Emalie submitted her PTO through the HR portal exactly 2 weeks ago. She has 60 hours saved up, and if she doesn’t use them by the end of the year, they’re gone forever. It would have been nice to take a day here or there throughout the year, but her manager believed that time off was a “lack of dedication,” although he would never admit this to HR. Emalie held off as long as possible, but after some serious reflection (while finishing a bottle of wine in bed one night and binge watching Too Hot to Handle), she decided it would be stupid of her to let them go to waste. Besides, all those accents on the show gave her the travel bug. So she booked the flight that night and submitted her PTO while she still had some liquid courage.

She drove to work the next morning convinced her manager would make a snide comment or two, but to her surprise he never said a word. It’s for the best, she thought. He would probably scoff at a single girls lone trip to Greece.

Now that she’s on her flight, sipping a first class mimosa, she has 0 regrets. Why didn’t I do this sooner, she thought. I don’t want to be another old person on my deathbed regretting that I didn’t travel more in my youth.

She decided a few hours before her flight that she wanted to disconnect. An Eat, Pray, Love style vacation, if you will. But looking at the gorgeous waters beneath her, the urge to post a humble brag on Instagram is too strong to resist.

Emalie quickly connects to WiFi and her phone comes to life with an absurd number of notifications. Geez, she thinks, I really do need to disconnect.

She scrolls through a text notification from her mom asking her to please text me as soon as you land, and be vigilant because human traffickers target American women! She scrolls through some TikTok and LinkedIn alerts, and about a million work emails. Wait… a missed call from her manager? No, 3 missed calls from her manager.

Her heart starts beating at an alarming speed and a wave of nausea hits her gut like a freight train. She frantically starts reading each email, every teams message, trying to decide which to respond to. She then sees the last one: “No show without notice is unacceptable. Don’t bother coming back.”

Her mouth drops open and tears flood her eyes. No, this can’t be… I submitted through the portal! There has to be an explanation.

She quickly logs in through her phone to confirm, and the request log is empty. 60 hours remain in her account.