Oh well...

The US is wild.
You call yourselves the land of the free, but have to beg your boss to let you have time off that’s owed.
- That was a typo, it's actually the Land of the Fee
  
  Welcome to the United Snakes. Land of the thief, home of the slave
- Land of the free*
  
  *Terms and conditions may apply
- Freedom is when nazis can freely beat you on the street and cops do nothing. FREEDOM, BABY! 🦅🇺🇸
  (Fun fact, I got arrested when I defended myself against a bully in school, ACAB)
- It's a marketing ploy. Not an actual policy.
- Some people do but as I said in another comment, I'm informing them not asking.
- To be fair, having the government mandate how much time you get off for working 40 hours a week is kind of just codifying the indentured servitude you're under.
  
  Wow. I've seen some shit takes around here, but that one is just outta pocket, you're gonna have to explain that one
  
  Watch out guys, we have a Temporarily Embarrased Billionare(tm) in the comment section.
  
  What are you talking about? If the government didn't require paid leave, you might get ... none of it! So the mandate actually makes you ... checks notes ... less controlled.
  
  That's only the minimum of paid time off though, and how many hours of a week you work is determined between you and your employer in the form of a contract. If you think that this is indentured servitude, to the state which provides you with taxes and services, then I really don't know on which planet and or reality you live in.

I still remember putting in vacation at my first job, three months in advance and they still said "well it's your job to make sure your shifts are covered". Fuck you, Karen, you make the damn schedule one month at a time, just don't put me on it that week.
- The shirking of responsibility gets me every time cause like if the manager doesent do that then what DO they do?
  
  Seriously. You aren't really managing your employees if they have to organize resource shortages for you. At my job, I tell my colleagues to just take time off and, like me, list a few close co-workers as people to contact in case of emergencies in their OOO reply. Nothing is life-or-death, so people can deal with waiting. It's not like anyone is taking off months straight.
- If it's the employees job to manage themselves, then they should all be promoted to manager.
  Drag isn't joking. Drag has worked at a company where things were done like that. It wasn't perfect but it was better than the American model.
  
  I appreciate the bit where you talk in third person, but I feel like you could do something better
  
  Sounds kinda like a co-op, is there a difference?
  
  Drag doesn't really fit you. Let's try something else. How about...Coco?! Yeah you seem like a Coco. Anyone else agree?
- Should have replied "it is your obligation to give me HR paycheck"

I got fired from a job because I took my already approved time off and told them I literally couldn't come in when they called me the day my PTO started, because I was already out of state.
- Pretty sure that's wrongful termination
  
  You can be fired for almost anything.
  They just may have to pay unemployment.

'oh, I'm sorry did you think that was a request?'

Exactly. It's not a request, it's information.

Well Shane, I wasn't asking, I was informing you of some time off.

Told them I would be in hospital, had it denied
Was in hospital anyway
- That's illegal, you are guaranteed at least two weeks of (unpaid) medical leave whether yoou're the King or a city street sweeper.
  
  I'm still amazed that people just accept this.
  What happens, if you are ill for a longer? You can't just work ethic an illness away.
  And it's also stupid from the company's perspective. If someone has the flu and you have them come in - well - everyone will be sick and everyones performance will suffer.
  Who thought this is acceptable, let alone a good idea?
  
  Unpaid? What country are you from? Zimbabwe?
  
  Poor ILikeBoobies

In Japan, by law it is a declaration. You use paid leave, you do not ask to use it.
- That depends entirely on your job:
  High court rules vital Shinkansen drivers can’t dictate days off
  America's Supreme court ain't the only shitty one lately 😩
  
  Rare exceptions are interesting,and the law still applies to nearly everyone nearly all the time.
  
  Sounds to me that there wasn't anyone or atlesst not enough drivers for the Shinkansen, so it make totally sense in my eyes that the employer had to fix the schedules when it's employees weren't able to do so themselves.

Been in this position before - fuck your job and live your life. If they were such dicks about it then do you REALLY wanna work there anyways?
- stomach rumbles
- Well if you don't then you don't have health insurance or money to buy food.
  
  There are plenty of places where they don't lie to you about PTO benefits, pay, and have some group insurance plan/program.
  
  You get health insurance?
  
