If your PTO is approved, you should be able to take it. 

This is a pretty simple idea. If you want to take time off, and let your employer know in plenty of time, and if they approve that request– you should be able to take it. That’s the point of approved PTO. But this doesn’t always work out, much to the chagrin of workers, especially the worker in this story, which they shared on the anitwork subreddit. Nobody wants to feel like their time is being disrespected, and nobody wants for their job to misunderstand their intentions. Jobs are precious things, especially these days. They’re not easy to get, and once you have one that you like, they’re worth holding onto for dear life. But companies don’t always make that easy, and they sometimes insert themselves between business and pleasure in a way they they shouldn’t. Sometimes jobs don’t understand that you have a life to live outside of work, and that sometimes that comes first. The employee in this situation was trying to play by the book and do the right thing, but they still ended up being punished for it. When companies change policies, they don’t always think about how it might affect their employees on the ground. They think about the bottom line, not the real-life impact. But when you enact policy without thinking about it, you end up suffering. The employee in this story was put in a difficult place by their employer. Either they cancel their hard-earned time off, or they risk losing their job.