Being indispensable at work sounds like a compliment until you realize it means you can’t take a sick day without the whole operation falling apart.

A loyal employee who’d spent five years at the same company found herself as the last person standing in her department after two rounds of layoffs, with no replacement in sight and no backup who could cover her role.

She’s been handling a full department’s worth of time-critical work on her own for three months, so needless to say, she was in serious need of a vacation.

But when she approached her boss about a day off, the answer they gave was pretty unacceptable.

This one is worth reading in full.

Boss refusing PTO because I’m the only one in my department left

I’ve been with this company for five years, and I really like to be loyal and work very hard.

There have been three people in my department, but ever since the company hasn’t been doing well, they laid off those two people, leaving only me in my department.

There’s plenty of work — the two other employees kept calling out and did horribly, so their layoffs weren’t a lack of work issue.

So much to this employee’s horror, all of this extra work has fallen onto her.

The problem is my company isn’t even considering hiring a replacement for either of them, not even one.

This leaves me as the only person in the whole company who knows how to cover this department.

Needless to say, she’s covering way more than her fair share.

Not even my boss knows how to do my duties or role, and it’s pretty difficult to learn as well.

I’m barely managing doing a three-person job.

It also stresses me out because I feel I can’t get sick or take time off since I’m the only person.

Lately it’s been hard to prioritize even the most important requests.

My job requires very time-sensitive tasks — if something comes in that day, I have to complete the work within two hours.

I usually get 10 to 30 tasks a day, and it’s very fast-paced.

She’s pretty much on a fast track to burnout.

I’m sitting here thinking, can I ever take time off?

It’s been three months since they laid off the other two, so I asked for two days off in July.

But her boss gave her a very non-committal answer.

Their response was, “Well, we’ll see how the volumes are by then,” so can I not plan a vacation?

We can’t predict the volumes — it’s very inconsistent how busy or slow we get, and it can change by the hour.

Now she isn’t sure she even wants to continue at this job.

I’m not sure how to handle this.

I have respect for my boss and the company, but I feel disrespected at this point.

This boss needs to get a grip.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this post about a hardworking employee whose management refuses to give them one single break.

What did Reddit have to say?

The time has come for her to start plotting her exit.

Maybe her boss is taking advantage of her because she’s shown them that they can.

This employee has a lot more bargaining power than she thinks.

It’s time to start playing hardball with this boss.

This may seem like a broken system, but for the employer, it’s working exactly as designed.

The playbook is familiar. First, they fire off a majority of the department, then they guilt their most valuable personnel into picking up the slack for little-to-no extra pay. Last, they continue to dangle empty promises in front of the employee in hopes that they’ll continue without asking questions.

And when you’re an employee who takes pride in working hard, you might not flag this right away, but eventually the overwork and burnout catches up to even the most competent workers.

She’s been holding this department together for three months on goodwill alone. That stops today.