[Closed] Parental priority over booking holiday at work

Parents know best
Close the thread, that's all we need to know.

jfletch - Member

That is what is implied in the statement made which basically boils down to "you had 'em so they're your problem".

You can't extrapolate from this that "having kids can only be a lifestyle choice for the well off", that's just nonsense.

but it's literally their only chance.

They could choose to take their kids on holiday in term time. 😉

They could choose to take their kids on holiday in term time

You seen the fine you get for that ?

They could choose to take their kids on holiday in term time.

You seen the fine you get for that ?

Is it more than the money you'd save by getting cheaper flights etc? 🙂

Bloody oversensitive bed-wetting breeders.

Choosing to be a parent isn't necessarily a selfish choice - it's a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice

Volunteering to work in an old folks home yourself would be selfless.
Breeding your own little Mini Me, as part of some global Ponzi scheme of ever increasing population, is not.

Someone has daddy issues.

People without children might want to consider that without parents and children the economic and social systems would grind to a halt. Choosing to be a parent isn't necessarily a selfish choice - it's a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice. Every time you use a service you are being served by someones offspring. Without these future adults who will look after you when you are in your dotage...?

ok I'll admit it. I'm not a parent. not by choice, shit happens sometimes.

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children [i]to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years[/i], but simply because they [i]wanted to have[/i] children. For no other reason than that.

(And in some cases, the children are happy accidents for people that hadn't planned on having any, but that's another story)

back to the OP as we've all gone way off topic here, I don't think it's fair of an employer to give first dibs on holidays to either parents OR non-parents. It's up to you and your colleagues to be fair [i] to each other first, before[/i] putting in any holiday requests.

some people seem to think taking your offspring on holiday is some kind of right. it isn’t it’s a privilege that you either earn or can afford. your progeny will be no worse off for not going away for a weeks jolly
suck it up, quit moaning and skewing the argument towards some kind of favour to society when it’s your own selfish desires you are worried about not the greater good of humanity. if you were that worried about humanity you wouldn’t have more than 1 child and would be training them for palliative care from an early age not telling them to ‘express themselves’.
parenthood seems to flick a selfish switch and addle some peoples brains.

No it isn't.
Volunteering to work in an old folks home yourself would be selfless.
Breeding your own little Mini Me, as part of some global Ponzi scheme of ever increasing population, is not.

Firstly, I'm not breeding a 'Mini Me". I don't need any copies of me for vanity purposes. I am hoping that my children will add value to the world rather than just taking it away.

Secondly, study the effect of population crashes. A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

Thirdly, please don't pretend that being childless is a just a selfless decision - which is what the logical outgrowth of your argument would be.

Forthly, I have done exactly that in the past and I do spend time working for less fortunate people on a voluntary basis. Do you?

I have noticed your cynicism before MTG but not everyone is operating to the lowest common denominator.

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years, but simply because they wanted to have children. For no other reason than that.

Exactly.

Parents playing the martyr routine is the kind of thing that's going to make me less sympathetic when you want to book your holidays.

MrSmith - Member

some people seem to think taking your offspring on holiday is some kind of right. it isn’t it’s a privilege that you either earn or can afford. your progeny will be no worse off for not going away for a weeks jolly
suck it up, quit moaning and skewing the argument towards some kind of favour to society when it’s your own selfish desires you are worried about not the greater good of humanity. if you were that worried about humanity you wouldn’t have more than 1 child and would be training them for palliative care from an early age not telling them to ‘express themselves’.
parenthood seems to flick a selfish switch and addle some peoples brains.

More holes in this that a Tom and Jerry cheese.

A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

😯

what, like a good old fashioned mechanised global war?

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years, but simply because they wanted to have children. For no other reason than that.

Thats fair enough - your experience I guess.

Some people here won't believe it but there are worse things in life than wanting to have a child. It's not some unnatural or perverse urge...

It may well depend on the make up of the workplace too

Adaptations that make a workplace more friendly to, for example, women, in a predominantly male environment, and to allow them to continue their careers may often be a perfectly reasonable and well thought out business move (the policy might be open to all, but experience may show its predominantly taken advantage of by women). In a company that has problems retaining highly trained and experienced staff that they have invested time and money in, policies like this could be a no brainer, a really smart business move.