  That's the gamble you take. Hopefully you'd have some money saved up before doing it, of course!

You can't accept me using the time I've earned? Should I get approval for how I spend my paycheck too?
It wasn't a request, I was letting you know so you can plan. See you when I get back.

Funny story, my wife told her boss she needed time off for our honeymoon as we drove to our wedding. She got it, but they teased her about it for a month.

Back when I worked a shitty retail job we would usually hire a few people on fixed term/fixed hours over the Christmas/New Year peak (ie, you get minimum 20 hours a week for 16 weeks starting November 1st), first couple of weeks are mostly training, then peak, then cover into the new year while the full time people take some leave.
Had one guy who got to the end of his training then informed management that he would need leave approved starting now and right through peak because his family was going to an expensive ski resort but that he'd happily pick up some more hours when he got back. Got really salty when he was told that that wasn't going to happen, and he was welcome to go anyway but shouldn't expect a job when he got back.
- More people should get hired, go through training, then leave.

United Healthcare workers:

US labor Laws suck shit compared to the 1st World.
- *compared to the 1st World

I don't understand this.
I have Canada and USA coworkers and when they ask for time off approval, they usually get it according to a per team schedule.
We know what quarters are going to be the busiest before hand so everyone is encouraged to take time off when it is less demanding.
You can also take time off in busiest times.
In both cases, you are asked to request anyone from your team to backup you up (obviously available when you are not)
- I think many people (me included) feel that it shouldn't be the employee's responsibility to find shift coverage.
  
  Agreed. It would make sense to me if managing schedules was a job for the manager.
- Are you paid to do scheduling? What if coworkers say no? ... Those are two serious potential problems.
  
  I would default to assuming that this is a professional job, so making sure you're covered in case something goes wrong is expected and also reasonable to expect from coworkers. If there's conflicts (I don't think I can support this while you're gone because I'm gonna be too busy with x), you go to your manager and ask them to figure it out. But by default, it's likely you know who is best equipped to support because they are already working with you.
  
  No, nothing of the sorts.
  As part of the team we all know, usually, the details of the projects we are working on, details that we cannot expect a manager to follow or know for each project, because there are a lot of details and many projects. A lot of them overlap in discovery, development, execution and deployment and also have different priorities.
  And it is my understanding that managers also need to prioritize given sudden issues, emergency requests, and so on.
  Anyways, with that info, we can decide who is the best fit for it given the experience they have had or not with specific projects.
  Also it is usually not that hard.
  You don't get a backup 2 days before your time off, indeed, more often than not, it is asked with a lot of anticipation.
  Also, most of the time when you go on time off, you are encouraged to have all of your projects deliverables ready for when you are out.
  That way, your teammates doing the backup are just checking in on the project and available for general questions.
  Personally, I like to leave documentation as well for my backups so they know what to expect. It's not strange to have changes that imply more work for the backup so the extra context helps a lot.

That's when sick days come in handy

Beppo make Earth proud?

Had a friend who pretty much did that, she came back to no job and went from making $65k+ with 4 weeks off a year to making minimum wage with 2 weeks off a year... She lost the means to travel in the future in order to travel one extra week that year...
- Then it's a crap job. Or there were other times she did it too many times. If it's just once and you have it planned and paid, the job should work with you somehow. If it's every other week that's a different story.
  
  Oh yeah, it was a pattern with her but even then, just leaving without warning the boss so they don't have the chance to find someone to take over? That's a perfectly fine reason to fire someone even with strong labor laws like we have around here. Hell, even the union didn't want to touch that case with a 10' pole.
- If your PTO can be denied you never had the means to travel in the first place.
  
  Or maybe some people need to recognize that for regular vacations (i.e. not unpredictable occurrences like a sudden death) their employer needs to make sure there's a minimum number of employees working so it's something that needs to be arranged with them.
- Guess that first job was still worse to work at.
  What is the point of having 4 weeks off if you can't take them up on it? Might as well not exist.
  So 2 weeks > 0 weeks
  
  Why do you assume we couldn't take them exactly? With our weird schedules I would end up getting 10 weeks off every year working for the same employer.
  She just decided to leave, called after the fact, was told that the quota was full for that week and she said "Well, it's too late, I'm halfway across the world!"