Once a Vacation is booked and approved by boss....

[Poohforyou]

Debbie you must have the patience of a saint. I would have gone postal.

Really??? Her boss was sorry about the changes and understood if she could go. What is there to go postal about? Yes, it's a huge annoyance but stuff happens.

 

[nene0182]

I think it was rude of them to call you to be honest. Perhaps I live in some imaginary bubble but I've never called a boss during his vacation during my entire working career. I use my brain to figure out the problems and if I can't, I make a note to discuss first thing when boss returns or I email him with the question and if he responds great, if not we'll discuss upon return.

You'd be surprised the calls we get in the middle of the night from people my husband supervises. He works for a 24/7 company and the shifts run 7am-7pm and 7pm-7am. He always make sure he's at work by 6am to deal with any issues and answer any questions from the overnight shift. Yet, we still get calls at 3am asking from someone asking if they can have Friday off. I know he's on call at all times but I don't think that's what they had in mind.

As far as vacation and work. We'd do our best to make it work but would cancel vacation if needed. I know it would never happen with my work but with my husbands the possibility is there. However it would have to be something major for them to even suggest canceling. When we were at WDW in June, he received a few calls a day but it wasn't really anything that took away from our vacation.

 

[NHdisneylover]

About 12 years ago we were visiting family in Colorado on what should have been a 10 day trip over Easter. On day two, DH got a frantic call from his boss in Michigan begging him to come back and fix an emergency situation which had come up. The company paid to change his airfare to fly him back the next day and reimbursed him for the cost of his airfare, plus gave him back the one day of vacation he had used travelling to get to Colorado.

I thought he should ask them to reimburse all 4 of our airfares and not just his, as at the time he we could not afford to pay for a second family trip in the same year, but he was not comfortable asking for that. It was a rare and one time thing so not a big deal, IMO.

DH does field some calls and many emails on most vacations. Since moving to the headquarters, in Europe, he is not required to do that and there are few calls (more emails that he could ignore if he wanted)--but it is appreciated that he does and makes things easier for both him (on return) and his coworkers/boss so he doesn't mind carving out some time to do that.

 

[Cinnabunny]

In the UK Annual Leave is considered a right to take it. Obviously you need approval, but in 99% of cases people take it as a contract that it's been agreed and as such you've booked and paid for a holiday, so you can't change your leave. There would be employment tribunal all over the place if employers started retracting holiday approvals.

It happens. You'd be surprised how little protection there is for this too.
My OH and I booked a long weekend, arranged travel paid for tickets etc. One week before we were due to go, his boss (through his own incompetence had booked something on the wrong day) then decided to cancel the Friday. He was going to try for the whole weekend, but couldn't as those hours aren't a part of OH's standard contract.

I was beyond annoyed and looked up what I could. From what I could tell (in the UK), you have to provide notice more than twice what you are asking for (eg. two weeks notice for one weeks leave) and they can cancel with equal notice to what you are asking for (eg. one week in advance). This can be added to with the contract though.
I'm not sure what happens with paid tickets etc though.
They can't stop you from taking your statutory amount of leave, but they can ask for preferential days etc.

At least most bosses are decent enough managers to recognise that it would cause problems with moral and don't do it.

ETA: While I like to think I'm a reasonable human being, both of us are skilled and experienced and the job market isn't so bad we couldn't find a new job if necessary. If anyone messes with our Florida trip next month which has been booked for year, there'll be hell to pay.

 

[SC Minnie]

I can do most of my job remotely so I typically 'work'- check and respond to emails etc- while on vacation. I've never been asked to cancel or postpone a vacation. DH on the other hand has. We had a vacation planned for WDW for months and his boss- owner of the co knew it. A couple of weeks before we were to leave the company decided to put in a knew computer system starting the day we were leaving. The owner asked DH to stay for the implementation. He did and the owner paid for DH's place ticket to Orlando as well as covered the cost of the annual pass we had bought for him. He didn't have to do that but did.

 

[morgan98]

Luckily, I work in an industry where you are expected to work very hard, but, in general, vacation time is respected. However, due to various filing deadlines imposed by the IRS, SEC, bank covenants, etc. people do look at their client load in order to determine a reasonable time to take off. There are period of the year where week long vacations may not be allowed.

That being said, if an unforeseen situation arose that made someone cancel their vacation, the firm would help reimburse any sunk costs. Bosses and managers are not on power trips and ask people to cancel vacations on a whim and in general, they try to work with you on your timing..

 

[Goofy_Disney_Dad]

I worked for my wife, so she was quite motivated in not messing with the vacation schedule.

 

[BLAZEY]

I am currently beginning to train a co-worker how to do parts of my job that would need to be covered while I am away. My boss approved my vacation 5 months ago and I wrote it on his annual calendar and in his day timer. He knows I have bought plane tickets and wouldn't dream of asking me to cancel. I don't mind answering an email or a question over the phone, while away. I have popped into the office if I was taking a vacation day to do something quickly and I was in town (like having a "Me" day) and I would extend my lunch break the next day I was in.