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A woman who had no more annual leave to take got the most out of her holiday after she decided to go right from her nine-hour flight home back into work.
At this point in the year you’re either wishing you still had a couple of days left of holiday, or you’re panicking because you’ve still got about two weeks worth of time to take off which you can’t use because everyone else is in the same boat.
In the former camp was video producer Erin Rivers, who was all out of annual leave to take but still hoping to make the most of her holiday in Mexico.
Not wanting to cut her holiday short to make space for the journey home, she instead decided that she was going to incorporate a transatlantic flight into her morning commute and show up in the office for her nine to five.
She’d figured out that since her flight was scheduled to get back into Manchester at 7.00am she’d have enough time to get through the airport and be at her desk, and although she ended up cutting it a bit fine since the plane was delayed, she turned out to be right.
According to Erin the worst part of the journey was right at the start ‘just knowing what was ahead of me’. (TikTok/@erinrivers_)
Speaking to her esteemed employer, which in this case is us, Erin explained that while it was a shame she didn’t have any more holidays to book off she was able to arrange it so she could ‘have a normal day at work’.
At least as normal as you can get when you started the day on another continent, she did say she ‘would never wish for a 10 hour commute’.
Erin told us that she ‘also wanted to beat jet lag’, and reckoned that staying up all day was the best way to tackle that.
The whole endeavour turned out to be ‘very successful’, though even after she’d completed her daily shift in the office a train back home to Leeds beckoned.
As for how she managed to stay awake and alert at work after a nine-hour flight home, Erin said she had ‘lots of tactics’ to keep herself going.
She always taps the plane for good luck when boarding. (TikTok/@erinrivers_)
Explaining her method, she said: “I did my make up on the train from the airport to the office to feel alive, brushed my teeth in the work toilet, bit of deodorant, my usual morning iced coffee, lots of water, fuelled on fruit and sugar, kept busy and up at work filming lots of videos and of course being very dedicated to my job that I love!”
We promise we didn’t make her say that last bit. Honest.
In her video chronicling her journey to work she did at one point have to convince herself she was tired and could go to sleep, as she told us she got about five hours kip on the plane from Mexico to Manchester.
There’s no rawdogging malarkey on this particular commute, could you imagine the hell involved in sitting for hours on a plane and then doing a full shift?
Powered by iced coffee, fruit and sugar, Erin got through her shift. (TikTok/@erinrivers_)
The plane was also delayed by an hour and 15 minutes, leaving her just 45 minutes to get out of Manchester Airport and into LADbible Towers, though she made it with time to spare.
Even if she doesn’t want to make a habit out of such a long commute, Erin did recommend going right from the holiday to the office.
She said: “You know what, if you’re like me and love long weekends away an extra day of annual leave could be an extra trip, I definitely recommend [it], don’t waste that day of leave to do nothing.
“You’ve just got to be prepared and ready for a long day, but if you’ve slept on the plane, have tactics in place, you’ll be fine, it honestly wasn’t even that bad!”
This article contains affiliate links and LADbible Group might make a commission on anything purchased.
Consider your Christmas shopping sorted, because we’ve found the perfect present for bookworms – and it’s now £39 off for a limited time only.
Part of a massive Black Friday sale, avid readers can gain access to thousands of their favourite magazines for less and parents will be pleased to know there’s an incredible number of kids’ comics up for grabs.
From Disney heavyweights including Frozen, Moana, and Star Wars to old-school comics such as Beano, kids will be kept busy throughout the Christmas holidays and beyond.
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There are over 8,000 of other iconic titles for adults to choose from too, such as Vogue, Men’s Health, and Cosmopolitan and sports titles including FourFourTwo and Match of the Day.
With complete digital access, you can read on the train, plane, or tube and you don’t have to sign a lock-in contract.
And there’s thousands of rave reviews: “I am blown away,” one five-star review reads. “I have spent a lot of money in my lifetime on magazines and newspapers. The selection of content is amazing.”
Another happy customer wrote, “I was given a six-month subscription as a Christmas present from my daughter and I have found the whole experience so great, I’ve signed up myself.”
A third said: “Best money I’ve ever spent. Thanks to seeing this on Instagram, it’s changed my life, where I once thought about buying a magazine at the cost of £5 per magazine, now the more I read, the more value I get. I recommend it to everyone.” Tempted?
Where to buy a magazine subscription for Christmas
Readly is the UK’s largest digital newsstand with thousands of magazines and puzzles covering fashion, sport, gaming, film, and travel. As part of a huge Black Friday sale, you can now get 10% off annual subscriptions with two months free and it will make a thoughtful gift (that keeps on giving).
