Imagine working for a boss who has no idea what your day to day job is like, and the supervisor who does understand your job gets upset really easily.

If you needed to take some vacation time, would you simply request the days off, or would you lie about why you needed the time off?

In this story, one employee is in this situation and chooses to lie. Keep reading for all the details.

AITA for faking an illness to convince my supervisor to let me use my own vacation days?

I have 4.5 days left of vacation this year that will disappear if I don’t use them (won’t roll over to next year).

You would think there shouldn’t be an issue with taking my earned vacation days and using them between Christmas and new years.

But my supervisor is certifiably insane.

It would be hard to work like this.

My job is a bit weird in that my actual boss has no visibility on what my supervisor and I are up to, so if my supervisor or I had an issue with one another, my boss just has to rely on hearsay and will likely side with the supervisor.

So when my supervisor acts like a psychopath, I don’t have much immediate protection.

My supervisor gets anxiety and lashes out when I am unavailable for any reason.

Here’s a frustrating example of the supervisor getting upset for no reason.

Couple of weeks ago I got another assignment from a different supervisor, and my current supervisor gave me a 30 minute yell about how it was wrong of me to accept that other assignment and I should never be less than 100% available to them.

This isn’t how our jobs work but again, this supervisor is insane.

OP is determined to take the vacation days.

I am entitled to these vacation days, and I want to use them, not lose them.

I know with absolute certainty that if I just took those vacation days without any further explanation (which is how we normally take vacation days, no one has to justify them), supervisor would have a fit and make the next few weeks hell for me.

So I lied to my supervisor and said I am feeling under the weather and out of an abundance of caution, I will take the rest of the week off to recuperate.

OP feels bad about lying.

My supervisor still had a panic attack (about my availability, not my health) and demanded I still check my emails and complete time-sensitive assignments for them IF they came up.

Am I harming anyone by doing this? Is this a jerk move?

As OP said, an explanation isn’t even required in order to take the vacation days. Lying doesn’t seem necessary. Just take the vacation days. The supervisor will be upset regardless.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here’s a suggestion to talk to HR.

Another person agrees that talking to HR is the right move.

One person shares why they can’t take their vacation days.

This person can relate to OP’s situation.

It might be time to look for a different job.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.