This was 3 years ago, I started a new job (big 4 firm). We had to do 35 audits per month, but according to the senior staff, this was a recent chance, the old requirement was 25 audits and was changed to 35 because "they got new software". AKA typical politics, ie "we purchased new software so we need to justify it; the software was not THAT good so everything got made up by more unpaid overtime and working weekends while "pretending" the software was the cause for the +33% increase). It was very hard to do 35 per month, you really really had to buckle down and work and you still had to do at least 4-6 hours ever weekend just to barely make it.
I was new and I asked a question "what happens if I take vacation?" and the reply was "well we arent going to punish you for vacation" so i said "oh okay, its prorated then for the days we miss?" and the responded "yes".
There was 25 workdays in a month and so thats 1.4 audits per day. I took off 4 days total so thats 29.4 aduits to complete, therefore i completed 30 audits just to be safe. I was later called into the office and told "i noticed you did not hit your quota". I thought this must be a misunderstanding, they must have no factored in my 4 days off. I eagerly replied "oh yes but I took off 4 days, therefore thats 29.4 audits and I did 30 just to be safe, so im okay". The response was "yes but we still need to make sure we are doing our work". Now i was confused. I asked "okay, but you said the audits are prorated, so i did do my work?" and he responded "yes they are, but we still need to make sure we are doing our job"
Very confusing; Confusing on purpose. What does this mean? Ill tell you what it means and how it translates.
They want you to fall in line and take your 2 weeks vacation all at once at the same time as everyone else (probably around christmass and maybe spring break like everyone else), then they can go back to owning your ass. They dont want you to stick out from the herd. They dont want you to take piecemeal here and there vacation. And if you do the will punish you for this. Now they cant come out and say this, so they do this confusing mental tactic of saying one thing but punishing you until you figure out what they really want you to do. I learned early in my corporate career that many things will be like this. Over and over again ive seen the same tactic where they "say one thing" to set the ground rules and then confusingly do another or seem to want "something else". Its basically your job to read between the lines and "figure out" what it is they really want that they arent going to say outloud. Its very sad that this is how it works but its something i learned rather early.