Dd17 holiday been turned down from work

[AmusedLemonFatball]

I know I am being unreasonable but I’m hormonal and emotional.

dd is 18 soon, shes my eldest of three.

she has requested our usual dates off for work for our family holidays and all have been rejected apart from one that is for when she is going away with a friend and their family.

im really upset, I can’t imagine going on every holiday without her this year. It’s not big holidays, just to Cornwall etc but the thought makes me feel sick. There’s no chance of her getting any time off in the summer holidays and it has to work around school holidays for my other dc.

On the other hand it’s not fair that the other two don’t get a holiday?

I have autism so the unexpected change has really thrown me off :(

February is perfect time to get some winter sun. All the fun of Christmas is over and weather is bleak until March at least, a Feb half term holiday is great to look forward to through January

That's what I was going to say

Is this a case of computer says no? Does she need to speak to a person or has she done that already?

A lot of companies have absolutely crazy holiday systems but sometimes if you can speak to those in charge directly, you can get a change

That's an awful lot of time that she can't take. So many people don't seem to think to speak to a person these days, I just thought it was worth asking if that's been done.

editing to add - is it possible that she doesn't want to go? I recognise that's possibility as well.

I think DD needs to have a conversation with her workplace. It seems unfair that she cannot have any time off at all over summer. How long did she ask for ? If it was 2 weeks off, perhaps it would be possible for her to have one week and come for part of the holiday.

If I was her I'd also be asking if no summer break this year means priority next year.

I disagree.

An employer should ensure that someone can take their annual leave entitlement during the year, but excluding certain periods of time for valid reasons is something they can do. So if the OPs DD is not having requests accepted and is not offered any alternative, that is unreasonable. I think it is also unreasonable if leave policies are not spelt out before someone joins.

There are plenty of companies who don't manage this at all well in my opinion though, such as the choice of when to apply.

Maybe she has made the choice that she doesn't want to go on a family holiday as the is now working and may prefer to stay at home.

She’s still only 17, and it’s a real shame if she can’t get any of the holidays requested. I do think it would be helpful to know more about her job to really understand why all these requests have been rejected.

if no good reason, she should request a meeting with her employers to discuss this further.

if it’s a buoyant job market especially at her young age, I would be considering moving job to a more flexible employer.

but there’s some context missing so it is hard to say.

I employ about ten young girls, late teens, early 20’s as dental nurses. They work hard, and have the same entitlement to holidays as all our other more experienced staff, regardless of commitments and whether they can only take holidays at certain times. We do however need a minimum number of staff at all times so can’t have everyone off at once. But we try and be fair. It’s very rare to not approve a holiday ( within reason)

I used to work at a first come first served company and the parents were not leaving it until 90 minutes into the request opening before putting in their submissions. If there are a lot of parents, people with teacher partners, or children who want to go away with their mum then Easter, summer, and the half terms could have been booked by 12.01. It’s not a fair system really.
it’s completely normal to not be able to match up leave when people are working - especially in 9/5 M/F jobs with no TOIL or flexibility. Do they allow single days? Have a long weekend. Have a short weekend.

I am single with young children and would not expect my colleagues without young children to have all holidays that land in the school holidays refused, how ridiculous. That’s what holiday clubs are for.

Not sure why everyone is piling on you, your daughters workplace sound so inflexible to have refused all of the holidays. Yes we should expect to not have all of the holidays we want, but it sounds like she isn’t getting any which is not fair. think she should try and look for a workplace that can be more flexible. Totally understand where you are coming from.

It took me 15 years to be senior enough to get summer time holidays. Nobody cared about me having kids.

I retired when I was number two to pick annual time off and I always took winter leave because I loathe January and February.

Canaries are not that warm in Feb and southern hemisphere at a few weeks notice for one week?

Because you've got to have a bit of brain here, you can't have every sod in the business going off during the school holidays, the school holidays are a pain in arse as it is when nearly everyone you need is on leave. Nobody is going to offer you a job if you sit there in an interview and say that you quit jobs unless you get given time off in school holidays. The OPs daughter will look even worse because she's not a mother and it's like compounding an issue when non parents start demanding to be off at the same time off as parents!

The problem is you get enough people off as it is during school holidays, companies can't sustain non parents wanting to be off at the same time. You've got be practical about it and for this young woman it's better for her to have the ability to travel outside of school holidays as it gives her far better prices for going away with her mates. It's unfair of her mother to put her in a position where she is expected to compete with colleagues who are parents for time off in the school holidays.

The dd did get one of her holidays approved, the May one, a non - termtime holiday. .

I still don't see an issue - she doesn't ask for whole school holidays. She didn't get even one week to spend it with her school-aged family members. It's not an unreasonable ask and a good employer would be fine with that.
Yes, she isn't a mother - and so what? Parents aren't the only one who have a family.

Yes. One not term-time, and zero from those that would allow her to spend time with her family- woth no alternative which would allow her the same available.

Parents aren't the only one with families.

For a non parent like me, we utilise June and September for holidays, it's not great that parents get priority but you have to practical, you can't let everybody be off at the same time.

But child free adults aren't usually going on holiday with mummy and being asked to cater for mummy's young school child. What's stopping mum from paying the fines to take the youngest out of school rather than putting her daughter in an embarrassing position at work.
Where did you draw the line in terms of staff resource and how much strain you put on the rest of the staff! You might be "all about me" but a company can't think like that, they have to think about the company and remaining staff being able to function. If it's booked up, it's booked up! They aren't refusing for the fun of it, there's obviously lots of staff already booked off across all the school holidays.

Do we know whether dd specified she wanted to take holiday with her family, or just submitted the dates?

Embarrassing? WTF? Why would a 17 yo wanting to go for some family holiday be embarrassing?

Not everyone hates their family and goes low contact at the first opportunity.

A 17 yo could easily be good mate with her 15 yo sibling. Or, she might be even helping with childcare in her family.
We don't know whether it was booked up before she submitted it, or whether someone decided she doesn't deserve it.

I just see so many posters suggesting she just quietly accepts it, I'm suggesting to at least ask and advocate for herself.

Oh womp womp 😂

I couldn’t care less, truly.

I did. There’s not a thing they can do about it. The trick is to get signed off with anxiety or stress then a holiday is the perfect thing to help 👌 that means you can relax knowing you can post on social media. So not I’m not a bit dumb. I always did this and I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d leave my job before I had leave dictated to me.

Ahh i’d feel wretched too. Change is hard but
this is inevitably was going to happen eventually. Be kind to yourself or change the dates

As a single mother of 2 infant school age children it is completely unfair to expect people without children to not book any school holiday time off, the May one was term time. I should think at least 1 week in school holiday time should be approved. Total madness to think otherwise.

My 26 year old daughter still comes away….