Childless Woman Refuses To Give 6 Of Her Paid Vacation Days To A Coworker With Three Kids, Office Drama Ensues
Ask any full-time worker and they'll tell you that their vacation days are sacred. Whether it's one, two, or three weeks of paid time off, everyone is entitled to their holidays and deserves a restful vacation.
But one woman is wondering if she's at fault for not sharing some of her vacation days with a coworker and mother who's had a challenging year. Now, she's taken to Reddit.
The Reddit Post
User ThrowawayAITA5391 took to Reddit's AITA subreddit to get clarity on a disagreement she had with a coworker regarding vacation days and whether sharing is indeed caring.
She begins by explaining that she is a 27-year-old childfree woman and works with a 41-year-old woman who is a mother to three kids. The women have been employed at their workplace for five and 17 years respectively.
The Company Vacation Policy
Their workplace offers a generous policy of 18 paid vacation days per year and unlimited sick days; vacation days are added on January 1 and accumulate over time. People can also share vacation days with their coworkers.
Her coworker regularly takes one or two days each month but had to use 10 days when her brother died and another four when her daughter got sick. Now, she's only left with four vacation days.
Making Travel Plans
The Reddit poster explains that she's been saving up her vacation days for a long time and has now accumulated 44, or about two full months.
The same can't be said of her coworker, however. Her children want to go on a two-week vacation, and even though the travel spot is within their country, it's far away, so "4 days won’t be enough."
The Dilemma
So here's the issue. The older coworker told the woman that as part of the company sharing policy, she wants six of her vacation days to make her kids' vacation dream come true.
"Her justification is that I'm childless and don’t need that many days," she explains. "She says she needs a break more than me."
Am I In The A-Hole?
The woman has been saving her vacation days and wants to go on an extended vacation to Europe. While she empathizes with her coworker for being forced to use most of her vacation for personal matters, she refused. Upset, the coworker said she has "crushed" her children's dreams.
So the woman took to Reddit to ask, "Am I the a-hole?".
Earned Vacation Days
Reddit voted overwhelmingly that the young woman is not the a-hole. Many people said that while it's nice to help coworkers, it's not an obligation. Others faulted the company for making the coworker use 10 vacation days following a family loss as opposed to bereavement leave.
"Your coworker's sense of entitlement is incredible. Those are [the] days that your labor earned, and you get to determine how they are spent," one user wrote.
Different Lifestyles
While having children is no doubt exhausting, Redditors were taken aback by the mother's sense of entitlement and shaming of the woman for not having children, adding that she's just as deserving of a vacation.
"Having kids does not get you the right to other people's time off," one user commented.
An Update
While people had a very strong opinion about this post, the woman later provided a happy ending and update to her story.
"Some other coworkers and I each gave her a day so she could have the full two weeks with her kids," she said.
