Coworker tries to shame 'childless' woman into giving up annual vacation for 'working moms' — gets pulled by HR with receipts

People have different reasons to remain childfree. While some may view it as a pricey responsibility, others might just lack parental instincts. However, society often fails to understand that. More often than not, childfree people, especially women, are judged for prioritizing other things over family. In fact, a study by Nida Denson, Diana Ferreira, and Thomas F. Denson found that childfree women were viewed as less friendly than childfree men. A childfree employee from the US realized the full intensity of scrutiny when another coworker asked her to let go of her PTO so she could spend time with her kids. The woman, however, stood her ground and reported the coworker to HR. She posted the incident on Reddit on December 4, where users gathered to share their thoughts and similar experiences.

The company allowed the employees to roll over 250 vacation hours owing to travelling restrictions due to COVID. Just like the past 9 years, she had decided to travel around December and enjoy a long vacation with her husband. However, this time, it was different because of a new hire, Haley, who approached the childfree author and requested her to consider rescinding her leave application so she could travel with her son. The author refused straight away without continuing the conversation any further. However, Haley then decided to involve their boss.

"Haley sent me an email with an itemized timeline of all the time off I had taken this year (our team has a shared calendar, so we can know when the other are out of office) and asked me to please reconsider, and she CCd our boss," she explained. The woman was obviously pissed and immediately responded with a 'no' again. The matter didn't end there because Lisa, the boss, called them both in for a meeting after the cold war via email. In the meeting, Haley accused her of hating kids and said childfree people must sacrifice their traveling for working-class moms. Pissed by the baseless accusation, the woman left the meeting. However, Haley beckoned her in again, saying she would ask Lisa to revoke her PTO to be fair to others on their team. The childfree author immediately attached both her emails and sent them to HR, reporting her for harassment. Consequently, she found out that Haley had been called for a meeting with HR and was most likely to be fired. "I will admit I used the buzz words of harassment and slander to get my point across, but it had been two days of an asked and answered conversation, and I was done with it," she wrote.

Meanwhile, reacting to the post, u/internationalfee9696 commented, "NTA. She started it and escalated it. You just matched her energy. Just because you're child-free doesn't mean people with children are more entitled to your vacation days. You did not overreact."

Similarly, u/savings_telephone_96 wrote, "NTA. She started it by going to your boss and making unfounded accusations because she didn’t like that you had seniority. Yes, you used buzzwords that carry a lot of weight, but your accusations happened to be true, while hers were outright lies. Your company will be lucky to get her out now. People with her level of entitlement always cause problems in the workplace. If she won here, this wouldn’t be the last time she created issues." u/womaninquestion wrote, "NTA. Haley isn’t just a stressed, tired mom. She opted to take wildly inappropriate steps to get what she wanted. If she gets fired, it’s her own damn fault."

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