Employee won't swap shift with coworker with holiday crisis, gets called 'heartless.'
When this employee is conflicted, they ask Reddit:
'AITA for not giving up my Xmas time off to coworkers with children so they can meet their grandmother one last time?'
I work for a large company that has other companies as customers. Our company have standard templates or can build custom products for our customers. I’m part of a team that installs, tests, and monitor custom products.
Recently we did a 3 week out of state installation and test for a customer. During this period, my teammates rotated flying back home to visit their families.
Because I’m only one who’s single and have no family, I volunteered to not rotate out and worked so that my teammates could have extra time with their families. I spent the entire 3 weeks working.
We finished the installation and testing so we’re all home now. However, we’re in the monitoring phase which includes flying out on a moment’s notice if something serious happens.
My manager and his boss (VP) noticed the work I put in and the rotations I skipped to get everything smoothly online so they commended and rewarded me with a week’s paid time off for Xmas.
The situation is that a couple of teammates already had approved time off for Xmas. Now that I have that week off too, the monitoring falls on everyone else which means no one else will be able to take time off.
When they found out I had that week off, they started to try to get me to switch. Some tried to bribe me with food and other stuff while others tried to beg. One called me selfish/heartless.
A couple of coworkers are telling me their families can’t go to Xmas gathering because they can’t get that time off. One person is telling me this might be her grandmother’s last Xmas, its a crisis situation, she's really sick and she needs to take her kids to see their grandma.
I’m feeling really bad about it but I’ve turned them all down. I don’t have anything to do or anyone to spend Xmas with but I worked for 3 straight weeks and am burnt out. I had plans to binge shows and play games which makes me feel even more guilty.
Am I TA for refusing to switch?
Let's find out.
impossiblewolf89 writes:
NTA. If your coworker has a family emergency she needs to talk to her supervisor and work it out. It is not your responsibility to ensure your coworkers can have time off it is theirs.
mamawheelsxo writes:
NTA. My husband works a similar type job... Robotic farming equipment and installs all over. This is what they signed up for. This is what their families signed up for.
As I'm understanding from your post, you guys AREN'T rotating flying out to check in the project... Just rotating being ON call... Which I'm guessing you've all understood as part of the job.
So I'm guessing everyone else is still off over the holidays, just having to share the on call load more and you get to be completely off and off call? If that is the case... NTA x100000.
My husband is like you... We've sacrificed a ton as a family with 3 young kids, because someone always has a more Important 'thing' and he's a hard working nice guy. Took a lot of extra on call rotations, did a lot of extra work...Took a lot of years to learn to set healthy boundaries and just say nope.
But the hard work pays off! He's now one of the top guys in the company.
Your bosses made the call, not you. Enjoy your much deserved time off... Working 3w straight and I'm assuming being on call / working massive days as there no 9-5 is so insanely exhausting.