If you were of the spiteful kind, I’d put in a flexible working request to work three days a week or half days over that summer period so you could look after your kids

they can refuse it, but there’s just oh so many ways the boss can trip up on the correct process for handling a request, especially if he’s basically not that bothered and a bit of a ****…

Yeah – that’s pretty bad 🙁

My student job was working in The Bailey in Stockbridge. When I had an interview, I made a point of mentioning that I had a holiday booked in a couple of months. The boss was cool about it and fetched the holiday book for me to record the dates.

The week before the holiday, I was surprised to see I was on the rota to work through the following month. Checked the book and my hols had been tippexed out (badly) and someone else’s hols written on top. Complained, got told to suck it up, so went down the next morning when the ‘soft’ boss was on and told ‘soft’ boss that nasty boss had OKed a months wages in advance. She gave me them and I never darkened the doors again 🙂 Grand! Had to ignore a few threatening phone calls though…

The brutal reality is that a business owner can do what the hell he/she wants.

He/she hired you to build their dream and because you aren’t doing that for yourself, you put yourself at their disposal and accepted their offer in the first place.

Why should they accommodate their staff? That would be like the tail wagging the dog, but all good managers consider the feelings of those who are assisting them in achieving their goals. Maybe your boss hates his job and the business and just can’t be bothered to consider anyone but himself. If he feels like that, the business will eventually fail.

Getting time off work in summer holidays is always difficult. I can remember the bad feeling that arose between me and a team leader. He had no kids and had been trying with his wife for years. He deliberately **** up my chances of a holiday and my wife said she would go with the kids without me. This started a rift with my wife, so the whole situation sucks.

If you want freedom to take time off, start your own business. Hopefully you will make enough money and have the flexibility you desire. From personal experience, I ca tell you that earning a crust whilst standing on your own two feet is very much harder than getting a pay cheque at the end of every month.

If you like the regular money that permanent employment brings, you should switch employers, but expect a different or similar flavour of shit from them too.

I wish you luck in whatever happens.

Already booked my trips for May and July, last October and said to the rest
to use the quiet periods when the rest of the UK have there holidays pretty simple.

I worked in a small business (12 emp) once where the boss said exactly that to us “if you don’t like it f^&k off”. Within 3 months he’d had 100% staff turnover and lost good people; even the clients were asking him what he’d done.

Clearly he’s a conceited bully, but he knew there was no shortage of canon fodder out there to fill the empty shoes. These people know they can act with impunity as they are unaccountable. The blame can easily be loaded onto a scapegoat so they inevitably breeze through life, convinced of their egotistical self-importance and arrogant self-denial.

IMHO, its best to work for yourself and be free of nasty office politics. At some stage in your working life, you will have that choice, so it will then become a decision based on how much you get paid to put up with the crxp versus the challenges of going it alone.

Build your dream before someone hires you to build there’s!

Other people’s children are like other people’s dogs – noisy, messy and you have no control over them. Why go on holiday at the most expensive time of year and share the plane/hotel/pool with the little bug darlings if you don’t have to?

The brutal reality is that a business owner can do what the hell he/she wants

No they can’t there are laws to protect employees. And unless there is something in the employment contract they cannot prevent holidays being taken.