I’ve been working at this company for four years, during the first three we all got a small Christmas bonus. It wasn’t that much, but it helped immensely with the additional expenses of the season.
More importantly, we had 10 days of paid Christmas vacation. This year I booked my holidays abroad – Excited about the prospect of traveling for the first time since 2019 – However, two weeks ago HR sent a memo saying that this year there wouldn’t be any paid Christmas vacation days other than the statutory holidays.
Although I was initially angry, I thought I’d be able to use some of my vacation days AND take an extended vacation instead. I haven’t taken a vacation day since I started working at this company, so I have close to a month of accumulated paid vacation.
That was the plan, and I said was because starting on the 31st, our vacation days will reset “use it or lose it” and we won’t be able to stack them like I intended to do. I only found out about this because I made the request to get January off.
Now, going back to the initial uproar caused by the lack of Christmas vacation days – A bunch of people rage quit over it, mostly new employees that had been drawn to apply for the job because HR actively advertised it as a perk. But this one affects directly me, I work on a 2-person department (my boss and I) and my boss just quit over it.
On Friday, I asked him about the department changes once he left, and who’d be taking over him (I’m not fully qualified to take over the job). He said that the higher ups didn’t give a f*ck about the department and that they wouldn’t be replacing him.
The department doesn’t work without his position, so naturally I asked what’d happen with X, Y and Z ongoing projects, and some future projects as well and he told me I was expected to take over his job while still doing mine.
“Okay, this is a good opportunity to ask for a raise” I thought. So I requested a meeting with HR and the CEO to discuss the changes of the department from now on. They declined my meeting request, in the email they briefly addressed the job duty situation saying that I’d need to “pitch in and help the team in those difficult times.” AKA Extra duties and no raise because “there’s no money (they offered my boss $20k if he stayed).
I also inquired about the reason why they stopped giving paid Christmas vacation and they said that despite record earnings (going from $10M to $200M within 1 year), because now there are more employees it’s become too expensive to give paid vacation to everyone.
I tried to be understanding (emphasis on tried) And thought “well, at least they’ll make up for the lack of Christmas vacation with a substantial bonus.” Christmas day came and went and no bonus. I messaged some coworkers and none of them has received anything. No word from the higher ups either.
I’ve always considered myself a hard worker, I have a lot of bullshit tolerance, I’m not a conflictive person and I’m often told I have the patience of a saint but this is seriously starting to piss me off.