A boss has been slammed for trying to cancel a staff member's holiday even though they were already away. The unnamed manager reached out to a worker, who was in Mexico at the time, and explained that too many people were off at once and they needed to cut their leave short.

Entrepreneur Ben Askins revealed the text message exchange between the two as the situation unfolded, with the worker asking whether this was all a "joke". The manager revealed it wasn't and pushed fairly hard to get the employee back into the office.

"Sorry to do this so late, but there has been a mistake with the annual leave," the boss started.

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"I'm going to have to cancel the second half of your annual leave this week. You will need to be in the office Thursday and Friday."

Even though the worker said getting to the office from Mexico was next to impossible, the manager claimed their hands were tied.

"Sorry. Like I said, there's nothing I can do. I'm going to update the system now saying you'll be in," they said in a text message.

Despite the staffer digging in their heels, the manager even found a flight on Wednesday that would have brought them back in time.

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"I am not asking I am telling you the situation. I appreciate it is not ideal," they said.

However, the worker wouldn't budge and threatened to escalate it if the boss didn't back down.

"Even if I wanted to come back in time, which I can't, I wouldn't," they said.

"And if you push this, I will be reporting it."

Workers rip into 'dumb' annual leave request

Askins said this was a monumental stuff up on the manager's behalf and they had no right in taking away peoples' annual leave, especially if they were already off.

He said if bosses found themselves in this situation, it's up to them to find someone else to get the work done and respect workers' time off.

"Get a contractor in, get a freelancer... move things around," he said.

"That's your problem to deal with. What's not okay is you meshing your employees on his annual leave in Mexico being like, 'You've got to be in on Thursday'. What do you think he's going to come back with?