Imagine working at a wonderful small company, but then the owner tells you he sold the business to a corporation. If the corporation changed the vacation policy, would you deal with it, or would you find a different job?

In this story, one man is in this exact situation. He’s very upset about it but handles it perfectly.

Let’s read all the details.

Get rid of my vacation? Have fun replacing me.

I worked at a company that gave out exorbitant amounts of vacation. Anyone who worked there for 25+ years received 8 weeks of vacation and 2 weeks of personal time.

This was a family owned company, but rather large. We ran 3 shifts totaling 250+ people.

Jimmy had been there forever.

Enter Jimmy. Jimmy was a grissled old man, he started at the company when he was just 20, now he was 63 and gave absolutely zero cares.

Jimmy also knew how to make a specific part for our product, him and one other higher up in the office.

One day the plant owner comes out and announces he’s selling to a corporation. He’s older and ready to retire, he promises that there will be very little change and wishes us all well.

Uh-oh!

The new company comes in and immediately goes after many of the great benefits we had.

The first thing they do is cut everyone’s max vacation down to 4 weeks, and do completely away with personal time. Anyone who’s maxed out had until December 31st of that year to use it up, and they wouldn’t pay it out.

They then go into the office and clean house, firing anyone who’s close to retirement. Including Jimmy’s back up.

But they also do away with one very important rule. You no longer have to get vacation approved, you can just call in and take it.

Jimmy knew how to handle the situation.

Jimmy is mad, and they know it.

They realize he’s the only one in the building that can do his job now. So they hire a new kid for him to train, most likely to permanently replace Jimmy.

So Jimmy does what anyone would do.

He calls in the first training day for the new hire, and lets us know he’s going to use all of his PTO at once, and promptly takes 10 weeks off.

Good for Jimmy!

We had a back stock of parts he had made, so it wasn’t too unnerving.

But for 10 weeks, Jimmy went and applied to other jobs, found one, and started.

Fast forward 10 weeks, Its the day Jimmy is supposed to return.

He doesn’t.

He eventually quit.

For two days they try calling him, and even go to his house. He’s nowhere to be found.

Finally on day three he calls and resigns, and they lose their minds.

The parts he makes are specialized and patented by the original founder, you can’t just hire someone off the street to make them.

Here’s how it all played out.

What eventually happened was they had to contract the original owner to come in a teach some new hires how to make them, and when he found out what all they had done it ticked him off.

The last I heard he charged them a 7 figure contract to teach them how to produce the parts, and they had to pony up, or close down.

Moral of the story, don’t mess with people’s vacation time.

Jimmy handled that horrible situation perfectly.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

It happens all the time.

This is a good takeaway.

It sure would be nice if all Americans had more vacation time.

This would’ve been a great idea.

Vacation time is crucial for employee morale.

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.