To be annoyed about having a day off declined

[Lira91]

I've been on a WFH campaign for a pretty big company for around 8 months. I booked last Eid off with just under 2 weeks notice because I wasn't sure of the date until it was closer to the time. That one was declined which is reasonable. The second Eid is coming up on the 20th and I put my request through on 23rd June, checked my schedule a couple of days ago to see I've been scheduled for that day, but my request was still pending. I contacted the company stating that I'd really like to have it off since it's Eid and I've not put any requests in otherwise over the last 8 months. They said they'd look into it. I checked the requests this morning to see it had been declined due to 'no availability' 😡 AIBU to think this is just lazy scheduling and they can afford to give me the day off? We're required to give 2 weeks notice at least, I thought booking almost a month in advance would be notice enough! They are also constantly posting reductions throughout the day since it's not busy enough atm so they can afford for people to take the day off paid/unpaid. I'm just extremely annoyed because this will be the first Eid where everything will actually be open and somewhat normal :(

I feel foe you op, but it’s peak summertime - most people will have already put in their summer hols requests (especially the parents in the company) months ago to make sure they’re cleared and ok’d

Get that it’s annoying though.

Maybe for next Eid you book off 3-5 days?, you know roughly to within 2 days when Eid will fall. That way you’ll get a proper chance to celebrate and also not have to worry you’ve booked the wrong time off

YADNBU.

I think that's really shit of them. An entire months notice and they couldn't put something in place for you having one day off? Really shit IMO.

Do you know your other colleagues well? I had eid booked off just because I was using up annual leave. I had no idea when it was. My Muslim colleague mentioned she had her request declined so I cancelled my leave to let her take it. It made no difference to me at all as I had nothing planned and I was happy to rearrange for another week.

@MilduraS how lovely. I wish more people in the workplace were like you!

Do they know it's for a religious celebration? I would raise it again and explain that it's part of your religion, you need the day off and you've given them plenty of notice.

I would be extremely miffed if I couldn't have the day off for one of my religious holidays. I'd also consider it discriminatory.

YANBU.

Doubt they would think it reasonable to be that way if there was only one person in the team who celebrated Christmas and they booked it off a month in advance. It's a form of discrimination IMO.

That’s frustrating! Does your company have a lot of people off at the same time? That might be why it’s refused?

Maybe request next year’s Eids as holiday as soon as the new annual leave year starts. You will have an idea of what days it’s going to fall on.

Can you find out why? If other people have put their requests in before you then fair enough, only so many people can presumably be off at the same time.

If it isn't due to others being off, then I'd be questioning again why you can't have it off since you have 4 weeks notice.

It’s school holiday time, and the news it full of predictions of very high numbers of covid cases and obviously increased associated isolations they are probably including that in their planning.

@FightingtheFoo

Do they know it's for a religious celebration? I would raise it again and explain that it's part of your religion, you need the day off and you've given them plenty of notice.

I would be extremely miffed if I couldn't have the day off for one of my religious holidays. I'd also consider it discriminatory.

But a lot of workers of other religions, Christian, Jewish etc have to work on religious holidays not all of them have the choice, so its not discriminatory at all is it?

Exactly, it sounds like the OP is in a job where some people will have to work at Christmas and Easter, whether they like it or not.

But OP, you say you haven't put in any requests in the last 8 months. Does that mean you haven't had any leave in all that time? Surely not? If that's the case, you've got bigger problems than this one day and it sounds like you need to take time off just to use your legal minimum holiday allowance.

Even if there is a good reason to decline the request, what is wrong with actually speaking to you to tell you?

@strawberrydonuts

YANBU.

Doubt they would think it reasonable to be that way if there was only one person in the team who celebrated Christmas and they booked it off a month in advance. It's a form of discrimination IMO.

Last Eid we had 12 staff in the office and 10 of them had requested time off. As OP mentioned, none of them could give an exact date until very close to the time. I think 4/5 were given the time off. I don't think it classifies as discrimination.

Genuine question - how come you don't know when eid is going to be until nearer the time?

@garlictwist

Genuine question - how come you don't know when eid is going to be until nearer the time?

