Employer being nosy about hols

[muttonjeffmum]

What do you all think about this.

I emailed my boss requesting a week's annual leave in August.

He finally replied after about 3 weeks authorising the leave but he has asked why I want the leave. This was in capitals and highlighted on the email.

Why? What has it got to do with them?

I'm tempted to reply with someone sarcastic.

Does anyone else think this is weird and none of their business?

'Because it suits me to take my annual leave that week. I hope this won't cause any issues.'

It's possible that someone else has asked to be away that week for some sort of emergency surgery/family wedding/going on Big Brother or something and he wants to check whether your leave is for something that you might agree to move the dates of, I suppose.

What Dojo said was good. Or ‘I’d like those weeks off for annual leave’.

DP’s old boss told him more than once he could take a holiday week but couldn’t go abroad in case he was needed. His job doesn’t involve saving lives! I was recently told by my boss I could have the holiday day I’d already booked but needed to not drink and take my laptop wherever I went. Apparently my objections were unreasonable.

I wish I could remember the name of the event that an old colleague of mine used to go on for free thinking adults - it all sounded quite, let's say "exotic". Sadly searching Google for drug-fuelled orgy holiday isn't finding it for me..

I'm loving all these replies!

I actually wouldn't mind telling him. It's not actually a secret but it's the fact that he has asked as pissed me off. If he asked before it had been approved then I could understand it.

I think I might put a further request in for a week at the beginning of summer.

''I would like to take the leave in order to spend time away from the workplace and to use my annual leave allowance within the permitted timeframe.'

Yes, this. It says everything without actually saying anything. It serves as a prompt to your boss that they are out of line but is not overly rude.

I would have to restrain myself from responding with a sarcastic, "it's August! Why do you think?" (I do not actually recommend this approach.)

I went on holiday with a team-mate and his non-work friend last year, and I never told my manager why I booked leave. Think my colleague did, but it was never mentioned to me by manager, and I was never asked. I had checked the leave chart to make sure it wouldn't leave them short if we were both off together (if someone else in the team had already booked then, it would have.)

I'm want to take annual holiday so that I can have an annual holiday.....

Just reply and say for a family holiday. That's all.

Love some of the suggestions on here though, made me giggle!

A former manager used to do this in the office where I worked. If you requested annual leave you had to explain why you wanted it - if you didn't then she would refuse to authorise it.

If there were multiple people who wanted the same time off, she was also keen on deciding who was the worthiest candidate for leave rather than operating a first come first served system. I eventually got fed up of this after five years of it - no DC therefore I was always put at the bottom of the list. Handed my notice in and timed it so that I finished right at the start of the fortnight that I'd requested and she'd refused to give me.

I would be tempted to say its so i can concentrate on my hobbies then when asked what hobbies i would say lying on the sofa watching netflix and eating chocolate

My DH's holiday form actually asks on the form what the leave request is for? He just writes Holiday or family reasons. It's never occurred to us to wonder why they need this information. I'm now wondering what would happen if he didn't fill that bit in!

At my old workplace, they would ask this (even when approving the leave) so that they could know how much they could disrupt your plans and insist you work during the time off. So “safari to Namibia, will be uncontactable for 2 weeks” meant they’d actually arrange cover, whereas “spending time with family at home” meant they’d bombard you with emails and expect you to deal with it as you weren’t really away.

This reminds me of a time when we used to have a really nosy float secretary who used to cover when we where away. She was notorious for wanting to know what everyone was up to and what they were doing if they had a few days off (and then telling everyone else about it).

She was down to cover for me when I had a long weekend so I pre-warned my work colleague to say, very confidentially, that I was away, she didn't know who with, but it was definitely not my DH and to make it seem as it she was divulging a particularly juicy piece of gossip. All my bosses and workmates were in on it, as was my DH.

It was a gem - apparently she lasted all of 15 mins before she was telling someone else in another department. Apparently the look on her face when she found out it was all a windup was priceless....!

When i was a manager i wasn't allowed to ask, whether sickness or holiday, not my business. as long as they had a sick note for illness past a week and the holiday days were free that's all i needed to know and was allowed to know.

OMG I had a mate who had a boss that would defer and defer leave requests for months on end. It was a form of controlling behaviour and friend had to go off sick in the end (not just because of the leave).

Yeah, what about severe internal parasites and a trip to the hospital of tropical medicine?

Just say you're going cottaging and ask if he wants to join

I would probably just not reply. Like you, I'd feel a pretty put out by the fact that he asked, and since you don't want to say anything rude, there's not much to say really. If he insists (by calling or emailing again or in person) I'd just say I'm using the week for a week off work.

"Why do you want the week off?"

"For a week off work."

Just forward it to HR and ask if it's company policy for employers to ask what people are doing with their holidays.

Someone once told me (seriously) they were spending the summer "on landscape design and spreading the word of our Lord Jesus Christ'. Try that.

'I am taking a week's holiday in order to help the company provide its statutory obligation to allow employees to take annual leave'.

Ha ha!

"I'm spending a week going door to door with the Jehovah's Witnesses."

Could you not just reply - "why do you ask?"

It's quite useful when people ask overly personal questions and applies here too I think

Hi Boss,

Thank you for finally authorising my leave request. I am so sorry, I had not realised that you were required to know the details of my leave and what I would be doing with my time! I would have thought that that would be considered personal information and that you wouldn't legally be allowed to ask. I am so sorry, I would have provided those details in advance had I known. I am copying in HR here just to make it clear to them too that if there has been a mistake here, it's my fault, if that is the case, and also provide clarification so that I can make sure to provide personal details in the right format to support leave requests in future.

Many thanks,

Mutton.

In other words, drop him right in the shit with his UNDERLINED CAPITAL LETTERS (make sure the email thread passes his email to HR too) asking for personal information :)