No matter what company you work for, there will be rules in place regarding who can take which days off. This is to help ensure there is proper coverage at all times.

What would you do if a coworker asked if you could cancel your time away so she could take it, and then, even though you said no, she told the manager that you agreed?

That is what happened to the employee in this story, so she explained to the manager that she could not trade the days and that she wanted to file a complaint. The coworker either quit or got fired, and now some people think this person was out of line for filing the complaint and even for not trading.

AITA for getting one of the new girls at work in trouble with our manager, I think she got fired or quit

Info: I live in the UK. I (31F) work for my local council doing rehab for people recently discharged from hospital out in the community.

Arranging vacation time is always a hassle since people often want the same time away from work.

Holiday is booked on a first come, first served basis. If a week is fully booked, you either book another week or ask someone that already has the week if they are happy to give it up.

Also holiday needs to be booked 4 weeks in advance. I will say that August is the school summer holidays, so it books up quickly.

This is a common restriction at many companies. The business needs to have enough people working to meet the customer needs.

One rule about time off is that only 3 people can have the same week off unless there is a valid reason.

A valid reason would be a death in the family, medical issues, someone is very ill and you need to look after them, things like that.

Getting this week off needs to be done well in advance, it seems.

The week this is about is 2nd August – 8th August of this year. A colleague (late 20s F) emailed me to ask if I would give my week up. I said no as I already have plans booked.

I told this colleague the names of the other 2 people that had that week booked off and to ask them if they would let her have the week instead (all holiday booked is on a big calendar in the office, so no issues with telling her who else was off).

If it is so important, why doesn’t she get in touch with the other workers who put in for it? And the fact that this person doesn’t have kids is not really relevant.

She kept emailing saying it was really important that she have the time off.

I stopped responding when she said because I don’t have kids I shouldn’t book school holidays off. All this was said over work email.

What? No way, she did not agree to this at all. That is pretty bold of the other worker to make that claim and expect that it wouldn’t have any pushback.

I got a phone call from the office admin staff confirming with me that I had agreed to drop my week, so this other colleague could have it.

I told them that’s not right. (This may be were I was out of line) I forwarded them the emails between us and cc’d in my manager. They asked me if I wanted to put a complaint in and I said yes.

This woman has no reason to be upset. She caused the problems for herself.

I got messages on my personal social media from an account with the same name as her, calling me all sorts of terrible names.

When I’ve looked at the rotation for the next 4 weeks, this colleagues name isn’t on it.

Whether she quit or was fired, it seems like that is what is best for everyone at the company. That type of sneaky behavior is never acceptable.

I’m not sure if she had already had warnings before and this was the last nail in the coffin or if she just quit.

When I’ve talked to some friends and colleagues about what happened, some have said I was, first the jerk for not giving her the week off when I know she has kids and second for sending the emails in and complaint.

AITA?

This person clearly did nothing wrong, and to blame her for the coworker getting fired is crazy. If she really was fired, then it was almost certainly not her first warning. Plus, the writer of this story gave her good options on how to find someone else to give up their vacation time.

What else could she have done? Read on to see what the people in the comments think of this difficult situation.

I agree with this commenter. The coworker really showed that she could not be trusted, so it is good for everyone that she is gone.

As if people who don’t have kids (or whose kids are grown) don’t have a need for time off from work.

This commenter says that the coworker really crossed the line. No good manager would let someone like that stay on the team, it would only cause problems for everyone.

She lied and showed that she was untrustworthy, so she deserved to be fired.

This commenter doesn’t understand how they thought they were going to get away with it. The coworker didn’t think this through and now she is paying the price.

Being deceptive at work rarely works out well in the end.

People need to be able to trust you if you want to work well with each other, and this woman was simply untrustworthy.

However it happened, she is gone now, and that’s a good thing.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a carpenter who was shocked to find the police waiting for him after his last day of work.