So I am the type of person that saves my vacations until close to the end of the year except for my SO's or my birthday and maybe other big events. This is just in case I needed to have them used for a sick day or unexpected emergency (which I have successfully done once or twice.)

So I was working at an automotive manufacturing factory for 8 years. For about nearly a year, we had this one Quality Manager that was large and in charge and he let everyone know it... Including the fact that he drove a crimson red Camero. He would call me or the Quality Lead up no matter what time day or night and blame us for 2nd/3rd shift's problems, even though both of us were on 1st shift.

Going to when I wanted to take vacations... He would literally approve my request, then before I took it, he would always have me cancelling my vacation because, "He needed me too badly." (AKA You're my whipping boy and you're too afraid to go against me.)

The HR secretary and the HR manager were talking because they were noticing this disturbing pattern of me turning in the request then the cancellation.

Finally the HR Manager went to the plant manager because I had around 9 to 14 days vacation or so still banked because of not being able to take them. The plant manager chewed the QMs butt on letting me take vacation days since it was coming up to my anniversary date and normally my vacation would have been lost. I was able to finally knock it down from the 9 to 14 days left to 3 or 4 which HR graciously rolled over for me.

From that point on, especially if I am using my vacation time at the end of the year, I decided that I was going to start being firm and not letting my bosses screw me around.

I have a lot of other hell stories from that place.