Sorry if this isn’t exactly what this sub is meant for, but I need advice from people who probably have more experience in this sort of thing.
I’ve been at my job for 9 months now, and the times I’ve taken off apparently happened to coincide with busy weekends for my work (I work at a small bakery). Before I started my job, my mom booked me plane tickets to visit her for Thanksgiving, which usually we aren’t allowed to take off. My boss let me because of that.
My mom found super cheap tickets for February for me to visit (late December). I told her not to book them yet in case my boss said no, since it was the weekend before Valentine’s Day. I was okay not going and I specifically told my boss that, but my boss said I could. I was only off of work for two days.
My 21st birthday is April 18th, and my mom said she wanted to buy me plane tickets to visit her (in Florida) for my bday gift. This was early December. My boss was chill with it. Except she only realized at the beginning of this month that I would be gone Easter weekend. I didn’t know because I’m Jewish. She wasn’t happy.
My cousin’s Bat Mitzvah is the first weekend of June, so I needed that off. Going isn’t optional for me, since in Judaism, having your Bat Mitzvah is a huge thing. My boss said alright, and was clearly not happy with me. She said I can’t have any more time off.
Normally I’d be okay with that. I am a hard worker and I like being reliable for my coworkers. I go above and beyond when I’m working. I have stressed countless days because my boss won’t hire more than the employees we already have, and I have to take on the workload of that deficit.
I’m planning on reducing my hours at the end of the summer because I’m starting to take college classes again this coming fall. So I wasn’t going to take any time off anyway.
But then my aunt said she would pay for half of tickets to Barcelona for me at the end of summer, since she knows a good friend of mine is going and I offhandedly mentioned months before that going would be amazing (my friend is fluent in Spanish and has been to Spain multiple times, so she’s comfortable with me going with someone who knows their way around).
But I can’t take off work. But going to Europe is a once-in a lifetime chance. But I don’t want to lose my job. But also I’ve hardly been out of the US before, and this is such an opportunity.
I don’t know what to do. I want to make an excuse about transitioning to taking classes, but I don’t know if that would work. Any advice?
TLDR; I didn’t know the few days at a time I took off were when we were busy, and if I did, my boss approved it far ahead of time. She said I can’t have any more time off, but I have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to Spain and need advice to get that time off.