But the people I know who are parents (including my own, strangely enough), in the most have not had children to provide for the rest of society, hoping that the rest of society will provide for them, in their later years, but simply because they wanted to have children. For no other reason than that.
Exactly.

Parents playing the martyr routine is the kind of thing that's going to make me less sympathetic when you want to book your holidays.

Why play the martyr? Just give and take is most peoples suggestion to resolving the OP's situation. I'm certainly not a martyr for having children. The fact is that society needs reproduction to continue to exist.

A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

what, like a good old fashioned mechanised global war?

Was thinking more of trying to promote a level of reproduction less than the replacement value. Over-population is a real threat and more education on this fact is important.

Some people here won't believe it but there are worse things in life than wanting to have a child. It's not some unnatural or perverse urge...

What about giving birth to straw men?

Thats fair enough - your experience I guess.

It's everyone's experience - people have kids because there are strong biological urges making them want to. That's it. Anyone claiming they had kids for altruistic reasons is a liar, frankly.

Why play the martyr? I dunno - this sounds like my definition of playing the martyr though.

Choosing to be a parent isn't necessarily a selfish choice - it's a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice.

some people seem to think taking your offspring on holiday is some kind of right. it isn’t it’s a privilege that you either earn or can afford. your progeny will be no worse off for not going away for a weeks jolly

As I said earlier (and others have also pointed out) the need for parents to take leave from work when their kids aren't in school does NOT necessarily mean that they will be "going on holiday" with them.

I don't need any copies of me for vanity purposes

Someone has daddy issues.

A controlled reduction in population is preferential.

You'd best get to Africa and start giving out condoms then matey.

Well aware of where the challenge is...! 🙂

If you want to have kids without bothering about overpopulation,

What would you suggest? Stop medicine research? A bit more ebola and AIDS perhaps? Enforced sterilisation in developing countries?

I don't need any copies of me for vanity purposes

This is the bit I struggle with.
If you think you are capable of indoctrinating a child to conform to your idea of adding value to the world, why breed, thereby both increasing the world's overpopulation problem and taking away one more kids opportunity to get out of the orphanage?

**** me you have some serious degree of negativity going on... Perhaps other people bring more positivity and less baggage to the world than you clearly do. You don't hold some kind of high ground here - you have made a choice others make different choices. Yours is not morally superior or more selfless as you imply. I'm not saying mine is either - just suggesting that being a parent is not necessarily selfish as others including you are saying.

Why play the martyr? I dunno - this sounds like my definition of playing the martyr though.

Choosing to be a parent isn't necessarily a selfish choice - it's a more often selfless choice that requires a lot of sacrifice.

Taken totally out of context. I make sacrifices for my children. Don't need you to make any and certainly don't want anyone to feel sorry for me as a result. Having children involves sacrifices made for other benefits too.

(Apart from going to events) I can't understand why anyone would [i]choose[/i] to have days off work when half the rest of the population is off aswell, When I was child free there was no way I was having my hols at the same time as the majority of the unwashed - everywhere is busier and prices sky rocket.

I generally disagree with parents being given priority, however they are kinda forced to take time off during school holidays - whether that's to actually take a holiday or just to look after the sprogs - so if all the kid free people get their hols booked first and parents can't get time off during school hols to look after their kids what happens then? (seeing as how short term childcare availability is somewhat mixed across the country IME)

parenthood seems to flick a selfish switch and addle some peoples brains.

The best trolls are the ones who really believe the BS they come out with.

Go back to alphabetising your designer jeans sunshine, I'm sure they'll keep you happy in your old age.

BTW the people moaning about parents having none holiday time off for their kids might wanna consider the fact that it's [url= https://www.gov.uk/time-off-for-dependants/your-rights ]dependants leave[/url] you may be unfortunate enough to have a loved one who needs your support in the future, isn't it comforting to know you would be able to help them without losing your job (I guess some jobs may not have this cover but this isn't a race to the bottom) Yeah parents are probably the main beneficiaries of this but it works both ways, a lot of our none work time is taken up with this stuff too.

booking the year out on day 1 before anyone else gets a shot at the calendar is out of order too.

