I’ve never understood bosses who want to play hardball with good employees over things like taking time off, but you hear horror stories from different people about it all the time.

And this is a perfect example of a manager who probably never should have been put in that position in the first place…and it ended up costing him because the person who wrote this story on Reddit’s “Malcious Compliance” page just WAS NOT HAVING IT.

The person said that the manager wasn’t exactly up to snuff for the job and wasn’t too invested in what was going on at the office.

“Reconsider working here if I want to take a honeymoon? OK!”

I had a manager who didn’t like reading emails and would miss important issues/meetings because of it. I even suggested text to speech to make it less unpleasant but he told me off.

He spent a lot of time “playing golf with clients” and was mostly inaccessible. It got to the point where most of the team cc-ed me (I was next on the totem pole) so I could grant approvals for stuff like expense reports and help out on projects my manager was supposed to work on.

This person had a BIG day coming up and they planned a long trip to celebrate the occasion, thinking that everything was good to go…but then some unexpected (and unnecessary) issues complicated things.

When I was getting married I requested 3 weeks off for my honeymoon (EVERYONE knew I was getting married, manager even congratulated me on the engagement when it happened). I had 5 weeks vacation accumulated and didn’t think it would be a big deal, especially since I was requesting it nearly ~8 weeks in advance.

Then a “vacation request denied” email comes in from our “time off” system. I emailed manager following up, and left voicemails.

After a week he finally replied to an email, “Look, we need dedicated people, if you think you can take 3 weeks off for a vacation, you need to reconsider your position here.”

Keep in mind, my request stated “Vacation request for honeymoon.”

They were obviously angry about this turn of events and decided to take action in a way that the manager probably never saw coming.

I replied with “No consideration needed, my last day will be <date in 3 weeks>. Let me know about transitioning duties.” I forward this to HR, cc’ing manager and HR sets up my exit interview, but HR tells my manager to setup transition for my responsibilities. During my notice period, I even replied-all to this email twice, asking about transition plans, since I didn’t get any transition plan…

I tell my team, they ask manager what to do with my duties and manger says he’ll think about it but doesn’t do anything nor email anything out.

And it seemed like the manager just never learned…or maybe they were never paying attention in the first place.

Four weeks later, I get a call from my old boss, “Are you planning on coming in this week?”

“Why would I?”

“Because you work for me?”

“Not as of last week.”

“Stop messing around, get into the office.”

“I told you my last day when you denied my vacation request.”

“How about giving proper notice and transitions?”

“HR asked you to develop a transition plan and to attend my exit interview. It’s not my fault you don’t read all your emails.”

I hang up and block his number, but screenshot the call log and sent it to the HR contact with an innocent, “Should I be worried <old manager> thinks I still work for him?”

But, as things tend to do, it all worked out in the end and the person’s manager ended up getting what was coming to him.

Fallout: Things went from bad to worse for my old manager.

Apparently I was doing most of his managerial duties, so he actually had to try and get stuff done himself.

He also got into some legal issues (those client golf outings? he played golf…but not with clients) that made his termination “with cause,” so no severance for him.

And it seems like this unexpected move ended up being a pretty good one for this person!

I ended up at a competitor with a nice bump in pay.

I wanted to start after my honeymoon but new company really wanted my help on a pitch.

I joined for several weeks, reworking ~1/3 of the pitch and then went on my honeymoon for three weeks (they paid me for the entire time off – that garnered a lot of good will from both me and my wife).

I only left the company because my wife and I moved cross-country and they didn’t have remote positions back then.

Here’s what people had to say.

This person thinks that some bosses are pretty clueless about this stuff.

Another individual shared their own story.

This individual shared a story that was (kind of) similar…

Another reader said they’ve done this before.

And one reader made a very good point.

I don’t think I’d want to work for a place like this.

In fact, I don’t think anybody would!