My job won't let us request time off more than 3 months in advance. Needless to say, this makes planning a vacation incredibly difficult and expensive, as I'm not about to buy a plane ticket before getting approval from Mommy, I mean my boss, first.
The final straw was when I asked for July29 thru Aug 5 off. Instead I got a reply saying my July dates were approved but not Aug, as I have to wait until May 1st to request off August dates [wtf]. This felt really stupid to me so I asked: why a 3 month cap? Here was the reponse:
Traditional most areas/companies only allow one maybe two vacations per year. If each person were limited to one or two vacations per year removing the three-month cutoff timeframe is something that could be contemplated. Approving time off must be fair and equitable. For those who do not request off a lot, consideration must be given to them as well when they do request vacation. It is difficult to adequately staff shifts now with all the vacation requests.
I really want to ask followup questions like:
“So my vacation is affected because management can't keep staffing up to par?”
“If I want to plan a vacation in 2024 i literally can't because… other people may want the same date as me in 2024???”
I don't even know how to professionally address any of this, as it's all so fucking stupid to me and I'm very upset atm… How do I professionally reply to this ??