Just coming on here to rant. My brother has a salary job working as an overseer for a certain type of construction (not getting into specifics since it's a rather niche field), and as much as I can't convince him otherwise, he acts as if they own every second of his life. He travels for work and is typically out of town Monday through Friday night, and I really only see him for a few hours over the weekend. Seeing as how my brother practically raised me and we used to spend every day together, this change his been difficult.
On several occasions, he has scheduled holidays (he travels for work, so his “holiday” is actually to stay home), only to spend the entire time answering phone calls and emails related to work. The most recent event (and the reason for this rant) is this: my brother had just spend nearly a month out of town, not even able to come home due to dealing with a specific job site that has been giving him trouble. He needed a break, and I, having just gotten out of a stressful semester of college, was also in dire need to get away.
The plan was simple. My brother would take a week off work (giving them over a month's notice) sometime in July. In this week, we would not worry about work or school or anything, and just be together. Not even days later, my brother tells me he needs to push our vacation back a week due to something going on with a stressful jobsite. Seeing as I have prior commitment that week (that my brother knew about), I refuse the change and say I could do it if we changed our flight times, but as is, I can't do it.
Without warning, my brother cancels the trip entirely and tells me work is too much right now. I'm super frustrated because, even though work is stressful *right now*, it doesn't mean he should cancel plans a month in advance. Also, it's not like he is the only one who can do his job. Yes, those are his work sites, but he has foremen and coworkers who can manage a week without him.
Any attempts at reasoning this with him fall on deaf ears. We're going to try again in December, but I'm waiting for that shoe to drop as well. My brother gets a month of vacation a year, something he has told me several times, yet he never seems to get to use it. And yes, this is probably super selfish of me, but I can see how much his work drains him, and I just want to get him away from it all for a while.
Apologies for the long rant. TL;DR: my brother refuses to take a vacation because his work “owns” him