Readly
Let’s break that down. For £11.69 a month, you’re getting over 8,000 magazines for the average price of two, that’s a total saving of £39. There’s no contract and you can cancel your subscription at any time. Now, that’s what we like to hear.
The offer is for a limited time only, so if you’re keen to treat someone this Christmas then make sure to move fast, stocks won’t last long – especially if the reviews are anything to go by.
A woman once spent several times the cost of her plane ticket in order to buy all of the peanuts on board her flight, and she had a very good reason for it.
Leah Williams has a severe nut allergy and before boarding her flight from Dusseldorf to London claims she asked crew if they could avoid serving peanuts on the plane.
Staff allegedly turned down her request, and she then decided she’d instead have to buy all 48 bags of peanuts that were on the flight to avoid others opening them.
The young woman feared that there would be cross-contamination if the peanuts were given to other passengers.
The design firm worker was left massively out of pocket after forking out an unpalatable £3 per packet – nearly £150 in total.
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Even more frustratingly, her cheap flight had only cost her £50 before shelling out for the nuts.
“The stewards looked at me blankly like I was crazy and said, ‘But there is a lot, we’ll have to count them all.’ I said, ‘Please do count them and I will pay for them all, seeing as you have left me with no choice’,” she told The Mirror.
She added: “Eurowings should be ashamed of how they handled this situation and for the way they made me feel.”
While the young woman was looking for a refund, Eurowings has given a statement about the incident.
Spokesperson Anke Carola Walter told LADbible: “We are very sorry that the flight with us did not go as smoothly as planned and we regret any inconvenience this has caused Leah Williams.
“One thing in advance: Leah Williams was not forced to buy all packages of peanuts on board – on the contrary, our purser tried to offer her an alternative solution by informing all passengers sitting around her about Leah’s allergy.”
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The statement added: “She agreed at first but then decided to still buy all the packages.”
It continued, arguing that the airline was unable to remove all potential allergens from its flights: “Eurowings operates more than 600 flights a day, carrying more than 80,000 passengers daily. As there are many causes for allergies and intolerances, it is not possible to exclude the possibility of their presence on board a plane.
“In general, meals and snacks are served during Eurowings flights. In addition, passengers are also allowed to bring their own food on board. For this reason, Eurowings is unable to guarantee that the aircraft is free of foodstuffs that may trigger an allergic reaction, such as peanuts.
“Furthermore, due to its construction (shape, air conditioning system, ventilation, etc.), it is not possible to prevent an accumulation of peanut/nut traces (e.g. residues from an earlier flight) despite regular and thorough cleaning of the aircraft.”
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However, Eurowings did state that the technology onboard could reduce some allergens onboard.
It added: “However, the HEPA (high efficiency particulate air filter) filters used on board can help passengers suffering from cat hair and house-dust allergies, for example.
“The filtration system circulates the cabin air, which is then supplemented with outside air.”
The lengthy statement also added that staff were prepared for medical emergencies, should the worst-case scenario occur.
It continued: “Our medically trained cabin crew always has access to medication to provide emergency medical care in the event of an intolerance or allergic shock on board.”
It added: “We do recommend also carrying any necessary medication (allergy medication, EpiPen) in the hand baggage should passengers suffer from any allergies.
“A strong allergy sufferer should always be prepared for such an eventuality and has at least one, most of the time even two pens with anti-allergic with him/her as a preventive measure and usually informs our crews accordingly.”
A bloke ended up on an 11-hour flight where so many of the passengers on board were forced to ‘rawdog’.
Get your minds out of the gutter and let me tell you that to rawdog a flight simply means to be on it with no forms of entertainment or distractions.
You simply sit in your assigned seat for the duration of the journey and wait for it to be over, that’s how to rawdog a flight.
It’s become a viral trend, though heaven knows why as it sounds horribly boring.
A woman who recently decided to rawdog her flight from Mykonos to Gatwick ended up regretting it hugely, as her initial optimism at flying through the skies with no bells, whistles or distractions backfired considerably.
She spent several hours on a plane and by hour number two was finding it ‘excruciating’ as she developed a stomach ache and ‘pure inexplicable rage’ at basically every single person on board the flight.
Those are some nice screens, would be a shame if they broke and left you with nothing to do for hours. (Getty Stock Image)
While she did that experience voluntarily (and wouldn’t repeat it again), some other poor unfortunate soul recorded the moment the chair screens on his flight went down and a whole load of passengers were left with nothing to do but sit there.
