I started a new job the first week of May. I was offered a number of weeks of PTO as part of my offer, which they increased over the standard new hire offer, due to my previous employment history already giving me a higher amount. I find out the day I start that company policy has a “90-day probation period” before you can take PTO. I got my boss and the VP of HR to approve an exception because I had previously planned and booked a trip to a conference that occurred the last week of July, literally the week before the end of the 90 days.
I make sure people in the company know I'll be gone ahead of time. I'm in sales and had a couple of proposals in process due after I get back. I made sure to get everything I could done on them to leave them in a good condition for the admin team to finish while I'm out. I proactively tell them and my boss, when sending drafts, to let me know if there is anything else they need over the last couple of days before I leave.
I also told them all I was not looking at work email or calls during my trip.
Turns out the admin team mixes up version control on documents, resulting in my boss having to do some additional editing and cleanup. Not my fault. Last week, she calls me about them and complains, “You shouldn't have left for vacation with these proposals unfinished. And you should have been more available for us to reach you while you were out.” I struggled for a moment for a good response. I was amazed she'd say that.
I was like, “Boss, I did everything I could to get them in a good condition before I left. If I look at the documents I sent over before my vacation, they don't match the versions the admin team sent you to approve in my absence. I apologize if I missed something or if this resulted in you doing additional work unexpectedly. I'm not apologizing for taking my scheduled vacation that you and I discussed in detail when I requested the time off.”
I'm going to ride this job out for a while, at least due to the pay increase. This is a big red flag for me already, on top of a few others.