My mother, step father, and siblings live in the spokane Washington area and I live in pigeon forge tennessee. I haven't seen them in almost 2 years and missed 2 of my sisters highschool graduations. I already feel like a shit brother as it is so whenever i do get the chance to see them I take it non negotiable. I dont even get to see them on a yearly basis so these trips are extremely important to me.
I put in the request off on july 1st (I fly out on the 20th) for 10 days. The next day i get a message saying that my GM wants me to come talk to her whenever i get the chance. My GM is normally super sweet and LAX so I didn't think much of it. Met with her today and the basis of the meeting was “We're gonna let you go on this trip but you're screwing over the rest of the team and this is a super self centred move.”
I've been with them for almost a year and a half now. Ive covered countless shifts, worked countless 6 day weeks, worked multiple 12 hour+ shifts for them. Ive only requested off 2 times since starting this job before this trip and they were both just for a couple days.
Im not the perfect employee by any means but im damn good and reliable. When one of my coworkers asked what I would do if they denied the time off request i simply said “I'm going on this trip whether it costs me my job or not.” Which was probably told to my GM which made her upset with me but I was just telling the truth.
I do feel like an asshole about the situation but at the same time I'm not the one in charge of hiring and since we are located in such a busy area hiring “just enough” employees isn't good enough. I feel like 19-20 days is good enough notice for an extended trip like this but apparently not.
Sorry for rambling on. My brains kinda scattered right now and I kinda just wanna get other peoples viewpoints on the situation. This job has been pretty solid and the people have been supportive all the way up until this point. Just kinda surprised me i guess.