YouTuber @movieblues420 said that he was on board an 11-hour flight ‘where the entire plane was forced to rawdog’ once the screens went down.
The most people could do was switch their screens to a little map which told them how long they still had to go on the plane.
About four hours into the flight the YouTuber explained that there was a ‘total blackout’ as they tried resetting the screens to see if that might make something work.
He couldn’t even nap on the flight as a neighbour who had thought to bring some books was using the reading light. (YouTube/@movieblues420)
“Hours five and six I’d like to call the ‘please wait’ portion of the torture session,” he said, with his footage showing a plethora of passengers and nothing to do but stare at a screen that was blank beyond the words urging them to be patient.
He then explained that for a couple of hours after resetting the screens they just showed the airline’s logo, and while he tried to get some kip his neighbour ‘had a reading light on that was brighter than the sun’.
Yes, while some passengers were forced to rawdog their flight through lack of alternatives others actually had some things to occupy their time with.
Fortunately for our video maker, he and his wife were spared the ordeal of having to rawdog with everybody else as they had brought books and downloaded movies.
He explained in a comment that they ‘watched four episodes of House of the Dragon and then a slew of movies’.
However, he noted that the people sitting around him who’d been relying on the screens in front of them to provide entertainment were ‘really displeased and quite irate’.
Summing up the entire experience for those involved he said it was ‘miserable’ and had no idea why the rawdogging trend had taken off.
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Annual leave is one of the things we all look forward to, kicking back and enjoying some much needed you-time after working your day job for that bit too long.
The one obstacle we have is the challenge of getting the request approved before getting all the logistics of travelling in order.
But once you’re past that stage, there’s no turning back, right?
Not necessarily for this Australian man.
TikTok/@theoutsourcingexpert
His exchange with his boss just a week before his leave was set to begin has gone viral on TikTok.
The messages were shared by Michael Sanz (@theoutsourcingexpert) on the social media platform, a business owner and outsourcing expert known for sharing people’s bad experiences with bosses.
Michael read out the messages sent by the worker, Noel, and his boss, Nick – who actually sent him the exchange ‘like a badge of honour’ as he thought he was in the right.
Michael prefaced the video by saying: “You’re not going to believe this message I just got sent.”
The boss sent the first message, letting Noel know that another staff member has resigned, and so his leave that was booked for next week has been cancelled so he can help deal with the shortage of staff.
“We can push back a few months. I’ve advised HR it’s now changed for you. Appreciate your understanding,” Nick wrote.
The TikToker then called the boss a ‘tool’, which I think is what we were all thinking.
Noel replied, outlining that he understands that it might be inconvenient for the company, but his holiday is booked as his family are going to Bali for his brother’s wedding.
“All flights are paid for and my kids are in the wedding party,” Noel wrote.
“I did book this in seven months ago, so canceling isn’t an option. I can help out more until I leave if that helps, but I can’t change my leave dates.”
The boss then hit back, asking the employee to reduce his leave period from three weeks to three days, even cheekily saying: “Not sure what you can do for three weeks in Bali haha.”
Anyone else’s blood boiling?
Noel emphasised that he couldn’t cancel or amend his trip, saying he hasn’t had annual leave in three years, and that it’s none of Nick’s business how he spends his time off.
Go on, Noel!
TikTok/@theoutsourcingexpert
He also suggested the company could hire temp workers, and said he would help carry the extra workload until his leave.
The TikToker called Nick’s response ‘appalling’, with the boss standing firm and saying: “Mate, can’t stress enough, your leave is cancelled, we just can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
Noel then replied: “Hi Nick, I actually don’t want to come back to work now. I’m quite shocked at this email. I’m going to take my leave earlier and start from today.
“While away I will think about if working with a company that doesn’t promote boundaries is a place I really want to work at.
“I’m also sending this as an email to Aaron and HR as it’s totally unreasonable.”
The TikToker praised the way Noel handled the situation, as no worker should have to justify their leave.
Users felt the same in the comments, with one questioning: “Anyone else wondering why Jenny left?”
Another commented: “Business Owner here. Unacceptable by the boss. Not the employees problem. Enjoy Bali!”
A third put: “This IS The reason they have trouble with staffing, pure and simple!”
Noel did, in fact, ended up going on his trip and turned his phone off for the whole duration of it. He has since gone on to find a new job with an even higher salary.
Safe to say, we’re all team Noel here.
