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Nothing exposes bad company policy quite like watching two reasonable people get pitted against each other over one calendar day.

A woman requested time off around Christmas specifically to spend the holiday with her kids for the first time in years, submitting and getting approval before realizing the date overlapped with a coworker’s birthday.

Instead of the company addressing its own restrictive one-person PTO policy, the entire team turned on her, framing the situation as if she’d personally stolen something from her coworker.

The pressure to cancel an already-approved request mounted quickly, despite her having gotten there first and having plans of her own.

The following story is a prime example of how a silly workplace rule can turn coworkers into rivals. Read on.

AITAH for not giving up December 23rd PTO?

I work in an office and have a very small team. Because of my team’s size, only one of us is allowed to take PTO on any given day.

So this employee thought ahead so she could ensure she got her time, but soon she ran headfirst into a controversy with another coworker.

I put in a request for about a week leading up to Xmas in December.

Turns out one of my coworker’s birthdays is the 23rd, now she is very upset and asking me to cancel my request so she can take her bday off.

But this employee needs this time off just as much as her coworker.

The big thing is I have kids that I haven’t gotten to spend an entire holiday with in a few years. I already entered and got the request approved before she did.

On top of that, we may be taking a trip to visit family two states over.

That didn’t prevent other colleagues from turning against her.

Now the others on my team are treating me like I’ve done something wrong for taking “her day” away from her.

Mind you it is a WFH day anyway, so it’s not like she will have to go to the office either.

Anyway, AITAH for taking her birthday and making her work?

Sounds like this colleague is hating the player, not the game.

What did Reddit have to say?

This user would keep their response polite, but to the point.

Put frankly, she got it first.

This user thinks the whole idea of taking your birthday off is frivolous.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who got the perfect revenge after being told he can’t work from home.

It’s important to remember the common enemy.

At the end of the day, none of this should’ve been a fight between coworkers in the first place.

A company policy that only allows one person off per day around the holidays is basically guaranteed to create exactly this kind of conflict eventually.

The real problem at the heart of this story is a workplace that treats time off like a limited resource employees have to fight over.

The real fight should be with HR, not each other.