HR reopens and declines employee's vacation request while he is on vacation, sparking debate

Times are changing, and employees now prioritizing mental peace over a six-figure salary. However, some companies still disregard their employees' well-being, denying them well-deserved breaks. A man on Reddit, u/John_nikey, took to the online community to rant about an unpleasant situation he found himself in. After applying for and receiving approval for vacation, he packed his bags and set off to enjoy a well-earned break from work.

He received the shock of his life when he arrived at his getaway destination and checked his work emails. "My HR re-opened my vacation request to decline it while I was on vacation. I am going to quit once I come back," the employee wrote in his Reddit post. "This is so messed up. I literally just landed in a whole other country, only to see this when I opened my phone. My supervisor tried calling me, but I didn't care about that company or anyone else involved. I swear I was already looking for a reason to quit." The Reddit community quickly joined the debate, with some sharing similar experiences of workplace mistreatment.

u/FrostySparrow shared, "This could be done to clear up old requests if they're behind, an error, any number of things. Don't put yourself out or jump to conclusions. It is shady and stupid if intentional, but you should reach out when you're back." u/mcflame13 remarked, "This is why we need a metric ton of laws that protect the workers and punish the companies. One of them needs to be a law that pretty much states that if the time off is requested at least three months in advance, the company only has one month to approve or deny it. If they do not approve or reject it within one month, then the time off is approved. Once time off is approved, either manually or automatically, the company can't do anything to request that person to come in on their requested time off."

u/dirty_cuban noted, "That's the beauty of at-will employment. They can fire you for taking a vacation they approved because there's no law against it. The only illegal reasons to fire someone in the US are things like race, religion, disability, gender, etc." u/xxdarkstarxx commented, "It might be too early to freak out and go nuclear? Maybe an HR intern is learning the system? I'd say be prepared for the fallout, but don't assume you are in the wrong here." u/bluest_butterfly quipped, "You have a screenshot of the approval, right? That's so messed up! My previous job tried to do the same thing! I had to take off for a doctor's appointment, and they tried to tell me the day that I needed to reschedule it." u/ClideLennon added, "Not sure why you're checking your email while you're on vacation, but stop that. Enjoy yourself."