Manager Denies Remote Worker’s 2-Hour PTO Request For Taking His Dog To The Vet — ‘Why Micromanage Every Second?’
She had a surprisingly good reason for doing so.
LightField Studios | Shutterstock When you work in an office, you obviously have to ask permission before just leaving for an appointment or a similar commitment. But the lines become a bit blurred for things like this when you work remotely.
While some managers are still strict when working remotely, others are much more flexible. One of the more flexible managers couldn’t understand why that wasn’t the norm.
One manager denied her employee’s request for two hours of PTO to take his dog to the vet for an interesting reason.
What seemed like something to get mad about at first was actually quite reasonable for viewers of a video from TikTok user @texturella.
“I just denied a request from one of my team members for two-hours holiday so he can take his dog to the vet tomorrow, and this is why,” she said. “He clearly doesn’t understand me, doesn’t understand how I work.”
“So I immediately looked here, and I thought, ‘What?’” she recalled. “I’m gonna deny it, but I didn’t want to just deny it on the system straight out.”
“I wanted to speak to him first so he can have a little context as to why I was denying his request, and we just happened to have our first one-to-one later that afternoon,” she explained, showing viewers how perfect the situation really was.
The manager denied his request because the reason for his time off did not warrant taking PTO. She insisted that flexible work schedules are essential in the modern workplace.
“I just told him, ‘Just quickly, before we get down to the actual nitty gritty and the actual one-to-one side of things, I wanted to talk about the holiday that you requested in the system tomorrow to go take your dog to the vet,’” she recounted.
“‘I’m gonna reject and deny that,’” the manager said, “‘because if you need to take your dog to the vet, just take your dog to the vet. Don’t feel the need to book off two hours of paid leave to attend an appointment, okay?’”
She instructed her employee, “‘Lock out your calendar for that hour, for that two hours that you’re out. Pop a message in the group chat, or if you’re not comfortable doing that, just send me a message just saying you’re tooling off to attend an appointment, and you’ll be back when you’re back.’”
“We work remotely,” she insisted. “You can work flexibly. Just pop off and do your thing and come back. That’s the whole point of working remotely, no?”
SHVETS production | Pexels
Commenters were split in their response to the manager’s video.
Some TikTok users couldn’t have agreed more strongly with the woman, while others said this did not mirror their personal experience at all.
“I used to think your approach was the norm until I moved outside of [the] U.K. and realized that we have such good work environments in [the] U.K.,” one person lamented.
“The trauma he must have been through in his last team to send this request,” another added.
Flexible working conditions are increasingly popular among employees.
Flexible conditions are more in demand for workers everywhere, whether they’re remote or not.
A study from ManpowerGroup Solutions found that 40% of those looking for a job listed “workplace flexibility” as one of the top three factors they were keeping in mind.
Tima Miroshnichenko | Pexels
Flexible working conditions not only allow for better work-life balance but also actually allow employees to work more.
In the case of this employee who needed to take his dog to the vet, in a strict, traditional workplace, he would be expected to take the time as PTO. In a more flexible environment, he could make up those two hours later, allowing him to work just as long as he would have if he had not taken the time off at all.
Ultimately, it pays off to be understanding of your employees’ lives and needs. Work should never be the sole purpose of one’s life, and allowing for some wiggle room shows that you respect and trust your employees.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.