Can't have it both ways dear. Someone has to be first to come first to be served, wasn't that the phrase?

<brassneck, currently rifling through the newly released 2015 holiday calendar on the GHR intranet>

Some sort of AV holiday system

(I can't remember where it was- my brother worked for a while at a company that had a brilliantly democratic and fair, and absolutely batshit-crazy-complicated holiday allocation system, you submitted your holiday request and how much you wanted it, and then if there was a tie there was a lottery to see who got what, but the winner of that round then was eliminated from the next round til everyone had their first (or failing that second or third) holidays approved, then it started again with the second choices... You could specify a particular holiday to have extra weighting but then you got disadvantaged for everything else, or you could keep it balanced and that way you maybe didn't get the exact holiday you wanted but you got more of what you asked for on balance... It'd been going for decades, I imagine it used to work on a computer the size of a building. Maybe that's what stonehenge is for.

In this job, I check with the person who covers me (and who I cover) and then we emotionally blackmail each other for a bit and eventually we have an agreement. And then, if she wants a holiday off that I've booked, she just takes it anyway and says "Oh I thought I had that one booked, sorry..." It's all very healthy

i sort the holiday for my dept on first come first served, generally try to accommodate people, but generally leave it to sort between themselves if there's a double booking.

Long and short of it is get your holidays in early.

We do need a good plague, natural disaster, war, comet etc etc

Can't have it both ways dear. Someone has to be first to come first to be served, wasn't that the phrase?

This

Half terms, a week at easter, the middle two weeks of summer hols and xmas eve next year are already booked off by me.

But then I work in a team of 4 and 2 fellas that don't have kids understand.

We do need a good plague, natural disaster, war, comet etc etc

You lot should think yourselves lucky.

I have a shit-storm a-brewin' in my office thanks to a genius in my dept who has tried to book every other Wednesday off for the entire year, thus preventing anybody else from having 2 weeks away in a single block.

I did work for a short while for a company where you could sell or buy additional holidays at your usual pay rate (as long as you took your 28, IIRC that meant you had 4 days either way to play with, more if you had been there longer). That was rather clever.

In another job I had a very big row over the regular use of half days during school holidays (ie. taking the afternoons off) with a boss telling me that they didn't allow half days, despite having used them before (provided an interesting discussion at HR and went a long way towards a later sizeable settlement agreement)

I used to manage a team of about 14 people of a variety of backgrounds. I had to step in a few times as the same people each year would attempt to refuse to cover on-call at Christmas/Easter etc. because they were parents.

In the end I had to rota it. If X got last christmas off then s/he was doing this christmas. It isn't fair on the others who wanted to celebrate/do their own thing and not have their life dictated to by someone else in the team. If someone put their hand up for it then fine, but I refused to give any one person or group of people preferential treatment and treated them all equally.

During half-term it was usually OK as people who didn't have kids didn't bother, but at Easter and Christmas there was usually a fight!

ninfan - Member

I did work for a short while for a company where you could sell or buy additional holidays at your usual pay rate (as long as you took your 28, IIRC that meant you had 4 days either way to play with, more if you had been there longer). That was rather clever.

Yeah, in my old job you could buy extra holidays (you could sell them too but not at full perceived rate so nobody did). Nice addition.

But then, it was declared that only one person was allowed to be off at a time. I did the numbers and it turned out we'd need something like a 90 week year for that to be mathematically possible 😆 So that did offset some of the goodwill.

I have a shit-storm a-brewin' in my office thanks to a genius in my dept who has tried to book every other Wednesday off for the entire year, thus preventing anybody else from having 2 weeks away in a single block.

Yep, heroic!

love it, i guess it would be more open to criticism if it were just wednesdays which fall within school holidays?

I can't understand why anyone would choose to have days off work when half the rest of the population is off aswell,

What, maybe like Christmas?

