I'm a postal worker and I have about 22 or 24 days a year of premium days off. I can get extra days if I work 'overtime', this is in the sense of doing extra work. So when I work 10 hours a day for completing my round, it's not overtime, it's overtime when I do (partly) another round on top. These count as non premium days.
I have to plan 3/4 of my holiday in januari and I planned it all. I requested 10 days for a festival and got permitted only 5 due to understaffing. Monday at 4 am I called to say, I'm not coming to work I'm still at the festival and I'm about to go to sleep.
Note that we just had a reform which will increase our productivity by 20%, there's nothing to be done about this, our union fucked us over and accepted this reform.
So then why should I neglect 20% of my investment in my wellbeing to come to work, miss out on the best day for the festival for the 10 editions I went here? Pay extra for taking public transport that takes a full day to get me home while I was there with friends who have a car. All because we're understaffed, I also have been victimised by a route that didn't get carried out previous day or by doing extra just cause, why not.. I'm capable.
Now I need to face some unknown consequences for missing 1 fucking day(my route wasn't carried out so I had to work double on tuesday with a huge hangover that lasted for a week) without a doctors approval.
The thing that upsets me the most though, I know of colleagues who booked last minute holidays with their non premium days during this period which did get accepted.
No fucking wonder we're understaffed.
I work here for 7 years and besides the fact I'm a wage slave and this job does pay my bills, I do love my job, I couldn't imagine doing another job. It's just the toxic environment and sheer nazism that disgusts me.
So I'm happy to say:
Sorry I'm not sorry