AITA for “not letting” my coworkers go home for Christmas?
Im a young female in her 20s who works very far away from home. I only get to see my family once a year, twice if i’m very lucky. My family is hispanic and lives in a different country than I do, which means they get paid in a different currency. It is very hard for them to be able to afford plane tickets to visit, so they have never been able to come over to se me. My coworkers on the other hand, all have family in the US. Their families are able to visit them every couple of months, sometimes they will even have their families stay for weeks. I am extremely happy for them, but of course the thought of me not being able to have that same privilege saddens me because I would love to share this beautiful place with my loved ones.
In my work, we have a very strict leave days policy. I try to save up all of my leave days to be able to go home for around 2 weeks during christmas/new years time. That being said, I always make sure to submit for my leave at least 6 months i’m advance. Since I work at a small clinic, there is only a certain number of people that can be out at once for leave, so if you want to make sure your leave gets approved, you need to submit it months prior to the days you’re planning on taking.
Right now it’s May, so I started submitting my leave for December today. My boss pulled me aside and expressed feeling like me submitting days for Christmas again felt a bit selfish, and said that it would be better if I let someone else go home for the holidays which completely caught me of guard. I asked one of my co workers if he thought what I was doing was selfish, and he completely agreed with me. He said that he felt it was fair I got Christmas, especially since everyone’s family has been able to visit a couple times in the past year and I have only seen my family twice in the past 2 years. Another co worker jumped in and stated that it may be a bit inconsiderate of me since I already went home for christmas the last year and other people may want to go too.
I completely understand both sides and I and genuinely trying to do what is right. In my mind, I am not being unreasonable. How I see it is, if they wanted to go home for christmas, they would also plan on advance, save leave days, and submit their packet on time. I don’t go on vacations with friends, take days off or submit leave days at all for the entire year to make sure I have enough days saved up to see my family. More than one person gets to go home during the holidays, so I don’t see how me going home again is ‘inconsiderate’. I don’t want to be seen as an A hole to the rest of the clinic. I just want to see my family. AITA?