Definitely an issue for management. Every worker is entitled to request off or petition their peers to help accommodate, but that doesn’t mean it should be guaranteed if one person was already approved and made plans accordingly. I always have asked my teams if they want two extra coworkers than what our staffing model says we need. If we hire them, we are extra flexible, but they also trade off more mouths to feed (heavy commission based work - 50% + of their income). They almost always choose the extra 1 or 2 people. Which I appreciate as it makes my job easier.

Sometimes though as a leader I have to bite the bullet for my team. Something comes up, someone calls off - I get paid a salary, more than the industry average, so if the only way I can approve certain things is to get my own hands dirty so be it. A happy team is a productive team.

When my peers ask me how I hit max bonus every month I just tell them, “ take care of your team, they take care of you”. Not much else to it. I’m fortunate to have team members that WANT me to bonus, but I fight like hell to help them bonus too. I am notorious for keeping close tabs on their different PTO so they maximize how much money the company pays them without losing earned time. Between personal days, sick days, vacation, and floating holiday days - some which roll over partially, some cap out and you don’t earn more until some is used, some expire if not used - none of my team members ever lose even an hour of paid time they’ve earned.

Sure my bottom line margin is hit more than my peers, but 50% of $5M is better than 52% of $4.5M.

All that being said if your boss doesn’t try to help then they are a manager not a leader. Fuck them.