I feel like I need to officially write this down because it's been plaguing me ever since it happened and I cannot find peace.
I work in entertainment, and work at a large company where we have standard office hours. Occasionally we work whenever as work needs requires it, such as if there's a client event to cover at night or on the weekend. I am salaried, and I work hard to maintain a work-life balance as well as respectful boundaries with my job.
I got married a few weeks ago. I took 2 weeks of PTO for the wedding (week of and the week after) and properly put in the PTO for it and my boss approved it. This was not a secret. It had been known by my job for the past year. I even had members of leadership reminding coworkers to not reach out to me or bug me during this time. My boss had been the number one supporter of my wedding this entire past year. Before I was off, I made sure to have fellow coworkers recruited to help cover my duties while I was gone.
During these 2 weeks of PTO, I did not check my work email once. My only communications with my boss during that time was me sending her wedding pics on the big day because she had asked me to. (She was also invited to the wedding but ended up not being able to make it.) And not that I HAVE to justify myself but: I spent the 1st week of PTO busy preparing for the wedding. Got married on a Sunday. Spent the 2nd week of PTO recuperating from the wedding and having a relaxing staycation at home.
I return to work on the Monday and first thing I do is go straight over to find my boss and check in with her, say hi I missed her, etc. Her first reaction/response to me was a very resentful and grumpy: “You're never allowed to take off for two weeks again without a proper replacement.” Apparently everything that could go wrong did go wrong: high influx of client and work demands, was very swamped without me around, and has been dealing with a cold this entire time. She continued to be grumpy throughout the day and would make side comments like, “Did you really not check your email once while you were out?” I was nice about it and responded with, “Yeah, I turned off my notifications. I rarely take time off so if I'm gonna put in PTO, I'm going to stick to it.”
Fast forward to Wednesday, she takes me out to lunch (which she had promised to do before I was OOO, to make up for missing my wedding.) On the walk to lunch, she's asking me all about the wedding, etc (essentially buttering me up). Asking me how I spent those two weeks (sort of like I needed to validate what I was too busy with during my time away from work). And then the moment we sit down at the restaurant, she confronts me:
She said she tried really, really hard to be respectful of my time. She probably said that about 10 times. But she says she wishes I would have monitored my emails while I was out. That “we work in client service and we don't ever really get to check out of work.” That she “really could have used [me] for four to six hours last week.” A lot of rhetoric from her stating that she really wishes I worked a little during those previous two weeks because she was struggling so much without me.
In response, I stood up for myself. I told her that, “As you are learning and have now learned, a work-life balance is a big life value of mine. And this is a life value that I share with my now husband. Especially as it regards PTO which, respectfully, I had properly put in through HR & legally. If I were to even check my work or work for a minute during our shared PTO together, it would have been very disrespectful to him, disrespectful to us, and our marriage would have started out that first week in a divorce.”
She backed off a little and started to bargain that I am not an assistant and that I can't have anyone to cover me because there is no one able to cover me. (Which is only half true: I was able to find several coworkers to cover many of my main tasks while I was out. There was just no one to help her with her direct work and duties.) I expressed that it's great to hear this feedback on how much she had to handle alone on her end (which she apparently did not cc me on so I didn't see this aforementioned workload in my inbox), that this helps me understand how essential I am to the company in these ways, and that understanding this feedback can help us better prepare for what we need to cover and have covered for next time.
We come to a “middle ground” where she says it was just a perfect storm of problems and that we'll make much more preparations for next time, and I'm nice about it by saying that next time I could try checking in for an hour or two in the morning to make sure things are managed while I'm out. (I regret this as this is the only time I lied, as I will NOT be doing work while I am on vacation.)
My fellow anti-work subreddit, I should NOT be working during my perfectly legal and HR approved PTO. I should not be guilted by my boss for not working during my PTO. Legally I shouldn't even be hearing this very inappropriate rhetoric from my boss about my PTO. And most of all, morally I shouldn't be expected to disrespect my newlywed time with my husband after I literally just made life vows to honor him and us above all else. (That last part is just me being fired up about how rude this whole thing has been, but imo still valid.) I'm not going to apologize for having self-respect for myself at this company.
So now I've haven't been able to find any personal peace in the last few weeks because I feel like I can no longer trust my boss nor rely on any sort of future at this company, especially if this will be their stance on what is the most important time of my life. If I'm disrespected during what is considered the highest bar of life events, then them disrespecting me during any other time is going to be free game. Apparently the only other time I'm allowed to check out from work is when I'm having my first child, according to her and the other work colleague she spoke to about me.
TL;DR I took 2 weeks of PTO for my wedding, and my boss tried to pressure and guilt me afterwards for not working during my PTO