Managers police staff under the illusion that it will improve productivity, decrease waste and make them look good to executives.

Watch this worker made sure none of that happened.

I *must* provide detailed information about my doctor’s appointment to get approved for paid time off? Are you absolutely sure? Well, if you say so…

A few years ago, I worked in an office with some pretty strange and awful rules. One was that while we could apply personal PTO (paid time off) for any reason, management needed a detailed summary of the reason before they would approve.

This resulted in several instances of coworkers applying for PTO for things like funerals and birthdays and being told “the current project deadline is more important than your nieces birthday” or “do you really need to attend your mother’s cousin’s funeral? That doesn’t sound pressing.”

It was a really toxic system that resulted in some turnover from coworkers who were sick of being held hostage over PTO.

It’s Toxic with a capital T shortly.

Furthermore, both the department manager and the HR manager needed to sign off on the PTO request, which resulted in some frustrating situations where one approved, but the other did not.

It did not help that the HR manager was a jerk. Pretty much the only time you could expect to be approved was for court dates and important medical appointments. But you still needed to provide details, even if it happened to be a very personal medical or legal situation. (This does not strike me as legal but, sadly, this isn’t the first time I’ve run into this working in Texas.)

My department manager was also a jerk, a power tripping sloth who liked to harass women (like me). Let’s call him Jerk, and the HR manager Clown. We all hated both of them.

I had an important appointment with my psychiatrist coming up, so I took the soonest appointment available. Work would have to cope with a couple of hours without me.

I submitted my PTO request to Jerk and Clown for approval. Given the intensely personal nature of the appointment, I left the details sparse. It was rejected. Both Jerk and Clown said in an email that I needed to give details about my appointment “in accordance with company policy.”

Jerk had the nerve to call me into his office and chide me over my “unacceptably terse” PTO request. “You know the rules, why would you waste my time with such a brief request, you know I can’t approve this,” etc.

I was ticked. But as I stewed in my cubicle, it dawned on me that I could get back at Jerk and Clown merely by complying with their own rules. I formulated a plan…

I sent an email to Clown and cc’ed Jerk (always CYA folks.) I said are you SURE you need the details of my appointment? Are you POSITIVE? It’s really personal. Both Clown and Jerk said yes, we need the details of your PTO circumstances, you know the rules. I replied that it’s very private, are you SURE I need to talk about it? We sent some emails back and forth until I was sure I had a solid paper trail.

Then I decided if they really need my personal medical details, which I still think is illegal, but whatever, then I suppose I better give it to them!

I submitted a new PTO request with all the relevant information. That I was going to see my psychiatrist for an urgent appointment. I needed to be seen at the earliest possible time because I was having thoughts of hurting myself, because I have PTSD from being raped in foster care.

I threw in some details about what my foster father did to me, how I went numb and used drugs to cope, how I was hospitalized as a teenager for a suicide attempt.

I also screenshotted and emailed my request to a few of the higher ups, saying my previous request was insufficient so I wanted to make sure I got it right this time.

I submitted it.

Then it took effect and it was glorious.

There were no snippy emails this time. Only “Approved” appearing in green text to my request in the system maybe four minutes after I submitted it.

I blissfully went about my day, happy to have my PTO. Curiously, neither Jerk nor Clown emerged from their offices.

When I showed up for work at 8 the following day, I was immediately called into the VP’s office. One of the higher managers and a woman that I recognized from legal were also present.

VP politely asked me to sit and kindly explain the “grotesque” email I had sent out yesterday. (He was a polite but rather… out of touch older gentleman.) So I made myself clear– I needed PTO for a very personal doctors appointment, and my previous request was denied by both Jerk and Clown for being too brief, and Jerk even called me in his office to complain about my wasting his time.

I didn’t want to be rejected again so I made sure my request was as detailed as possible. I also passed it on to management to verify that the level of detail was up to snuff when it came to corporate guidelines. And yes, I do have PTSD, it’s all true, and they can reference my ADA paperwork in HR for more information.

VP asked me a couple more brief questions. He then apologized for the hassle, said I was being credited some extra PTO for my trouble, and that the company would be “reviewing its approach” to the PTO approval process. I was then dismissed back to my desk.

I received written apologies from Jerk and Clown that very morning, hand delivered by a tense and rather petrified Jerk. I think legal put him up to it.

They went out of their way to avoid me for the remainder of my time at the company, which was a blessing.

Also that same morning– we received a company wide email marked as important. There was a change in the PTO policy. Requests with regards to medical and other “sensitive” reasons no longer required detailed explanations, effective immediately.

I left the company for a much more tolerable, less toxic, higher paying job about six months later.

And yes, my appointment went well and I’m doing better now. I started attending a trauma support group and I’ve even been able to reduce the dose of one of my meds.

Here is what people are saying.

Nice way to look at it.

Know your rights! It’s so important.

Oh, that’s awful.

It’s really that absurd.

I bet. I’ve heard Europe is way different.

They got what they asked for.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.