About annual leave

[Pointlesstiff25]

Just had a completely pointless argument with my husband. He has bought some extra annual leave this year and I have a couple of days to use up (my leave year ends end of Aug). I suggested maybe taking Friday off because the weather looks good. This would be fine for my work, I am FT but my colleagues are PT I am used to covering for a day or two a week. He said he can't take spontaneous days off. I get some people can't, but he reasoning was every hour ok Friday is already booked out and it's the same for 5 weeks.

I frankly find this way of working very odd, so I wanted to gauge opinions as obviously I only know my own way of working. Is it typical to have set tasks at set times and there be no flex? He said clients tasks would be delayed. Whereas I know general cyclical tasks that are coming up, as well and dealing with day-to-day bits, but it's not tied to a specific day or time, unless I decide to do that myself, if that makes sense.

Which is typical for you? We both work office jobs so it's not like he's got MOTs or patients booked in, it's nothing appointment-based.

I think I'll take the day off anyday rather than schedule in a random Tuesday in 4 weeks where it might be freezing and pouring!

I work in a small team. We have some fixed jobs at fixed times. Arranging cover for a day off can be a real faff. For example, I would never take just.a Thursday off, as the cover needed would be a lot to organise for one day, but I can (and do) take the odd Tuesday.

Long holidays are different, but I entirely understand not being able to take one day at short notice

Depends on your OH’s job. My husband would struggle to have a spontaneous day off at short notice. He has meetings booked in his diary weeks in advance.

Nobody covers my work so I pretty much take leave when I want. However I try and not take the piss by booking too close to the date I want. Other people in the office can't so I don't expect to be the exception.

Of course it depends on the job! Some can take time off with no notice, others can't. Even in an office with no customers there can be deadlines, reporting structures, workflows that others depend on, countless reasons.

I work somewhere that's open to the public, so when it's open (seven days a week), it has to be staffed, for all the hours it's open. (Surprisingly difficult to get this concept across to some plan-your-own-schedule / WFH types, sometimes). So leave has to be planned well in advance and we can't have too many people off at once.

I totally get covering the office etc. I work in a small team myself, he doesn't. It's not about having meetings or anything, it's just that every minute is accounted for weeks in advance. I just find it odd as it's not something I've personally had in my own working life. Of course I've had managers/colleagues ask for certain tasks but not "can you do X job between 11-12 on 15 July."

My diary can be booked weeks in advance, to rearrange some meetings would be simple, but others would be a real pain to move and have a knock on effect on project lead times and colleagues diaries.

We also need to make sure there is cover in the team so if a couple of colleagues were already off it would be difficult to take a day off at short notice.

It really depends on your DH’s job. In one of my jobs was near impossible to take only Monday or Tuesday off as there was a weekly Wednesday deadline for certain things and Monday and Tuesday we were usually swamped.

It takes me about 3 weeks to find a spare day to have off.