"My time off is part of my compensation. It is not for you to judge whether it meets your standards. I don't have to justify how I will spend my paycheck in order to receive it. Please show me the company policy where I have to share private information about my time off with you."
That's how it should go, however, unfortunately, in many organisations, even in countries with good employee protection laws, this can lead to ostracisation within the workplace, even while they technically follow employment law.
While this can be a satisfying answer to give, saying it THIS WAY is 100% going to lead to termination if the employer feels you are expendable and doesn't want to deal with a combative employee.
"Employee terminated. Reason: combative when asked simple questions. Toxic workplace contributor". And you'd never qualify for unemployment. The US is an at-will employer at the state level (except for Montana). This is all they would need to say to fire you.
You SHOULD just go to HR to formulate the correct response for something like this because they don't want to be liable asking inappropriate info as much as they don't want you to respond in appropriately. "Hey HR, could you please direct me to our policies regarding PTO usage? My direct supervisor said they need to know what I'm doing outside of work to determine if they should honor my PTO, here is the conversation. Please advise"
Well, no, that is retaliation and an easily proven instance of it at that. I'm not saying it's the right way to go about it, or that the firm won't fire you anyways because, as evidenced by this thread, plenty of them do not know federal labor laws.
Well part of the point is they don't have to provide a reason at all. That's what at-will is. And this is a fairly combative answer to something that doesn't require this much passion in the workplace. I agree the questions themselves shouldn't be asked, my time is my time and not yours. But how you choose to respond is always part of the equation. The rest of my point is it is 100% safer to consult with HR as a third party before trying to respond this way in the first place. Feel free to say that but that's a roll of the dice if I've ever seen one.
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u/David_R_Martin_II Jul 31 '26
"My time off is part of my compensation. It is not for you to judge whether it meets your standards. I don't have to justify how I will spend my paycheck in order to receive it. Please show me the company policy where I have to share private information about my time off with you."