TL/DR: Instead of giving me PTO, my supervisor just takes me off the schedule completely. Three separate instances in the past 15 months.
I've been working for the same university for almost five years now. First three years I never had an issue with my paid time off, ever. I'm not full time, but I work enough to get about 10 paid days off a year. Double checked at the end of the day today and I still have 6 days left of PTO. I also end up using all or most of my PTO every year. There's really no other way around it- I go to a clinic every month or so and it doesn't matter where I go, the appointments typically take 3-5 hours.
My supervisor left in 2022/2023 and was replaced with someone within the same department. Never had a problem with PTO with the previous supervisor. Things were going fine in 2023, until I asked for two days off just after a long weekend in August when our university was closed for Obon. My supervisor knew that my mother would be visiting me and that I would be traveling to Tokyo at that time. I expected to be on the schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday (days I requested off), but I was off the schedule completely. Hours worked set to zero.
Asked my supervisor about it, and the first thing his first reaction was telling me that "I won't be able to make it back until Thursday". Therefore? I don't know if I was vague about requesting for paid time off, but all of my other paid time off requests went through with no issue. This left me pretty flustered, but luckily it all got worked out. I assumed it was some sort of misunderstanding or mistake.
Things were back to normal for the next couple of months. I took time off for my routine hospital visits like normal. By the end of the year I had about four days of PTO saved up, but I ended up having to use the last of it around March after getting influenza. April comes and my PTO resets. Now I have plenty of PTO.
Same thing happens in May. Day requested for a routine hospital visit. The supervisor knows it's for a routine hospital visit, but instead of given PTO, I'm taken off the schedule completely. I mention it to the supervisor, but this time I double check with HR just to be sure. It gets clear up, but after this he is irritable. I start to doubt that this is some sort of mistake.
After May, I ended up scheduling a few appointments on days that were off schedule, and my most recent appointment went through without issue. Last week I requested two days off, one in October and one in November, just after my supervisor asked me what days I needed off for my doctors appointments.
Got my schedule for October on Wednesday. Once again, I was taken off the schedule. This time, I ended up asking him about it, making sure it wasn't a day that was already off. Nope, I was taken off the schedule. I made it clear (a second time) that I wanted to use PTO, and his first reply was "do you still have PTO left?" We were supposed to have meetings
I don't know what this guy's problem is. Three times within 15 months can't be some sort of misunderstanding- especially when most of our communication is either through text and email.
by StillSchill