During our Mid year assessment my boss told me I had too many vacation days saved up (I have 22 days I HAVE to use by EOY) and I needed to start using them soon since he didn’t want a bunch of us waiting until the end of the year to use our time. I told him I didn’t have a reason to take time off and would probably do so when school started back up so I could be more active in my kids school and their happenings. He responded by saying “why don’t you take a vacation? You could go somewhere nice like Florida or Alaska, even traveling out of country isn’t that expensive!” I literally stopped what I was doing and said “do you have vacation money for me?” He was flabbergasted that I couldn’t afford a random vacation for an average sized family.
Backstory: I’m decently employed, hate my job I guess as the people I work with are idiots and the only person I genuinely get along with is my immediate supervisor (we were friends before this job, we worked together previously and kept in touch after leaving previous company, ended up at new company together years later within a day of each other). Benefits suck but at least I have them and the rest of my family are covered in case something happens. Main benefit is working from home (told us to come back in office but only one person complied so that demand died quickly), basically being able to set my own schedule (ie as long as my work is done and emails are answered no one cares) and I WAS decently paid. I say WAS because this year our company decided not to do raises or bonuses (about $20k altogether that I’m losing out on for the year which is a lot of money) but cost of living has increased exponentially in my area. I’m talking about my expenses increased by almost $1800/month including rent, insurance, food, etc. Luckily I could almost afford the increase (it takes all my monthly disposable income and I had to stop paying on my credit card) but it’s hard to do anything that cost money as most of mine just goes to bills.
Anyways, back to the convo: he was shocked to say the least. He asked why I didn’t have anything saved up or put aside for something like this. I asked him how he was able to afford his stuff and he said he wasn’t affected too much by the lack of bonus and raise because he owns everything and all his money goes to investing (his investments pay for his monthly expenses so he literally doesn’t use his check for anything) and that if I owned my car and had a house (I rent) then I could afford to do a vacation. Long story short I tried to explain the difference between his growing up and mine in the current economy and it quickly turned into a boomer v millennial showdown. I gave up and told him I wasn’t going to be taking a vacation and that I’ll be saving it up until the end of the year so they’ll have more to pay out when I leave. Havent heard from him since. My immediate supervisor said he’s freaking out because he thinks I’m trying to leave and should be grateful for being in a better position than most. Her response to him? “Maybe you should invest in his vacation since you don’t need the additional funds?” Apparently he is contemplating it so may be a win for me?
Edit: just because I keep seeing comments about it. The issue isn’t him telling me to take time off and I don’t have a problem taking time off (like I said I will use it when school starts back up). The problem I had was him recommending all these fairly expensive, even more so with a family, places for an actual vacation (and not just a staycation kinda of situation) and then being shocked that I couldn’t afford it, which led to a discussion about how I made poor monetary and financial decisions in my life which is why I don’t own a car, house, or investments, and that the lack of a bonus and raise that is equivalent to almost $20k shouldn’t affect me too much because he wasn’t affected by it and then a whole classic boomer v millennial convo. Also for those recommending I use the PTO time to spend more time with my kids, I love spending time with my kids and usually spend all day with them as it is and we do a lot of activities together anyways while I am working, like playing Roblox, watching movies, baking, art journaling, or even going to Chuck e Cheese (summer pass is probably the best thing I have been gifted from someone) or the park. Theres not too much we can do during a staycation that we don’t already do now. Finally I want to point out that I am very lucky to have my job, benefits, and some of the people I work with and the complaint isn’t about any of that (and I’m aware this complaint, even if my boss is super out of touch, is definitely a first world problem kind of complaint) and even with the complaint I’m grateful to have what I have.