Incoming! Last year, end of November, a coworker requested time off in conjunction with Christmas holiday and was denied. She was denied because she lacked* 1 or 2 days of the total amount of requested number of days. She told them, I understand that I do not have enough days, but this is a very important trip, so I would be more than happy to take the extra day or two without pay. They said no (no legitimate business purpose for the denial, just no). I won’t bore you with details, but trust me when I say that due to the nature of our work, it would have made absolutely no difference whether she took these days off in Dec, as requested, or waited another month or two to build up the requisite amount of hours. The problem for her, of course, she didn’t have the luxury of waiting. This trip was happening with or without her.
She tried again to explain to them that the reason that the trip was so important was because it was a trip to visit with family in India, which would be the last time she could spend time with her terminally ill mother (who emigrated to USA many years ago). They wouldn’t budge, so she essentially told them, I have limited time left with my mother, and I am going on this trip, so if you are going to fire me over it, that is your decision. And they did. They literally just let her go, out of spite. I have worked with her for almost a decade, she has consistently had good performance reviews, and now our team of 10 is down to 9 (we were a team of 12 earlier in the year, but had already lost two other people, because they transferred to other departments due to the lack of management support - starting to see a pattern here?).
Despite my already exceedingly low opinion of management, even I was shocked by the way absolute absence of empathy in this situation. Solely to flex their muscle, a valuable employee is now gone, which only hurts the business (not her, she’s fine. Thank you, FU money). I told her when she left, I know this is a difficult decision and many people would not make the same decision or understand why you have done what you have done, but I completely respect you for having the courage of your conviction that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. You won’t get this chance again, and I firmly believe that when you look back on this decision, you will have no regrets.
*She had a lower than average leave balance at this point, because she had taken some time off to care for her mother when she was initially diagnosed. Management was well aware of this. It should also be noted that there is office precedence for taking LWOP, even for just vacation purposes. This well known practice was another reason that I can only conclude that their decision was made in spite.
Moral of the story: if she had NOT had the FU money, she probably would have had to accept the denial and live the rest of her life with regret over missing those final days with her ailing mother. As so many others have said, FU money gives you options.