Manager who fired half the workforce suspends vacation days for the rest of the staff, sparking debate

Staff shortages in workplaces have become an increasing concern, giving rise to a troubling trend of employee exploitation. As organizations struggle with a reduced workforce, employees often bear the brunt, facing excessive workloads, longer hours and heightened stress. Despite this, many workers silently adhere to unrealistic expectations for fear of losing their jobs. A similar instance of workplace oppression was highlighted when an employee—who goes by u/optimal_lavishness11 on Reddit—shared their manager's new policy that indefinitely suspended all vacation days until further notice.

"Effective immediately, all vacation time will be suspended for all employees," read the now-viral email, where the manager bluntly announced that the new policy would remain in effect until further notice. Additionally, the manager explained that employees could only request time off with approval from the operations manager. "When the suspension has been lifted, the notification will be made," the management added in the mail. Along with tightening the leave policy for all employees, the company also implemented significant changes for trainees to address the ongoing staff shortage.

"Also, effective from today's date, all trainees on the day shift who are in the second phase of training will discontinue training until further notice due to staff shortage," the new policy read. Trainees on the night shift were instructed to continue their training, but they were warned that if the staffing issues persisted, their training might also be discontinued after re-evaluation. "There will be a minimum of fully trained employees on the floor at all times. The trainee will act as the fifth person," the email read.

The Reddit post received an overwhelming response on social media, with most of the audience criticizing the new policy. The employee, clearly frustrated with their company's decision, wrote in the caption, "Also, way to suspend all vacation days indefinitely and still manage to have an attitude with your employees that you're doing this too! This is the result of her own choice to fire half the workforce and give herself a raise instead."

For instance, u/plsnonotthat commented, "Sounds like an abuse of your already agreed upon contract. They cannot unilaterally change your contractual terms. Also, it's a contractual paradox to accrue time off but not be allowed to use it, particularly if it expires. If it expires, I'm lightly confident that it would be illegal to change." u/nathanielturner666 wrote, "I swear when these types are dealing with a sinking ship, they start poking more holes in the fu**in ship. If you're bleeding employees because of a s**t work environment, making it shi**ier for those that stay is absolutely moronic."

u/deutschmexican15 wrote, "'Vacation' really speaks well to this supervisor's lack of attention to detail. It sets a bad example for employees and as a representative of the company. Of course, the content of the message underscores their shi**y management capabilities, so I guess it's par for the course." u/marcus_krow commented, "I'm gonna be honest with you OP, I thought this was satire. That's how f*****g inane this message is. Everything your manager said in this email was self-defeating, every single problem was met with an action to worsen it! This reads like something an evil CEO would send out in a shi**y 2-star self-insert novel, where the main character is abused by said CEO, only to have his actions cost him everything thanks to some witty plan MC thinks up. Your manager is a f*****g cartoon antagonist."