Started a job at a well known bio pharmaceutical company this past spring. We have two types of PTO that we are given here.
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Vacation time: This is accrued over time, a few hours every pay period. 40 hours of vacation time may be rolled over into the next year, but never more than that. They do not pay the hours out so you need to use them.
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Holiday time. Since we are fully operational 24/7, they give us 100 hours of holiday time on Jan. 1st of every year to use whenever throughout the year, since we will likely be working many holidays. None of these hours may roll over to next year so you have to use them or they’re gone.
When I started in the spring, I was given 20 hours of holiday time upon my first day. I figured this was because I started a few months into the year so obviously I wouldn’t get the full 100 hours. This is also my first job with PTO so I wasn’t sure how they would prorate the time. I also wouldn’t expect HR at a global corporation to mess something like this up so I didn’t give it a second thought.
Fast forward to this week, my manager lets me know that HR messed up my PTO and that I’m actually missing 60 hours of my holiday time. I was supposed to start with 80 hours instead of 20. Well, now there’s only 1.5 months left in the year and my manager is telling me I can’t use any of those 60 hours I was just given because too many people have already requested off for the rest of the year. His words were “Worst case scenario, you lose the 60 hours. But I’ll talk to HR and see what I can do. Sorry I didn’t catch this until so late in the year.”
If all my holiday time was given to me from the start, I would have requested off the holidays way in advance. Now I’m potentially losing all that time due to someone else’s mistake. I am furious and sad.
Has anyone been in a situation like this before?? What would you do?