Boss Keeps Denying PTO? Ask Madeleine
"Dear Madeleine,
I have been working for a company for a few years now. They moved to an Unlimited PTO policy just as I joined. It was heavily promoted in the recruiting stage.
Things went fine the first couple of years. I took the typical PTO breaks—December holiday time, a couple of days in the spring when my kids had a break, around 10 to 14 days in the summer—nothing that exceeded the number of vacation days I would have taken in the old model.
I work on a great team. We have always talked about time off and who would cover for the person who was out. We also have generally checked in and made ourselves available when we’ve been on PTO if there is potential for a problem. There has never been an issue.
We got a new boss about a year ago. He is a stickler for clearing PTO, which is fine—except that whenever I put in for time off, he denies my request. This has happened a couple of times now.
He always has a different reason—the launch of a new project, heavy workloads, someone else had already requested that time (even though no one said they had). Everyone on our team has experienced this. It’s getting to the point that instead of asking, some colleagues are simply calling in sick when they need to be out.
This is stressing me out. My mother-in-law is planning a big family reunion late this summer, and my wife has made it clear that attending is not optional. But now I am afraid to even ask. Help!
Denied PTO"