Why is my boss allowed to take vacation in the middle of a production?

July 28, 2016 8:00 AM

My boss has only been working there for less than 4 months

We are in the middle of production on a tv series and we only have 2 people on the admin/production team, me and my boss. Its been extremely hectic and will be for the rest of the summer.

My boss started working here like 4 months ago, and I started 9 months ago. I was promoted about 2 months ago (still waiting to get a new contract-- but i get to negotiate pay after a 3 month probation) to be on the production side, but before I was just an Exec Assistant. It's my first time working on a documentary which is currently in production (which is fascinating but extremely stressful). I dont know what I'm doing, and I wasnt given any training. But I'm really smart (sorry not sorry) and I learn really quickly, so it's going ok so far (ie: no catastrophes yet).

But making me do everything for 2 weeks by myself, when even with 2 people we have been working 12 hour days?? Why??

Why is my boss allowed to take 2 weeks vacation in the middle of the summer, when she has only been working here 4 months? I'm taking mine in October, because I realized how busy the summer would be and i didnt want to leave anyone in the lurch. Why does my company allow such irresponsible behaviour?

Can I complain about this without seeming like a tattle tale? How can I frame the discussion?

I shoudl also mention that no one likes my boss. She's overly critical, a control freak, micromanaging everyone, treats people like her assistants who arent her assistants, and doesnt understand the culture of the company or make any effort to adapt herself to it.

posted by winterportage to Work & Money (32 answers total)

No. Don't touch this with a ten foot pole. You haven't been there long enough to have any sort of leverage in this situation. Keep your mouth closed and see what happens.
posted by pintapicasso at 8:02 AM on July 28, 2016 [46 favorites]

Response by poster: Can I use this to ask for overtime pay at least? I was told I'm supposed to bank overtime hours for.vacation time. But I would much rather be paid ( the law says they have to pay me time and a half ,though they don't seem to care much about laws)
posted by winterportage at 8:05 AM on July 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

This reads a little more like a rant than a question, but one possibility regarding the specific question in the title is that maybe she already had vacation plans when she got the job offer 4 months ago, and said "I will accept the job offer but you should know that I already have this time blocked out for vacation," and they said "Okay."
posted by dfan at 8:06 AM on July 28, 2016 [26 favorites]

Response by poster: No, I know for a fact that she planned the vacation in the past 2 months


I just feel so demotivated by this and I need a way to feel better
posted by winterportage at 8:08 AM on July 28, 2016

Can I complain about this without seeming like a tattle tale?

Nope. Don't touch this. First off it was likely negotiated upon her hire. Secondly you're never going to look good going after someone's approved time off.

I shoudl also mention that no one likes my boss.

If this is true you can best serve yourself by not gossiping or talking negatively about her, working hard and waiting for the inevitable.
posted by French Fry at 8:08 AM on July 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

If you think you're being stiffed on overtime, talk to an employment lawyer. The employment lawyer may well tell you that even if you are legally right, that pursuing would bring down worse problems on you than not getting overtime pay, but at least you would know the law, and you could decide what to do.

"Using this" to get overtime pay sounds childish and blackmail-y...Like a kid saying "But my sister got to go to camp when she was my age....*stomp*" or whatever.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:10 AM on July 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Why is my boss allowed to take 2 weeks vacation in the middle of the summer, when she has only been working here 4 months?
No one here could possibly answer that.

Why does my company allow such irresponsible behaviour?
No one here could possibly answer that.

This really comes across as more of a rant than a question to be answered. I understand that you're very stressed and resentful, but how much people like or do not like your boss has absolutely nothing to do with anything. She somehow got to take a vacation in the middle of production, and you are angry. Understandably so. Just keep doing what you normally do, and when production gets backed up or behind schedule, you can say "I am alone this week and doing my absolute best to keep things running smoothly", and comments to that effect......comments that make you look good, without slamming your boss. What about asking for an assistant for that week?
posted by the webmistress at 8:11 AM on July 28, 2016 [17 favorites]

There's nothing you can do about your boss taking vacation. But try to view this as an opportunity. This could be your time to shine. Don't complain to anyone. Start figuring out now what you need to be successful while your boss is gone. Can they hire an assistant for you? Start watching her carefully and learn everything that she's doing. Have a few short meetings with her to make sure you can cover it all. Talk about reasonable expectations with those higher up than you. And hey, maybe they're okay with her taking vacation because they believe you can handle it.
posted by umwhat at 8:12 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

I mean a two week vacation in the middle of summer is not such a crazy thing, and I honestly wouldn't want to work for any company that wouldn't allow me to take time off, even if it is crazy and stressful.

If you are understaffed, that is the company's fault.

If you are not getting overtime, that is the company's fault.