Lunar cycles, it moves earlier each year. At school we have a policy of one term notice. You don't have to specify the date. We've had a number of staff complain they haven't had the time authorised- read the damn handbook then!

@MilduraS

Do you know your other colleagues well? I had eid booked off just because I was using up annual leave. I had no idea when it was. My Muslim colleague mentioned she had her request declined so I cancelled my leave to let her take it. It made no difference to me at all as I had nothing planned and I was happy to rearrange for another week.

I've done this before. And covered Christmas for people with kids (I don't celebrate regardless so why sit home and someone else miss out). It's just a day to me but it means something to you. Just ask about.

Holiday requests in a contact centre are generally based on a % off at any one time, with there being exceptions such as Christmas when volumes drop to the floor and many more are allowed to be off. Also, Christmas day, boxing day are bank holidays so everyone is off regardless. Unfortunately for Eid, business volumes are normal, so the standard % applies. If you employ a large % of muslims, who all want Eid, there will be people who get declined. It isn't discrimination.

That’s really terrible. In my office our Muslim colleagues were given special consideration for Eid and we always made sure someone was available when they took time off. Same for them at Christmas. They never took time off then as they realised it was important to those with families.

I would check with your colleagues to see if someone would be willing to work for you so you can take a holiday.

Easter works in accordance with lunar cycles and we know the date in advance - years in advance.

I tried to book some time off over the summer holidays in April & couldn’t get any as there were already too many people off.

Maybe it’s the same issue with people having already booked in advance.

I get it though. Massively disappointing.

@HotToddyColdSauvignon yes I'll probably do that in the future, it's just hard matching days off with DH, it would be nice to celebrate Eid on the same day haha.

I've sent out a message on Teams to ask if anyone wants to swap but it can be futile a lot of the time and for most people it leads to a lot of reposting and tagging.

@MilduraS that's so lovely of you! At Christmas time I had both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day off (everyone had Christmas Day off), there were a lot of people working those days so I was also happy to swap and work those days so they could celebrate.

I did let them know it's for Eid, and I know it's the holidays but there must be one person to make up for staff that day? There's people working on site and also WFH all around the country through the WFH campaign, I find it hard to believe that there's no one available to work that day when I gave one month's notice.

@garlictwist Eid Ul Fitr, the one after Ramadan depends on the moon cycle, so we don't know if Ramadan will be 29 days or 30 days etc. Obviously it's only a couple of days off either way but again it's about trying to match with DH. I'm NC with my own family so if we didn't have the day off together I'd basically just be on my own.

@BarbaraofSeville I have taken leave per se, but have used my holiday pay to take reductions when they pop up every now and then, so I'll end up doing a couple of hours and then finishing early. It's such a faff chasing up holiday requests, I'm not impressed with the whole system of it and the pandemic has meant I haven't really had anywhere to go before now - I've been shielding prior to having both vaccinations for health reasons.

I guess I just have to hope for a reduction that day if no one swaps with me but I was looking forward to going for the morning prayer followed by the mandatory Eid breakfast feast

Eid Ul Fitr, the one after Ramadan depends on the moon cycle, so we don't know if Ramadan will be 29 days or 30 days etc

I'm a bit surprised by this. We know that the next full solar eclipse viewable in the UK will be on 23rd September 2090, and on 14th April 2200 there will be a total eclipse over Northern Ireland and northern England. The centre line runs from Enniskillen, through Armagh, Downpatrick, the Isle of Man, Morecambe Bay and North Yorkshire to the East coast between Bridlington and Hornsea. That's 179 years in the future.

It's really difficult OP. I do think they should show some leniency for an important religious festival, but the trouble is many people will book holiday in the peak summer season as much as a full year ahead.

My colleague accepts that he & his wife will need to use more than just a single day of holiday to be able to be sure of being off work for Eid, and usually plans to cover a couple of days either side. The rest of us do what we can to help him in terms of swapping work with him but he always ends up taking at least 3 days off.

I'm also surprised about not knowing exactly when Eid is going to take place, as others have said, we know the cycles and positions of the sun, moon and all the other planets decades into the future.

Or could it be that it's only done by manual/traditional methods with modern technology not being officially recognised by Mecca for this purpose?