It’s weird when managers make life difficult for themselves for no apparent gain.

Imagine having a boss who requires you to give him a good reason that you need to take a vacation. Would you comply?

The guy in this story took advantage of this absurd situation and made his boss squirm.

Enjoy the hilarious story.

You want me to provide a good reason for why I want to use my vacation days? Time to trauma dump

I work in a pretty low stress job, which makes it absolutely hilarious that my boss demands that whenever we take our paid time off we “give a good reason.”

Like, dude, why do I need to give you a good reason to take my vacation days?

They’re mine, I’m entitled to take them to dedicate the time to my new hobby of staring at the ceiling, it ain’t none of your business.

His boss definitely disagreed.

Well I had planned to take a few days off to recharge after a (very relatively) intense work week.

Unfortunately the boss thought this was a great time to send out a “reminder” email that if we intend to take time off we need to provide a reason & have it approved.

This was a mistake on his part.

Time to make up some lies.

I went into his office, head hanging low, and started talking about my dad’s cancer, how intensive chemotherapy was.

I didn’t make myself cry but I was putting that theater class I took in college to good use.

I might have even hit him with “And I’m just so used to seeing my dad as this strong, invulnerable guy, but… he’s just human, y’know? And soon he might be gone… how do you even deal with something like that…”

By this point my dad had been cancer-free for years, so this was purely performative, but my boss just looked so uncomfortable. It was great.

Yet the boss still isn’t taking the hint.

I wish I could say this caused the boss to send out an email saying we no longer needed to give a reason for our time off, but no such luck,

Instead I just kept coming up with other traumatic life experiences to justify my vacations. I think my grandma died 3 times these past few years, poor woman.

I may have to come up with something new for when she actually does die.

My boss still gets visibility uncomfortable whenever I come to ask for time off in person instead of via email. It’s kind of hilarious to me.

I’m surprised the boss hasn’t changed the rules yet.

Here is what folks are saying on Reddit.

Exactly. How is he going to counter this?

LOL I love it when they go dark.

Understandable.

Maybe he isn’t that brazen.

Haha make him sweat.

It’s really none of the boss’s business.

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.