I was working in IT for a very large and well-known company that was truly soul sucking. Imagine a gigantic corporation with all the typical stereotypes of ineptitude and people being promoted into incompetence.
I was working there a few years, completely unhappy with the company and specifically my immediate leadership. I was an anomaly there. I knew my job, how to do it, and was trying to improve their processes. Everyone else seemed genuinely clueless or actively trying not to do any actual work.
As a solid example: The IT supervisor literally could not navigate to a network folder to open an excel spreadsheet. You HAD to email it to him. Then he’d complain when he continued to use an outdated copy when the network file was updated. Getting the picture?
I was looking for a new position elsewhere for a few months and finally got a call, an interview, and an offer that was around 40% more than I was making. I was overjoyed.
This all happened very quickly. I was asked on a Friday in the late afternoon if I could start 2 weeks from Monday. I said absolutely. Monday morning I put in my two weeks’ notice.
I outlined my current workload and the steps for someone else to take it over since management didn’t have a clue. I was going to do this my last week.
This is where it got fun: I sent my two weeks’ notice email first thing Monday morning. I immediately took Friday off to take care of a few things and had plenty of PTO to cover a single day off.
I believe i had 6-7 full days I could use remaining. The company policy for taking time off was “if you have PTO, you can take PTO” they’re not approving time off.
I was told the time off was denied on Thursday… the day before. I informed them I put in my two weeks’ notice, had enough time to take off, and would be taking the day off. Their reply was “you can’t take time off during your two weeks’ notice”. After calling HR and confirming this was not a company policy whatsoever, I informed them it wasn’t a request. I was then threatened with being written up and “possibly further action”. Lol.
Well, that was enough for me. For the first time in my life, financially, I could say “eff you, I’m out!” So I did. It felt amazing.
It was Thursday evening. I informed them that I’d be taking Friday off and the entire next week (the remainder of my two weeks’ notice) off… with pay. They could few free to write me up if they wanted to.
I let them know that due to them trying to play tough, now they’re getting no handoff of my current workload and would still have to pay me for all the time off I had.
They attempted calling about a dozen times… I didn’t bother answering.
I’m now happily at my new position in an amazing career.
TL:DR – I was denied a day off after giving my two weeks’ notice so I quit and they still had to pay me.