By Jonathan Rivett

Copyright smh

First off, your relative’s employer can legally only refuse her leave for a ‘genuine, sound, business reason’, and the reason has to be well-documented. Even if she is as essential to the running of the firm as you suggest, they cannot continually knock back her leave requests unreasonably.

That aside, you wondered in your longer email whether this was mainly a boss problem or a Maria problem. Based on everything you’ve told me, this is unquestionably a boss problem.

Yes, Maria sounds like she’s struggling to challenge her superior and their longstanding denial of her right to take leave when it suits her. I can see how her reticence would be frustrating to you and other family members who love her and desperately want her to be at this once-in-a-lifetime event. But it pales in comparison to the boss’s behaviour.

This is no substitute for the boss getting a cold, hard reality check and coming to understand that this isn’t Dickensian England.

The most generous I can be about this person is that they have become so welded to this business that it has essentially become a part of them. For this reason, they have become blind to even the most basic common sense and have lost the faintest regard for the wishes, wellbeing and entitlements of the very people who keep the business running. Sadly, that includes Maria.