20th Century Fox Home Entertainment via YouTube

Man Finds Clever Loophole After Company Cheats Him Out Of His Vacation Days

Published October 8, 2021

For the most part, bad companies to work for have a way of blending in with the crowd. After all, places that are obviously toxic and dishonest before you've even started there don't tend to last very long.

So if you find a job that turns out to be much crappier than it seemed, it's often hard to know that until you've been there for a couple of months, if not a few years.

And those kinds of jobs tend to leave us feeling trapped because the same places that trick people into applying also have ways of tricking them into staying.

This is a sadly common problem for people, which makes stories where they managed to find a clever way to come out on top endlessly satisfying. And as we're about to see, those stories can end up giving us some pretty good ideas to keep in our back pockets.

Back in 2015, the man we're about to hear from worked for what he described as "a pretty dismal call center."

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment via YouTube

As he explained in a Reddit post, most of this company's employees were temporary contractors and the management was able to treat them unfairly by hanging the possibility of a permanent contract over their heads.

By the time the man's story began, he had been working there for two years and actually did manage to secure one of these coveted permanent contracts because his managers wanted him to be a team leader.

But while this position was more secure and paid slightly better, the man noticed one important downside to it.

Warner Home Video via YouTube

And that was the fact that while temporary contractors had their unused vacation days paid out in April, permanent contractors either used their days or lost them.

Considering that the man had three weeks of vacation days and that he started his permanent position in March, he had planned to book three weeks off before April rolled around.

However, any attempts to book time off in March were soon blocked, which the man was fine with as long as he was paid for them.

Twitter | @JoeBrunoWSOC9

And after being reminded that he had to use his days or lose them, he replied that he was trying to use them and they wouldn't let him.

To this, his manager simply shrugged and said it was the "duty of the employee to manage their holiday time wisely and I should read my contract."

This was despite the fact that he hadn't even seen his contract until late February.

Clearly, the company was trying to cheat him out of his vacation days and figured they had used his contract to put him in a no-win situation.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment via YouTube

But while the man was obviously upset, he ended up taking his manager's advice in a way they certainly didn't intend.

As he put it, "I went home and read my contract from beginning to end and discovered my manager had overlooked one crucial part of the paper work."

What was that? Well, he noticed that after he gave a week's notice, any unused vacation days had to be paid in full to any exiting employee through their final paycheck.

So the next day, he announced that he was quitting unless he was either allowed to take his requested vacation time or received payment in lieu of that.

Paramount Home Entertainment via YouTube

An when his boss asked if this was really worth quitting over, he in turn asked if it was worth losing one of their most reliable employees over.

As the man put it, "He wouldn't budge, I assume he thought I was bluffing."

But he wasn't and quit as promised, which then entitled him to payment for his unused three weeks' worth of vacation time.

He was also sure to mention to that manager's superior exactly what made him leave, which likely shone a floodlight on the manager who hassled him in the first place.

h/t: Reddit | NewBromance

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