If you were planning a vacation, you’d probably make sure you could get the time off approved before you booked flights and hotel rooms.

Imagine getting your vacation time approved, but then your boss wants you to come to work during your approved vacation time.

Would you cancel your vacation to humor your crazy boss, or would you go on vacation anyway?

In this story, one person is in this situation and goes on vacation.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Fired via text for not covering a shift during his already-approved vacation

At my last 9-to-5, the owners of my shop also owned a pre-owned sporting goods resale shop next door. The guys over there would hop next door and chat with us while it was slow, we were all on friendly terms.

I went away for vacation and when I came back, boy was there gossip. “Greg,” one of the friendliest and most helpful employees, had been fired.

Funny thing was, Greg had also been on vacation, out of state for a family reunion. He came back into our shop a couple months later and I got the whole story.

The Boss’s Son wasn’t a very good manager.

You see, the store manager next door was Boss’ Son. Like many beneficiaries of nepotism, he practically got away with anything. Showing up late or not showing up for shifts, opening shop late, disappearing for half the day, “borrowing” things for his rec softball team, all that good stuff.

BS also had a habit of calling his employees to cover shifts at the last minute — an hour or less of lead time.

Greg, as I mentioned, had his vacation approved in advance, all the paperwork in order, tickets purchased, bags packed, everything was gravy.

This is a ridiculous thing to expect an employee to do.

The day he’s set to fly out, he gets a text from BS telling him he needs to get to the shop ASAP to cover BS’s shift.

(Not that BS was sick or had some important business function to perform. He just had a date.)

No can do, obviously — Greg isn’t going to reschedule a flight at the last minute just to cover BS’s shift. So Greg texts back and tells him that since the vacation was approved by BS himself as of two months ago, he won’t be coming in.

BS, being the mature and responsible manager he is, sucks it up and covers the shift himself.

NOT!

… hahaha, just kidding. No. He fires Greg via text, instead.

Greg, he takes it in stride. Goes on vacation, gets back, and instead of heading to work, heads right to the unemployment office to file a claim for wrongful dismissal, paperwork and copies of texts in hand.

Then he goes to a friend who worked for the city and gets a much more lucrative and rewarding job, same day.

But it gets even better.

Nice thing was, when all was said and done, he won his suit for wrongful dismissal, and still got awarded monthly unemployment payments despite already having another job.

Apparently, in this state the unemployment office does a routine conference call with employees and employers when verifying claims, just to get both sides of the story at once.

BS was blatant and unashamed of his actions, proudly admitting his role in the matter.

Of course it’s not like BS was punished in any way. As far as I know, he still manages that place… badly.

That worked out well for Greg. I hope he still got paid for his vacation time.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person shares a similar story.

I’m not sure how firing your employees helps you cover your shifts.

I’m glad he went over his boss to get the time off approved.

This person offers a few suggestions.

Here’s a lesson learned from military life.

Nobody is going to give up their vacation to cover for their boss.

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