Asking for help because I had planned to take some leave over Easter

[Youlookfamilar]

My team is Team Y and we sit in dept Z.

A colleague in dept Z is going on leave for 2.5 weeks during Easter. The head of dept Z, my manager’s manager, has asked me to cover the colleague’s work. I said yes but after speaking to the colleague, I realised the bulk of the work would be during the Easter half term break. I had planned to take 4-5 days off during April to look after my children.

Would it be reasonable to ask my manager for someone else to be assigned to help me and cover for the days when I am on leave.

My team is very understaffed. Two people have left in the past month so everyone is extremely overworked.

Why on earth would you say yes without checking the dates first? Especially in April.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to ask but you've put yourself in an awkward position

Not unreasonable but you need to get your annual leave in what ever system you use asap.

Why haven't you already booked your time off? And Easter isn't half term.

Have you already booked your leave & had it approved? If so, you were a bit silly not to check first but YANBU.

If you haven't already booked it, be prepared for it not to be approved because you’re now doing this work.

Get your leave request in asap

It wasn’t made clear to me when she would be going, it was just in April. I have never spoke to her before, so didn’t realise she was going on holiday during half term.

After speaking to her to understand what I need to cover it became clear her work needed to be completed at set deadlines. As soon as I found out, I told my manager.

Waiting for DH to get his rota and leaves approved first. He doesn’t have any flexibility.

If you tried to put school holidays in the holiday calendar now at my work, you’d have no chance. Are they not booked in already?

Surely you’d check the dates before you agree.

Why have you not booked it off yet? Anything I need to take off for the kids is already booked as far as early Aug for me! I’ll be booke me time in late Aug (when i know school start dates) and October soon.

Seems late to be expecting leave during the Easter holiday (it’s not half term btw). Fingers crossed you get it but if you have agree to cover and then book time off it doesn’t look great.

Why iand how is your managers manager expecting your team to do their work when your redeployment will leave them 3 people short for 2.5 weeks?

If you knew shebwas going to be off over Easter how did you not twig right away that would be the same time?

What are the term dates in your school that Easter is half term? That's very unusual

Sorry - half term was a typo.

Don’t you have to book leave in advance? I’ve got to get mine in months before fit school holidays

I think sadly the chance of your leave being approved now is slim. The colleague in Team Z sounds like she has some critical deadlines. You not covering and taking leave means someone else in your team will have to cover that work too.

If you have to wait for DHs leave, why don't you in future get your requests in and then cancel if it doesn't line up, that way you get the dates possibly you want/need without them all being taken.

What did your manager say when you told them of the potential clash?

Since you’ve agreed to cover your colleague without even checking whether you were free for the proposed dates, I think that’s on you rather than your work - you’d better hope that there’s some spaces left in holiday club now!

In fairness against other comments on here though. Someone in my team could put Easter in now and it would be fine, people can take a weeks holiday with about 3 days notice if they wanted. We don't have minimum staffing levels. So it's not unusual to haven't have booked all your leave by now if that's normally your culture. Your issue is saying yes to someone else's work that has some deadlines involved.

I honestly didn’t know what was involved. I thought it would be taking meeting minutes or send out packs - just basic stuff.

I didn’t realise the intensity of the work and the deadlines.

I wasn’t really given a choice. I was told really, i need to cover her work.

You were asked to cover
you agreed to cover
you cannot put a holiday request in now for the same period without it looking incredibly bad.

Oh, OK. ‘Asked to cover’ in your OP creates a slightly different tone to ‘told to’ in this update in that it suggests an option to decline 🤷🏻‍♀️

You need to tell the person who asked you that the dates were not made clear when you agreed to cover and unfortunately you would have childcare issues for those dates. The sooner you tell them the sooner they can rearrange.

You should probably have booked the time off earlier so it’s still possible it might be refused.

@Youlookfamilar why has the manager not distributed the colleague's work among his own team or are you all in the same team? why has the manager given you all the colleague's work to do and how are you meant to do your own work as well? can the manager ask the colleague to get as much of her work finished as possible as there are deadline? is the colleague an organised person who would have managed to complete the work had she not been going on annual leave?

It’s far too late now to put in leave for Easter, even without this!

Some people could on my team also including myself except when it comes to Easter and half terms etc I always get them in early as they are popular times and I need to take time off to cover school holidays.

Would your leave actually be approved though? Easter is only a month away, you are short staffed and you have already agreed to take on someone elses work. It sounds like you assume you can just decide when to be off and they will just have to deal with it, normally it's up to the employer. Also, what does it matter what the work entails (deadlines etc), if you have agreed to work it doesn't matter that a deadline falls within that period.