Okay chat, I need your opinion. AITA?
- I started a new job in January that's actually a promotion of the job I held 3 years ago. Same place, new team, new director, head of service post when I was just a subaltern 3 years ago
- first week of job, a good friend of mine invites me to her wedding in Madagascar in mid April
- I immediately rush to the job's number two, the Secretary General, to ask her if I can take days off that month to go to the wedding - she says yes, calculates with me that I'll have enough days both for April and for the annual closing of the place in August, determines that I'm good
- time passes on, I take my marks in the new (old) job, reconnects with old colleagues, meet new ones, I start working to the point of driving myself back into burn out
- April approaching, I finally sit down and take my (expensive and long trip) plane tickets, then send a demand for days off that week
- the SG approves my demand
- for the past two weeks, the director has been refusing to approve them, saying I haven't done things according to the regulations (I should have consulted him first and then act - alright, that I can admit, and I apologised and promised I've learned and it won't happen again - in my defence nobody explains the rules in this place and it's my first time holding a post of head of service), I'm putting him in an embarrassing position (bro??), I'm setting a precedent because it's not regulatory and now my colleagues will also think they can ask for long (7 days) holidays (literally ALL of my colleagues are rooting for me and telling me it's not normal that he's refusing to approve, but go off I guess), I'm leaving at a time a lot of things are happening at the place (not in my service, and nothing that requires my presence, and everything else my team can deal with), and new formations have been organised (yeah well tough, they've just been announced this week, my friend invited me in January), etc. No, not etc, those are literally his only arguments (repeated 10 times each because he can't do things short).
- last talk with him (today), he said he's gotta refer to the general direction back in the capital and he still needs to think, he'll give me an answer on Thursday
- literally all my colleagues, all my family and all my friends think he's exaggerating, throwing a temper tantrum, bullying me because I didn't inform him first, and that he's not allowed to refuse me this once in a lifetime trip (fucking Madagascar for a indian-malgache muslim wedding, come on, I cannot miss this).
So. I'm asking you. AITA? Am I in the wrong? Apart from the fact that I should have talked to him first, alright, but everything else? Should I just accept defeat/the verdict in two days, or keep hope?
Other elements that I apparently should have kept in consideration: I had a conflict with the previous director 3 years ago because she had tried to bully me unfoundedly, and I'm on trial until June.