None of this is germane to your boss getting two weeks off, which is completely reasonable, even if she's only been working there 4 months.
posted by peacheater at 8:14 AM on July 28, 2016 [34 favorites]

It sounds like you're still in the "paying dues" part of your career and your boss is not. I'm not sure who you would complain about this to, but anyone who can do something about it will see it as you going over your boss' head on a matter that I can guarantee you was resolved between your boss and the person you'd be complaining to.
posted by griphus at 8:15 AM on July 28, 2016 [14 favorites]

No, I know for a fact that she planned the vacation in the past 2 months

Just as a data point, I took last week off from work. I and my boss knew that I would be taking off either that week or this one as of January, but I hadn't made plans and locked down which week until about a month out.

And I'll repeat what others have said above: Do not complain about this to anyone at your workplace. Do you think they'll fire your boss and promote you into her place? Not gonna happen.
posted by Etrigan at 8:22 AM on July 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Why is my boss allowed to take 2 weeks vacation in the middle of the summer, when she has only been working here 4 months? ... Why does my company allow such irresponsible behaviour?

Your boss asked. You didn't. Consider this a lesson in not making yourself a martyr for the sake of the business.

That being said, what are the real consequences of your boss being out for this time? If you're working even more hours, that should be acknowledged and you should probably be compensated accordingly. If deadlines are going to slip, then your boss (or your boss's boss) needs to acknowledge and own that. If there is too much work for you to complete by yourself, you need to make sure that the powers-that-be know about it. But that's really the only reason you should think about bringing the vacation up to anyone there.

Can I use this to ask for overtime pay at least? I was told I'm supposed to bank overtime hours for.vacation time. But I would much rather be paid ( the law says they have to pay me time and a half ,though they don't seem to care much about laws)

I wouldn't use the fact of your boss's vacation to ask for overtime pay, but you'd be absolutely within your rights to ask for overtime pay in lieu of vacation time for at least part of the overtime that you are banking. Without knowing more about your jurisdiction/employement agreement, it's hard to know what the law really says about what they have to do, but offering "comp time" is a thing that employers do all the time. If you would rather be paid out do what your boss did and ask.

I shoudl also mention that no one likes my boss...

This is irrelevant to the question of what you should request from your employer, but I think it's extremely relevant as to why this bothers you so much. Your dislike of her is, I think, causing you to overreact to her (seemingly reasonable) actions. Instead of being upset about this, it might be more productive to focus on how much you might enjoy a couple of weeks without her around.
posted by sparklemotion at 8:24 AM on July 28, 2016 [29 favorites]

Don't bring this up. You don't know the reasons behind it. You don't want to be like those interns who pushed back against the dress code, pointed out a person who got to wear something different, and then found out that the person was a veteran and an amputee.

If you want to speak up about what's going on, keep the conversation focused on your own workload and how to alleviate/manage it better. Don't focus on "how come this one person gets to do a special thing?"
posted by cadge at 8:31 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

How about you ask the production company (whoever employs both of you, cares about the quality of the production, and controls funds and hiring) to hire someone to help out while your boss is gone? Obviously, if you're working 12-hour days already, there's too much work for one person. Bonus: you might get some experience supervising someone.

If the temprary person ends up working _under_ you, you'll have to be _very_ careful with hiring, planning, and managing. You might also want to get someone with experience to mentor you (maybe by phone) to help smooth things over - supervising people is hard.

On the other hand, is there a chance that there are already plans to bring in someone else to fill in?
posted by amtho at 8:34 AM on July 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: There is honestly no way for us to know why your boss is allowed to do this at this time. However, there are many things that are entirely "unfair" in the workplace that we all have to put up with because managing people in an organization is complex, depending on everyone's lives, the goals of the organization, what people have negotiated for, and personalities.

Keep your eyes on your own work. Complaining about your boss won't solve the problem and won't get you anything in return, and actually could be detrimental to your future career where you are.
posted by xingcat at 8:34 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I was told I'm supposed to bank overtime hours for.vacation time.

Just for the record, if you're not overtime-exempt (which is a matter of law, even though lots of companies act like it's something that they can decide based on their own whims) this is illegal. If you work more than 40 hours a week, your employer is legally required to pay you overtime at 150% of your regular hourly rate.

(Assuming this is in the US, IANAL, TINLA)
posted by firechicago at 8:35 AM on July 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

If you're an exempt employee you might not qualify for overtime. New rules that will apply to exempt employees don't take effect until December 1st of this year.

