Been working at my job since January. We’re a small lab with 1 manager, 1 biller (both work mornings), and 3 total technicians (we work nights). I’m 1 of the 3 techs and we’re all contracted. During the onboarding process, I was told they’re big on work-life balance, as long as days off were requested about 2-3 weeks in advance.
Lately, one of my coworkers would request days off about 2-3 times a month. And eventually the manager started to ask him if he can come in on Wednesdays (that’s one of his days off) to make up for not working. I’m planning to go on vacation at the beginning of November and requested 6 days off (I work 10 hour shifts Thurs-Sun… yep, my schedule is the worst lol) and my manager asked if I can come in on some Wednesdays to make up for lost revenue. I agreed to come in on the Wednesdays before and after my trip. But now that I think about it, I kind of regret having to come in to “make up hours” I feel like we shouldn’t have to come in on our days off because we’re requesting time off.
Now that I’m picking up those 2 shifts on Wednesdays I’ll be working 50 hours those weeks and we don’t get paid overtime. We also don’t get pto since we’re contract employees.
Is my annoyance justified or am I crazy lol. I just feel like we shouldn’t feel pressured to come in on our days off just because we’re requesting some time off. I want to ask for days off in addition to keeping my original days off!
Next month I’ll be requesting 2 days off in the end of August for my bday… I’ll be annoyed if my manager asks me to make up days 🥲 It also makes me hesitant to ask for days off now. Whatever happened to the work-life balance I was told about lol.