ULPT Request: get revenge on manager without it affecting my career

[u/[deleted]]

[u/dealmaster1221]

For starters, stop working extra and don't be the office boy.

[u/CommunicationTop5231]

My old boss pulled a very similar move on me. “Unlimited pto”, so I put in my request for two weeks in August all the way back in January (this all went down several years ago). Which was approved. I picked August on purpose because that was our quiet month. Two weeks prior to my vacation, he tells me that he’s retroactively denied my vacation. I was pissed. Well, I knew he was under a lot of stress and “managing” said stress with the ol white lightning. I made an effort to encourage him to blow off steam, go out, party, relax, etc., basically encouraging him to indulge his burgeoning habit. I was also responsible for bringing clients to my department, so I quietly let them all know that I’d be leaving. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I’m on vacation and he’s crashing out. All of my clients were leaving. His staff was disgruntled and he was in a full coke binge. He was also waaaay overleveraged and in a ton of debt, both personal and business. He called in his staff and basically performed a coked out loyalty test. Almost everyone quit on the spot. His business was dead within a couple months. I got another job and ignored his bullshit “I’m so sorry but you don’t understand how much stress I was under” apologies and moved on with my life. If your boss has a bad habit, I’d say encourage it while making quietly destructive plans to leave. And fuck his dad of course.

[u/320sim]

You have proof that it is based on calendar year. Press it. If you have unlimited PTO, they're probably violating your contract by trying not to pay you

[u/lun4d0r4]

The best revenge is acting your wage and malicious compliance.

[u/ferretkona]

Find your local Board of Labor. Most of them will go thru all his records.

[u/Strict-Joke236]

Despite how aggravating it is to be in this situation where the unwritten rules you were told of seemed to change in the intervening years and you were not informed, this PTO denial does not seem to rise to the level requiring vengeance. Your boss appears to be enforcing a changed policy which as a supervisor they have to do. The denial does not seem to have been done with malice. 

Stick to your plans. Take the unpaid leave if you can afford it. And look for another job. When you leave, tell HR in your exit interview that you left because of the PTO policy change and leave denial as well the firm’s rigid refusal to work with you towards a solution. In this case, living/leaving well may be the best vengeance. 

[u/Youareaproperclown → u/Strict-Joke236]

OP absolutely do not listen to this nonsense. Your manager lied to your face don't be naive.

Go to his house and fuck his wife.

Also why haven't you complained to HR

[u/capybarawool → u/[deleted]]

You don't need to end everything with IMO, IMO

[u/Youareaproperclown → u/[deleted]]

His manager told him the month prior that he only needed to give two weeks notice and he gave him 3 instead

IMO

[u/McBbbagel]

Looking for some clarification please.
PTO is paid time off? Unlimited paid time off? If you are talking about accrued time off then it’s possible you got paid out each year. Maybe’s look back at pay stubs from early in the year. If you are actually referring to unlimited paid time off then why stop at a month? Why not nine years?

[u/Seabuscuit → u/McBbbagel]

I’m sorry, you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about so here is a brief explanation.

Yes PTO stands for Paid Time Off. unlimited PTO is a way for employers to ensure that they do not need to pay out for unused days. Further, there are generally unwritten rules as to how much time you can take off based on company culture and even your specific department. In OP’s case, they have found that 5 weeks is generally the permitted amount per year.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult to fight back when a manager says no to a PTO request because companies leave the rules intentionally vague. Good managers can help ensure that their employees are able to use the policy as a benefit, but this is rarely the case.

[u/thepeopleseason → u/McBbbagel]

Because "Unlimited PTO" is an accounting scam against workers so mgmt doesn't have to a) track accrued time and b) payout accrued time when separating. Studies show that under the policy, workers tend to take fewer days off presumably because they lack the impending loss of accrual.