....Well, you boys have been busy.
We had a proper stand-up row this morning about this, which has resulted in a group of grown men and women sitting sulking in different parts of an open plan office - except for my office manager who suggested that it shouldn't need to become such a difficult problem and that if only we talked to each other we could sort things out! I mean, I ask you, what use is it having someone in a meeting being all sensible.
I did suggest that maybe we should ban those with children from having out of school holiday leave, and that went down really, really badly surprisingly enough.
And if my first transgression wasn't enough, I was hauled up for proposing to use 2014/15 holiday in 2015/16.
I'll let you get back to being rude about each other....

OH is in police Scotland and has suffered the annual bun fight for holidays. They've now decided to assign holidays in two week blocks. I'm a teacher and next year none of our holidays match.

With organisations running very tight on manpower these days, I expect there'll be a lot more unhappy folks regarding holidays.
Mine go in at 00:01 on the 1st of January (thanks to Outlook delayed delivery), hopefully I'll get what I want.

In answer to the OP - I don't think there's any need to prioritise holidays for any group of employees. Too big a can of worms to do so.

We do 2 week blocks for annual leave in the "premium" summer period from around the start of the 1st week in July to the end of the second week in August. We have 10 or so in the team and can only have two off at any one time (unless special circumstances dictate). We work in pairs with the two switching every year and the pairs circulating up the list every year. New members automatically go to the bottom.

We do the same for the premium days around christmas and new year as well, as a system it works perfectly as those with kids get the time they want and those without get whenever they want without question.

We also needed to make a 13 day rule a few years back as one guy was booking off all the weekends to go dancing which was pissing the res of us off, split between 10 you get 13 weekend days off a year and then after that anyone that still hasn't exceeded their quota gets priority up to a week before.

Perhaps instead of bitching at each other people should just get off their holes and do something about it that punishes/rewards everyone equally.

Yay, positive discrimination.

As a non-parent, I'd generally give parents first dibs at time off around those times, it's the nice thing to do (plus, you'd probably need your bumps feeling to choose to go on holiday when the schools are off). But the moment I become obliged to do it is the moment I stop doing it. If I [i]needed [/i]to take time off then, then my reasons should be treated equally to everyone else's. Maybe it's the only week my partner has between two big projects? There's a million reasons why people might be restricted with dates, and I fail to see why "had a shag once" trumps all.

we can't as parents 'move' holidays about in the same way non-parents can.

No, but do the school holiday dates come as a shock? You've got at least a full year's advanced warning, by definition. The childless aren't accountable for parents' piss poor planning. Pick two weeks, get 'em booked the previous September. You've got six weeks to choose from in Summer.

As well as Summer, what about Autumn Half-Term, Winter Holidays, Spring Half-Term, Easter Holidays, Summer Half-Term? That's seven weeks on top of the Summer Holidays; and these aren't national dates, they differ between local schools. That's like a quarter of the year, are all those verboten to us as well?

As a general rule if "traditional holidays" need to be covered then it should be on a rota for everyone.

Agreed, but school timings aren't 'traditional holidays.' "How are you celebrating the end of the school year this year?" said no-one, ever.

Parent of two here. It has to be first come first served, nothing else is fair. If you have nice colleagues then arrange informally holidays that work for all, but if thats not possible then managment should give everyone equal priority in choosing holiday slots.

Probably missed the context of mm comment there Cougar I was meaning Christmas Day/Easter if people are working shifts or public holidays. IE Everyone has to take a turn unless someone really wants to just in and swap.

(plus, you'd probably need your bumps feeling to choose to go on holiday when the schools are off)

The main issue with first come first served is you get the smug ones (couple in here) who drop the lot in on the 1st of Jan so the choice goes down to bugger all by the 2nd. There are things that I want to do that won't have confirmed the dates or even opened entries by then. The ex had to book random weeks holiday at the start of the year just so we could go away in some jobs, meant there was zero chance of meeting up with friends or committing to do anything over the year. Now I'm glad to be out of the entire bun fight.

I was meaning Christmas Day/Easter if people are working shifts or public holidays. IE Everyone has to take a turn unless someone really wants to just in and swap.

Of course; no arguments there.

Unless you are a teacher, or going on holiday with one, or have to make a specific family occasion

Which is exactly my point; they're not parents so don't get the priority, but their reasons or just as valid.