In any case the time to negotiate for vacation, overtime, more benefits, higher salary, would be after your probationary period ends. Doing so in the middle of a probationary period isn't going to help you when the 90 days are up.
posted by brookeb at 8:35 AM on July 28, 2016

Why is the boss allowed to? Define "allowed". She's going, and nobody has told you whether or not they are unhappy about that because they are professionals and don't talk about stuff like that to employees. So maybe they don't like it - what are they going to do, fire a necessary person in the middle of the project? Or maybe they'll just give her terrible reviews and never hire her again as well as warning their network about her. It's basically none of your business. Your job performance and reviews are your business. So do your job, and as sparklemotion says, follow up professionally about deadlines, assistance, compensation - but don't complain!
posted by aimedwander at 8:36 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Are you or your boss employees or contractors? The movie and TV industry play fast and loose with those distinctions and frequently mis-classify workers, and the govt turns a blind eye until someone complains loud enough. Even then they only enforce that instance, they ignore the systemic abuse of labor classifications.

Um, what's my point? I'm not really sure except that I think if you're going to take any kind of action you need to understand what they classify you as, what the law suggests you are, and what your contract actually says (if you have one).
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 8:51 AM on July 28, 2016

This isn't high school, your higher-ups aren't your parents, and your boss wasn't "allowed" to do anything. Your boss had vacation time and took it.

If this is an unfair or untoward situation, and it's true that "nobody likes her," then since you're "really smart" this is your chance to shut up, double down, and prove your worth. This is an excellent opportunity to knock out the dues-paying stage of your career where you are.

The overtime thing is another issue. It sure sounds illegal, but that's a question for an employment lawyer or some kind of advocacy group. Even then, it may not be personally worth it to you to press the issue.
posted by cmoj at 9:00 AM on July 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Best answer: There are three things I can think of that you can do:

1) Document everything in case this company does betray you later. Document carefully, in case you end up having to pursue some kind of legal remedy for an egregious problem (something clearer than "other person is allowed to take time off").

2) Find someone else in your industry to whom you can pose your questions. Pose the questions sympathetically -- don't be angry at the time you ask them, don't say bad things about your manager, don't imply that she's a slacker, don't imply that your employers are clueless or mean, just ask in a way that acknowledges that you don't know everything and you'd like to learn.

3) Find some kind of _credible_ class that will make you excellent at asking questions, negotiating, or your job, so that you will have power. Obviously you can't pursue it during this production, but if you keep it in mind for later, it could help you feel better. Knowing that you're going to get more power later will make the present more endurable.
posted by amtho at 9:05 AM on July 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Why is my boss allowed to take vacation?"

Because she has unused vacation time, she asked to use it this week, and someone in a position of authority at your company approved it.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:22 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

You are working in an industry that abuses 90% of their workers and treats the other 10% as gods. If you want something fair, go into another industry or work your way up to be the one that sets it right. Your boss can take a vacation because she is closer to the 10% than you are. Also, she's your boss.
posted by myselfasme at 9:44 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Her vacation time is, apparently, in line with the company's position about when vacation time is acceptable. Which means that you don't quite understand what that position is - I suggest finding out so that you aren't pre-emptively denying yourself vacation time in the future that you could have.

For whatever it's worth, this is just a thing in some workplaces. Personally, I work for someone who pretty firmly believes that no matter how busy work is or how shortstaffed, her people deserve some summer time off. She doesn't want us giving our entire lives over to our work because long-term, she thinks the work is served better by people who are happy to be in our office, and part of that is making sure we get to have lives, and that if at all possible we get stuff like vacation time when we want it vs. when workload would be most sensible, as long as we can spread it around so there's *someone* around covering stuff at all times. Sometimes that means one of us has a shitty couple of weeks, but then that person gets to go away and someone else picks up the slack for a while, and ultimately it works out for all of us. Doesn't sound like that's what's going on in your workplace, but I mention it to note that it's not inherently the case that no sensible workplace would allow vacation during a rough time.

You aren't in a position to complain about her vacation. What you are in a position to do is to have a calm conversation about how you cannot do the work of two people while she is gone when you are already stretched to your limit, and so she needs to work with you to come up for a plan for what should be triaged in her absence, whether there's any work that can be given to a temp or someone else in her absence, or how else to handle the situation that you simply do not have 48 hours in a day. That's a 100% reasonable thing for you to do.
posted by Stacey at 9:53 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

ianal...but an employment lawyer in Colorado advised me that comp-time-in-lieu-of-overtime-pay is allowed. BUT, it must be compensated at 150%, just like pay. e.g. work 41 hours, get 1.5 hour banked time.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:00 AM on July 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

The answer to most questions starting "Why is my boss allowed.." is "because they're the boss." I'm sorry to say so but it's true of a lot of industries. This attitude allows for all sorts of incompetent/tyrannical bosses to go unchecked, true, but it also allows for a lot of competent, indispensable, creative bosses to thrive-- and that level of freedom is something for non-bosses to strive for.

