Restricting PTO requests?!

I work every stat holiday Monday. We're expected to work over the Christmas and new years holidays.

Before I was a nurse, I worked for the county government in the property tax department. We were not allowed to take vacations in May or October in every year. Property taxes in MN are due May 15 and October 15. That's just how it is. It's something you accept as part of the job, or you find a different job.

Some healthcare places I've been restricted PTO the whole season from Thanksgiving until New Year's. No exceptions for staff (but the upper honchos seemed to be exempt).

Being sick during that time was especially frowned upon too.

And if you worked for WalMart, you'd have to work Black Friday (and probably Thanksgiving as well.)

Accountants have to work crazy hours during tax season and no way they'd get vacation then. (So no spring break for them.)

It's pretty common. My husband could only have one person at a time take off work at his job (even if they were totally different jobs.) Which meant once you got down the line of seniority, you were lucky to get off a couple days at the beginning of November and the end of January for your vacation time. Sure weren't going to get off any time that kids were out of school.

In school nursing you get the scheduled breaks off, (which I am not complaining about!) but it is really hard to take time off at other times even if you earned it.

The only bad thing is all your vacations are during "peak " travel times and therefore more expensive!

We'd had the spring restrictions from the beginning, but in May we got the email that fall was off limits also. Two entire seasons. It's already near-impossible to get time off around the holidays because only one person can be off that day/week at a time.

I've never worked in a place that *doesn't* restrict PTO requests. Thankfully we get two days off for Christmas and Thanksgiving, but if we want to take a full week we have to stand in line. Early bird gets the worm.

We don't exactly have restrictions on PTO requests but... I have been in a private practice ob/gyn office since last sept. Before I was hired, I was told we had a prn nurse to call. The reality, when I tried to call her for spring break, was .... she did not return my calls. There is another nurse, but one nurse can't handle running the office for two docs who have pts every 15 minutes... there are no MAs or phone nurses. So currently, we can only be out when our doctor is out. Which sucks when the kids have vacation, or when I got the stomach flu last winter. It's horrible.