" In a company that has problems retaining highly trained and experienced staff that they have invested time and money in, policies like this could be a no brainer, a really smart business move."

but the highly trained, experienced staff could just as easily be people without childcare responsibilities! my workplace has a problem hanging onto professional women over 27. telling the ones that haven had kids that they can only get leave when everyone else has had theirs won't help; neither will telling the few that hang on, get more senior and don't have childcare obligations (don't have kids or their kids are grown up) won't help that.

besides IMVHE the school holidays argument was mostly used by sweaty male mid managers who had no intention if looking after their kids but just wanted to go to sports events...

but the highly trained, experienced staff could just as easily be people without childcare responsibilities! my workplace has a problem hanging onto professional women over 27.

Right, but you would accept that other companies might have exactly that problem?

So, like I said, it depends on the workplace, but there [b]can[/b] be very good reasons for it

you can certainly come up with all sorts of business reasons why you'd want to privilege one group of employees over another.

btw I meant to write "under 27", not "over 27".

you can certainly come up with all sorts of business reasons why you'd want to privilege one group of employees over another.

Or to be accurate and with reference to an earlier graph, the Developing World needs "a good plague, natural disaster, war, comet etc etc".

Who pollute and consume far less than you do - by about a factor of 32.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02diamond.html?_r=0

So really, it would be far easier to sort the worlds problems by culling overprivileged Europeans and Americans, probably mostly the white ones considering the income distributions of those countries.

be considerate, be thoughtful. Care about others and their needs as well as your own

heh.. Unfortunately this is a state of mind that some folk could only ever hope to fully achieve by becoming parents..

Hence some of the odd attitudes in this thread perhaps 😉

This thread is gold.

The point is - nobody without a child (or partner who is a teacher) is ever going to choose to take a holiday during half-term or whatever.... unless it's unavoidable (like the OP).

At the point that it's unavoidable (ie: 100% of the time) there is no justification for de-prioritizing it vs somebody with a sprog.

The interpretation of whats unavoidable is obviously up for discussion, eg: you don't have kids but are babysitting for your nice/nephew in half term, or are going skiing with a group of people that include teachers etc, all sound "unavoidable" to me.

But in practice, but as long as nobody is being a d*ck about it (eg: arbitrarily taking every other Wed off!) it's essentially just first-come first served.

Hah, anyone feeling hard done to here should be grateful you're not in my position. Girlfriend is a nurse in BC, Canada which means she has to be in the nurses union. Said union has stupid seniority rule which allows the most senior person to have first dibs on holiday. In her office, this has resulted in the very same person ALWAYS getting the prime summer weeks off. Naturally, this woman has no school age (she's in her late fifties...it takes that long in the same position to work up the seniority list) The next most senior has second choice etc. GF now has about 7years seniority and has only just moved off the bottom rung so there's little chance of us ever being able to grab the prime weeks in summer. Fortunately, we don't have kids and would generally never want to take time off when the schools are closed...however, when you want to get out into the mountains of Canada, the season is very short.....

The main one is the not getting sued reason,

it's not, it's a more general point about HR management. anything goes until there is actually the potential for getting sued

Wow, some people's employers sound shit, and some people have real issues!

We get 25 days, plus you can buy or sell 5 at full daily rate, plus we can take 12 'flex days' by accruing hours beyond your contracted 35/week. Holiday is first come first served. If multiple people want time off simultaneously they try and facilitate it by allowing folk to go off 'on call' or something. My whole team (of 3) is off over Xmas - we've divvied up 'on call' days, works for me!

Buying and selling holidays has nothing to do with this "discussion" which is about whether it is reasonable for someone without children to want to take time off during school holidays to watch a sporting event.

...whether it is reasonable for someone without children to want to take time off during school holidays to watch a sporting event.

The answer to which is "yes, of course it is".

What, maybe like Christmas?

That BC senior nurse thing sounds like a load of bollocks to me

*would have thought none-parents cared more about this than xmas tbh
**Don't see the point of easter myself but accept a lot of other people take it like xmas, big family get together.

First come first served.

Agree entirely. The issue is parents HAVE to take that week off. Not because they can afford to actually go anywhere but purely as little Jonny is off school and they have no choice. Zip. But to sit at home with them as holidays are expensive and childcare? Tried getting it for holidays/out of term time?