She had vaca time, someone approved her vaca time. Presumably whoever approved this knows production is underway. Work-life balance is important to a lot of people and when you get to boss level, one of the perks is that work needn't take over your life.

This sounds like your golden opportunity to prove yourself and one day earn your boss' position. You do this by doing an excellent job and being really pleasant to be around while she's out so the higher-ups wonder why your boss is even there since you can handle it so well. This is NOT a time to complain or gossip. This will backfire.

That said, if you are truly mismanaged, understaffed, shorted on pay, you should bring that up-- but NOT in context of your boss' vacation. Present the problem (insufficient production staff will throw the schedule off x days costing $x, for example), suggest a solution (we should hire an unpaid intern or I can work x hours of overtime at x rate) and leave your boss' earned vaca time out of it.
posted by kapers at 10:02 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Separate the work issues from the emotional issues. Your resentment of your boss is not a work issue unless it affects your work performance; don't let that happen. Being asked to cover all the work while Boss is away is a work issue. Be a professional, work with Boss to develop a plan for the workload.
posted by theora55 at 10:19 AM on July 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Perhaps your boss understands more about the industry than you do, such as that there may never be a truly slow time, or that deadlines often slip later. Not in the same industry, but the first year or two I worked at a big law firm, I put off booking a vacation because of upcoming deadlines, reasoning that I'd book it after we finished the project at the deadline. What I quickly realized was that deadlines were often extended, or a case settled, or a new emergency came up, and if I had just taken the vacation when I initially wanted to, it would have been fine because those dates became irrelevant. Now I put my vacation on a calendar, tell those who need to know, and expect that my organization will plan around it, whether by changing internal/seeking to change external deadlines, or adjusting staffing, or otherwise.
posted by Caz721 at 10:27 AM on July 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Your boss may have simply told the employer that they had time blocked (but not booked for a vacation) and would need to have that time so they could come on board. It might not have been that they knew they were going to Paris or Cancun or whatever. They might have told the employer that it had been a very long time or that they had made a commitment to family. So this is good to know when you apply for jobs in the future - if they really want you, you do have some leverage in negotiations. When I was starting out, I found this very confusing, because I'd grown up in a union town, where you couldn't take vacation till you'd worked for a year and then it was based on seniority. It was a real shock when I started working in the private sector and found out there were different industry norms, not just for the private sector, but for industries too.

In terms of using it for leverage, no, don't do this. If you think you are not being treated fairly, keep the focus on you, employment standards, your contract and so on. You don't want to undermine your boss and you don't want to be making arguments based on other people. You might want to call a lawyer referral service and spend the $25 to run it by them. Or you might want to talk to a coach or a counsellor or get a mentor. I had a lot of anxiety when I started working and did some therapy around that, but it turned out that what I really needed was a mentor to explain industry norms and approaches to me. I was trying to change industries and social classes and a counsellor explained to me that I was really more like an immigrant coming to a new country and that I needed some people to help me learn what society was like in my new environment. Once I had some people to help me understand what was going on, it really helped. I remember asking my dad how to negotiate salary and he had told me my employer would just look it up in the book and tell me when I was due for my next pay increase and what it would be. But that wasn't how it worked outside a union or government environment. Having more information and guidance from people who knew how to navigate really helped me get ahead.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 10:33 AM on July 28, 2016

At my mother's place of employment, no one can take a vacation in the last month of the fiscal year (which I think in August, but I don't remember). It sounds like there should be something like this in place at your job. Your boss asked for the vacation and was granted it, but it wasn't the best move for her. I agree with everyone above that you shouldn't say anything, but document everything, and feel free to place your needs above those of the business. Get your overtime- if you don't want the vacation time, they can't make you work overtime and not pay you!

Sorry for this.
posted by serenity_now at 11:18 AM on July 28, 2016

Something to note if she had a vacation planned before she started she may well have made having that time of part of her hiring. My husband did something similar so he didn't miss a close family members wedding after starting a new job, he offered to take time off without pay as wouldn't have accrued enough hours to be paid for the time, but they basically let him on credit for that time. If someone is important enough to the company they get a lot of leeway.
posted by wwax at 12:00 PM on July 28, 2016

She's overly critical, a control freak, micromanaging everyone, treats people like her assistants who arent her assistants, and doesnt understand the culture of the company or make any effort to adapt herself to it.

I am guessing her holiday amounts to some kind of stress leave. Or who knows what's going on in her personal life, right?

Ask for some help with the extra work. Not like, "I need help because I deserve it"; like "these tasks are incompatible with these other tasks on this timeline for one person, how can we address it?".
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:15 PM on July 28, 2016