Holiday scheduling

[thomkat]

Long time lurker here.  I usually just read what is going on and move on but I would like some opinions today.   I work for a large company (international, over 100,000 in total) our department is 48 people.  We have always scheduled our holiday by seniority.   I have been with this company 12 years, I have 4 weeks a year.  This year another assistant was able to schedule hers first and wants the same time as I do.  She only has 2 years or less at the company!  I had had a simple medical procedure done when they filled out the schedule for this year (which was back in mid December)  It slipped my mind because taking time off was never a problem.   My sister is getting married in Italy and she is staying home but is having some company come into town.  Am I being selfish to want to take a week off when I missed the actual scheduling?   I know they would give her 1 or 2 days off but don't want both of us out at the same time for a full week or more.  I have asked for it and was told, talk to this other person and work it out.  I think she is avoiding me because she knows what I am going to ask?  What would you do?

[gee4]

Thankfully I don't have this problem in my current job, but I did quite some years ago.

It was more or less the same, senior person gets priority.  However a young girl started in my office.  She was not my assistant but I was the office manager at the time.  She argued with me one day that she had every right to take holidays when she wanted despite me trying to explain the procedure.

I swear that people are a law unto themselves sometimes.

If this individual is approachable, go and talk to her, explain the situation.  People should be reasonable in these situations but end up becoming selfish making us resent them.

See how you get on first and then go from there.  Perhaps your holiday period could overlap each other for a few days which wouldn't matter so much and that way you could each still get a week off.

[msmarieh]

Are you two the only administrative professionals in the entire department? If not, I would go talk to the remaining admin and ask if they are ok with working without the two of you. I would ask them to justify why two admins cannot be gone the same week (unless you actually are the only two of course).