test products related to refining.

The data I produce supports various other groups.

Here’s an overview of what they do.

My lab is staffed by me (senior chemist) and a temp/contractor lab tech (minion).

The Minion does a lot of the day-to-day work with the basic analyses as well as some regular tasks for my boss.

I do maintenance, repairs, method development, special project planning, as well as the more advanced analyses where there’s more nuance in the data processing.

There’s a new rule about vacation time.

Due to the global pandemic, an edict came from high up in the corporate pantheon that we weren’t allowed to carry over any vacation time this year (I’m usually allowed to carry over a 5 days).

I guess they are worried about people banking up too much time and leaving various groups critically understaffed when too many people take vacation time at once (never mind that vacation time has to be approved).

This being America with lax labor protections, this is all perfectly legal. (Suck it, Europeans! We’ve got the freedom to be taken advantage of by our corporate overlords!)

He came up with the best way possible to use his vacation time.

My boss e-mailed me and said I had 5.5 days left and she’s been told to tell me to use it or lose it.

I look at our holiday schedule and figure out that strategic use of vacation and holiday time means I can take two consecutive weeks off.

I told my boss this and she said, “Well, if they didn’t want you to use it all at once, they shouldn’t force you to use it all at once.”

She approved my plan.

The vacation policy wasn’t thought through very well.

So, the lab will be critically understaffed for two weeks (what they were trying to avoid) because I am doing what I was told.

The R&D and tech service groups are going to be wanting the analytical results from the pilot plant to crunch on while “working from home” (since they were required to use up their vacation time, as well).

Not sure what they are going to do but it won’t be anything that requires data from the pilot plant.

I like that his boss approved his time off. Good for her for helping him with this malicious compliance.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person is probably going to lose their vacation time.

Another person has saved up a lot of vacation time.

A European weighs in.

It may not be as malicious as he thinks.

If the policy is use it or lose it, definitely use it!

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.