Annual leave vent

[didshedidntshe]

Hey all, I guess I just want to vent a little bit. I work for a very small wealth management company, in the company is me, my manager (the founder who I am PA for) and a colleague who works closely with my boss on the finance stuff.

I get 21 days holiday which is also the same amount of holiday I started on 4 years ago, and me and my colleague have to work around each other regarding our annual leave, which I understand is normal for work places, my boss doesn't like it if we have leave on the same day but it has happened a couple times in the past. Also there is nobody to cover me when I am off which I find frustrating sometimes because it limits how long I can take off, for example, I took 2 weeks off once and my boss said she'd rather I don't do that again.

My colleague is from a different country and has recently moved back to that country but is still staying with us and working remotely however they will now no longer be getting UK bank holidays and will be getting their countries bank holidays instead. Their country gets 11 bank holidays. I have a few days off that I want to book for this summer, for friends weddings so I can't really be flexible with it, and I have just realised that 2 of the days clash with some of my colleagues countries bank holidays, I know my boss will be annoyed by it, but not much I can do considering they are for weddings and I don't choose the date of those.

Just wanted to vent a little I guess because I already felt like my annual leave was restricted a lot by having fewer days than all of my friends and family, not being able to take more than one week off at a time and now having to work around another countries bank holidays gah!

That is the sort of issue that would get me looking for another job tbh. Your leave shouldn't be restricted in any way

That sounds pretty unreasonable. I think you should bullet point the issues in an email and how it impacts you. I don't think it's reasonable for you to only be allowed to take 1 week AL at a time either. It's possibly time for you to look for a new job, with better policies.

I would have to seriously love my job to put up with those kind of restrictions on annual leave.

That would really annoy me - can you look for something else?

Surely time for a new job unless there are some amazing other benefits to staying in this one? As an experienced PA I imagine you could find another post quite quickly.

If you have a child you're entitled to take unpaid parental leave each year :-)

There is no functional reason for the holiday arrangement. You and your colleague have different roles. You will have had different functional job specs and i suspect different salary.

The only reason you would organise your holidays around someone's job is so that you are available to cover their tasks or so that they are available to cover for you.

Or as in this instance your boss wanted at least one of you in the office for company.
Her objecting to your annual leave and not paying for holiday cover would indicate she has less respect than she could have for you and an employee.

I suspect that you are no longer happy in the role and each element may not be a deal breaker but are unlikely to be resolved as a combination without your boss agreeing to a refocusing of your role.

You need to consider if you want to invest the time needed to change the role or if it better to look for a new employer.

Yeah, I'm beginning to look for a new job now, in fact I applied for one today 😁 I can be a massive people pleaser and hate letting people down, I have definitely stayed in this job longer than I have wanted to! Probably by about 2 years! But I need to learn to live life on MY terms!