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 :(

Oh no, i hope she didn't ruin your christmas too op! 😂

Once they reach their teens many young adults dont want to go on holiday with that parents because they find it infantilising. 17 is nearly an adult and the DD may not wish to tag around with her parents. Particularly as she had already arranged something with a friend.

I felt like that at age 16 when I began work. The last thing I wanted was to stay with my parents for two weeks in a caravan. So i told them I couldnt get the time off work and they went without me. My mother did ask the NDN to "keep an eye" on me. Presumably because she did not want me to have any mad parties and wreck the house. However I did have a female friend stay with me for part of the time.

I never went on holiday with my parents again.

DD not been able to get the time off is no different than your husband not been able to get time off in may
why aren’t you upset about your husband inability to get time off and but just your daughters

Where I used to work we had a very fair system in that everybody was asked to submit their holiday requests by end of December for following year. The senior management team looked at all of the requests together taking into account business needs, who had the time last year, special occasion requests etc. out of a team of 30 I can’t recall anybody over the years not getting what was requested. We also didn’t give longest serving team members priority over everybody else. That was the fairest way.

Mine both still want to go on holiday with us at same age, its not that unusual (except on MN when they become fully fledged adults at 18 and you can't do anything with them or for them anymore)

Its tricky isn't it, my DS started full time work straight from gcses, he gave them holiday dates we had already booked when he was negotiating start date etc. He always asks for leave before we book anything now, school holidays are always hard as so many people want them so he has to get in early, most of ours are term time now so a bit easier.

What job is she doing at 17?

it’s EXTREMELY unlikely to be specialised or difficult to replace.

she should speak to the manager and ask why her leave submitted at 1.30am the day of the leave being available has been refused.

if they don’t either grant the leave or provide an adequate response, she should look for another job.

in short, this is not a good employer. Nobody age 17 is indispensable

I missed this post. Thats really bad that all have been refused then, seems very unfair. Can she speak to them?

What an odd take on it. My 17 yo is a support worker in a hospital and has been for 18 months now, he is fully on the rota and has to be covered. He has done a L2 apprenticeship already so is the same level as all the support workers whatever age they are.

Obviously them not giving any of the leave seems completely unfair especially as she hasnt submitted it late. School holidays shouldn't be just for those with DC, people may have partners who are teachers or in other roles where leave is dictated. I would definitely be asking them if I was her.

Yes my employer does similar for xmas, we can book all other leave whenever we want in advance except for xmas, usually we have to wait and all submit our requests, if we are booking a holiday that would be looked at in advance but just for general time off its managed as a whole.

It's tough OP, but unfortunately this is part of the transition when they grow up and get steadily more independent.

She is clearly doing very well to have her f/t job and that needs to be her priority now.

As you can see she is already booking holidays with her friends.

I can see this has taken you by surprise but this is the new frustration - having previously worked your jols around school terms you now have completely different work constrains wrt your Dd.

Most of the patient facing staff would request to take 2 annual leave weeks and one parental leave week in summer. Those who didn't get their parental leave week in summer would get it in October half term, and then they'd be priority for the extra summer week the following year. It would have had a worse impact if we delayed until September, because all of the new grads and other staff without children were itching to go on holiday as soon as the schools went back!

Admittedly because of the nature of the job and length of training/education required, we didn't have any staff there as young as OP's DD though, where they might still have to factor in siblings still at school.

I think she should speak to HR. It could be she's being discriminated against if it's to do with not being a parent.

It may not just be that the school holidays have been given to parents as annual leave over other people. If you have alternative working patterns such as term time only or part year that can also reduce the scope for annual leave at those times, as the staff pool will be smaller. That's not so much of a problem in a very large organisation, but if there are less than 10 staff in a team and 2 are term time only it will have an impact. There's nothing you can do this year, but maybe try and book long weekends over Bank Holidays if she isn't in a job where she works them, so you get a family break. Would she feel confident to ask how holiday is allocated as well so she knows how requests are allocated? At least that might give some idea of how much of a chance she has of getting summer dates next year.

When I was much younger this used to happen to me all the time in the NHS and while I can understand it now as a working Mum it's not exactly a fair system. We had a situation once where someone had leave approved and had booked a skiing trip, the manager then withdrew the permission as someone with kids had forgotten to request half term off !

It's unfortunate OP but I think feeling sick over it is a bit much.

Long-term though I think your daughter would be better off looking for an alternative workplace, I have worked somewhere similar where the holiday rules were so strict that parents had to book up the school holidays on day 1 that the booking system opened and it was awful. I didn't even have children at that point but the atmosphere wasn't good and it wasn't a fair way to treat employees.

Lots of workplaces are much more flexible than this.

I think this is obviously going to affect you more due to your autism. As you said the change of plan itself is going to have an impact it wouldn’t have on the rest of us. Is it possible she has said she can’t get the time off to ease you into the transition of her growing up and no longer coming on family holidays?

She is entering the world of adulting and working. Not always getting the leave you want is part and parcel of the working world (speaking as a manager who has just had to decline a request today - I hate doing it but sometimes it is just not possible to grant every request).

That's really tough and if others have had their leave agreed, not a lot can be done unless someone will swap with your daughter.
It may be worth her having a conversation with her manager, explain the situation and to ask if there is a way of making this fair for everyone in future years.
Our team, put their requests for leave during school holidays in at the same time. They ask for all of the days they would like and mark 2 of their weeks as their highest priority. Our manager then reviews all of the requests together, agrees the priority weeks first and then tries to be as fair as possible with the other requests, with a bit of negotiation between team members, most people are generally happy.

She has not been denied every single request.

The dates for her holiday with her friend have been granted.

I’d feel the same op. I work in a shop and last year couldn’t get holidays off. Whole family missed out. It really sucks!

I can see why you are upset OP. My family set up is similar to yours. This year is the first year my dd is working also. I don’t think my dd will be allowed time off during summer holidays as many of the people she works with with have children and will need time off to share child care (which is kind of fair).

Your dd has been given time off for one of her requests. It sounds like you go in holidays often? Dd has been lucky that growing up she has been able to experience going away with you. I would still love to be able to take my daughter away with me also, my dd has ASD and doesn’t really have friends to go away with. We have a holiday once a year (in the uk) and possibly one festival a year, I know this year dd may not be able to come unless it’s out of school holiday dates. Luckily my other dd finishes college a couple weeks before schools break up so we will go away then but it will probably be a Friday-Monday so dd only needs to book 2 days off work.

My dd will only likely put in for one holiday this year. If it’s their first year working I think I think it’s more likely to be turned down.

I actually cannot believe what I’m reading 😂. When I worked for a company, my “request” for work was me giving them notice I’d be off. There’s no way in hell I wouldn’t be taking the time regardless of what they said.

shes 17 ffs. Tell her to either call in and self cert, or get signed off with anxiety for a few weeks and go on the holiday. Either that or just find another job. What the actual hell? 😂

She’s an adult with a FT job. Same as the rest of us who work - some of our leave requests are authorised and some aren’t because there’s no availability.
I get you’re sad and disappointed but this is how it is when people work.
Can you rearrange the holidays to when she can have some leave?

The job market for young people is hugely more difficult than it was 10, 20 or even 30 years ago. Our middle grandson (23) was made redundant in May from the job he is fully qualified for because of market downturn. It has taken him nearly 8 months to find another, despite multiple applications and a good number of interviews. OP's daughter would be mad to leave her first job until she has some proper experience to show future employers.