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Retroactively being denied PTO, afraid I’ll get fired right before I leave on vacation. Advice?

Hi all. So I've been working in sales support for a software company that up until recently has had a very lax PTO policy (essentially, just let your manager know and put it on the team calendar so people can see when you're out). This flexibility is a big reason why I've stuck around through some other challenges. Though management would never admit this, they dropped the ball and didn't monitor this closely enough which resulted in a lot of people being out during a busy time for us. Now leadership is cracking down and trying to implement new rules. Official policy is rather vague, just says that vacation is subject to approval and they are asking us to now more formally submit time off requests. I understand this new direction and get why changes need to happen, this seems standard in my mind so it doesn't bother me. However,…


Hi all. So I've been working in sales support for a software company that up until recently has had a very lax PTO policy (essentially, just let your manager know and put it on the team calendar so people can see when you're out). This flexibility is a big reason why I've stuck around through some other challenges. Though management would never admit this, they dropped the ball and didn't monitor this closely enough which resulted in a lot of people being out during a busy time for us. Now leadership is cracking down and trying to implement new rules. Official policy is rather vague, just says that vacation is subject to approval and they are asking us to now more formally submit time off requests.

I understand this new direction and get why changes need to happen, this seems standard in my mind so it doesn't bother me. However, it was recently communicated to me that a vacation I have coming up is “too much” and they can't let me take it since I have already taken enough PTO this year. This time off was approved by my manager a long time ago (verbally, over zoom) and I have had everything booked for months. I'm going on this vacation whether it's approved or not. During my conversation with leadership about this, I made it clear it wasn't fair to retroactively apply new criteria to something that's been approved for a while and that I would have obviously planned other PTO better had I know there was a “soft” number they were shooting for, or that I wouldn't have booked things or spent money on this had I known it wasn't fully approved yet. While again, policy doesn't set a limit and everything subject to approval, apparently management feels I haven't performed as well as other people on the team or have done enough to justify them giving me more vacation this year. My manager specifically called out a couple of instances I didn't join optional or irrelevant team meetings (by irrelevant I mean things like a training on new features for a product I never work with nor need knowledge on but other people on my team do so my whole team gets invited) and also a time I joined an internal meeting 20 mins late because I was busy doing helping a sales rep with an active opportunity as reasons why he couldn't “rely on me anymore”.

I will own I have been questioning my position here for a while already and perhaps haven't been as proactive about seeking work or contributing to the team beyond my everyday responsibilities, but at the end of the day I have been getting my work done when needed and it's not like I'm not showing up to client meetings or disappearing with no trace. Retroactively denying PTO after it's been approved because of these reasons, when they haven't been communicated in the past nor have I been given an opportunity to improve, doesn't sound fair to me at all.

The conversation ended with basically both sides agreeing maybe this isn't the best situation for either myself or my employer and we will have further chats over the next week to work through “what the future is going look like”. I actually updated my resume recently and have been taking a few introductory recruiting calls, so I was already prepared to leave. However my plan was to take this search very slow unless something really amazing came up and I was hoping to get through this vacation and the holidays before starting something new.

With all this happening though, I have a feeling some gears are turning in the background and my management is preparing to fire me. Truthfully, I would welcome that because in my mind that means some sort of severance. However I'm wondering if by going on this vacation they would have grounds for dismissal without me being entitled to severance. Additionally, I'm curious about these “upcoming chats” and if there are things I shouldn't say or should watch out for.

TLDR: Had pto approved earlier in the year, now its being denied because of new process & because I haven't been “performing above and beyond” management doesn't see why I “deserve” more vacation than what I have already taken. I've been wanting to leave for a while and am actually already looking for a new job, but I'm worried they're gonna fire me right before I go on vacation or something along those lines. Looking for ways to protect myself and advice on what to do.

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