Our office had a pretty flexible informal system for years. Need a half day? Send a message the morning of. Long weekend? Give a week's notice. It worked fine. Then we got a new operations manager who decided we needed "structure" and announced that all time off requests now had to be submitted exactly 30 days in advance, no exceptions, pol icy effective immediately.
She sent this in an email to the whole team. No nuance, no carve-outs for emergencies, just 30 days minimum.
I took her at her word. I sat down that weekend and submitted every single day off I could anticipate for the next six months. My kid's school events I already kne w about. The dentist appointments I book annually. A long weekend in August I'd been loosely planning. My wife's work conference where I'd need to handle pickup. All of it, 30 days out to the day, submitted through the system with detailed notes.
Then when my mom called unexpectedly needing help with something, I forwarded her email policy to my direct manager and said unfortunately I couldn't take emergency time as it wasnt submitted 30 days prior, and asked how they'd like to handle coverage.
That conversation went up fast. The policy was quietly revised two weeks later to include "reasonable exceptions for personal emergencies." The 30 day rule is still technically there but nobody mentions it much anymore.
I just followed the policy exactly as written. Can't imagine why that was a problem.