[Tom4784]

I have to authorise holidays at work and it's a nightmare, especially considering the website we use to book holidays is woeful. It works on a team by team basis and no team is big enough to do it's job properly if more than two or three people are off for a week at a time so it's a balancing act of making sure you keep everyone happy while ensuring you've got enough people in for the shop to function. You get more days off the longer you've worked there and most people have been there for 10 years+ so almost everyone has a lot of holiday time to play with so it's just an endless nightmare to keep it all balanced.

Generally speaking, if you want Christmas off, the best chances of getting it at my work is to book it the Christmas before because it's pretty much the week that everyone tries to get off.