Spiteful manager throws ‘tantrum’ and denies employee's time-off request for their 21st birthday, employee feels this may be a targeted attack: ‘He’s looking for a reaction’

Listen, being a manager isn't easy. Dealing with scheduling alone is a laborious task if you're trying to find employees to keep the business running at any given moment. Especially in college towns, you run the risk of hiring students who can't work for days at a time. However, when an employee puts in a time-off request promptly, and you have no real reason to deny their request, that's when you step into nonsensical territory. This can be classified as workplace discrimination, especially when you clearly had a bone to pick with your employee moments before you sent out a heated message in the company chat.

When you hire students, you're signing up for this kind of runaround. The student in this story put in their time-off request for the day of their 21st birthday, not really worrying about the possibility of getting their request denied since that had never happened before. The student employee expressed that they by far have the most availability compared to their coworkers, and even stayed extra late during a shift because their coworker forgot they were scheduled to work. Well, this entitled manager grew upset when the student employee didn't want to stay an extra two hours after their initial shift was supposed to end, even though the manager was there to watch over the business until the forgetful employee got to work. The manager then denied the original poster's (OP's) time-off request and sent out a heated message. Did I mention that this manager is taking a week of PTO despite claims of needing availability? You can scroll all the way down to read the entire story with included photos of the messages their manager sent.