S
Safflower8
4hrs
WIBTA if I refuse to swap my vacation weeks with a coworker whose kid is throwing a tantrum about a theme park trip?
I am writing this on my lunch break and my blood is completely boiling. I work in a small industrial logistics office managing supply routes. There are only four of us who handle the main dispatch desk, meaning our vacation policy is incredibly strict. We cannot have more than one person off at any given time because the workload is too heavy. Because of this, our program director makes us submit our holiday requests for the entire year back in October. It is a first come, first served system, and I made sure to lock in my two weeks for this upcoming July the exact minute the portal opened.
I have a whole road trip planned through the Pacific Northwest with a few guys from college. We rented a cabin, booked some specific guided fishing trips that have a non refundable deposit, and everything is locked down. I have been looking forward to this for eight months because our winter peak season was an absolute nightmare and I am on the verge of complete burnout .
Yesterday, one of the other dispatchers, Dave, cornered me in the break room. Dave has been with the company a year less than me. He told me that his nine year old son has been obsessed with going to this specific theme park in California, and Dave apparently promised him they would go this July. The problem is Dave did not bother to check the calendar until last week, and he realized my approved vacation completely blocks the dates he needs. He asked me to swap my two weeks in July for his two weeks in late September.
I told him I could not do it because everything is already paid for and my friends already took time off from their own jobs. Dave did not take that well. He started pressing me, saying that September is a better time for a single guy anyway because the crowds are smaller, and that I am ruining his kids summer. He literally said, "He is nine, he is only going to be this age once and he has been crying about it all week."
Now the mood in the office is incredibly awkward. Dave is giving me the silent treatment, and today our supervisor subtly hinted that it would be a "great team building gesture" if I accommodated him since I don't have a family of my own. That part pissed me off the most. Just because I am not married and do not have children does not mean my personal life and my time off have zero value. I earned my seniority, I followed the rules, and I planned ahead. Dave dropped the ball because he cannot manage his own schedule, and now he is trying to use fatherly guilt to make his mistake my problem .
Part of me feels slightly bad for the kid because he is caught in the middle of his dads incompetence, but I am absolutely not throwing away a thousand dollars in deposits and canceling plans with five other people just to bail Dave out. My friends think Dave is being an entitled prick, but the pressure at work is getting real. WIBTA if I just stand my ground and let him deal with his own crying kid?