TLDR – they tell me to use my vacation days. I do, and then claim overtime to make up for the work not done.
Keeping it vague because I work for a government agency. Long story with a lot of background.
When I first started working here, things were fine. I got paid a decent wage for the amount of work and effort I put in, so no major complaints. Then Covid happened and it started going down hill.
First, we were told that we were not allowed to work from home because other sections under the same wing had to go in. So to keep it equitable, everyone had to go in. Except that the other sections did rotating schedules with “remote work” while we had to come in every day.
The only issue with that was that we literally ended up with no work to do that required us to be present. So I’d go in to work every day just to sit in front of a computer doing stuff I could have done at home and saved myself a commute. And of course the big bosses were allowed to remote work.
After the world started to return to normal, people realized that they could get out and put in for retirement. My entire section got gutted. Went down to 40% employee capacity. Everyone was and still is doing the work of two or more people. The last person retired in the summer of 2022. They have yet to hire anyone. No promotion or raises either.
Due to the staff shortage, it’s been a pain in the rear to take off from work. Mainly because if you take off, someone else is now doing the work of 4 people. Or if no one picks up your slack, you come back with the same work to be done, just a shorter deadline since you didn’t work some days.
Luckily, my annual leave (vacation days) roll over. Unfortunately, there’s a cap, and I’ve reached it and went past the cap. They can’t or won’t buy out the extra time saved. I have almost 600 HOURS of vacation time saved up from before Covid to now. I asked my boss for an extension, explained my reasoning, and they said “try your best to take a few days off here and there, and I’ll see about your extension.”
So last week, I took a day off (7 hours), spent the day with my boyfriend, had a zoom interview, and I’m back in the office today. Due to the work that didn’t get done while I was off, I’ll need to work on it today to meet deadlines. It’ll probably take me 3-4 hours of overtime to catch up. Yay…