As the covid laws are are now all eased in the UK we have luckily been called back into the office only one day a week since mid Jan, which i am very appreciative as a hybrid model split because others i know are required to travel in far more.
However a while ago i have been told by my line manager that i should avoid taking holidays on the office allocated day, so this limits me to the option of only 4 days in the week to pick from. This ruined my holiday plan this week. The exception is that if your doing a long holiday i.e more than 3 days or if there are extenuating circumstances like an emergency then the rule does not apply here.
The issue is that personally i take more single day holidays than longer stint holidays in the year and i sometimes need to book the day off when we are required to visit the office as it fits in with my plans nicely. I told my boss i was not happy (said through gritted teeth) that i would oblige and he essentially implied it was the project managers call, not him. The PM is apparently recently unhappy people are taking leave on this day, so my line managers hands are tied as no one can say anything to him. Side note, the project manager is basically an ass kissing jumped up fool who likes micromanaging and the less i say about him the better.
Am i being unreasonable here in being pissed off by this and should i instead talk to the HR, as i usually like to settle things face to face with my manager directly instead of having to go through HR which i have never done before. I would be intrested to know if this is breaking some contract law because as i understand you can only deny holidays if there is a business need like a deadline without anyone to cover, not for some trival office gathering.