This has to be at larger companies, right? "Sorry, we don't have resources for a backfill," and no middle manager has the authority to change that. "Do extra

This has to be at larger companies, right? "Sorry, we don't have resources for a backfill," and no middle manager has the authority to change that. "Do extra work for free," is terrible management, and big companies basically exist to have terrible management. At a startup, 100% of the employees becoming disgruntled is an existential threat to the company, and the founders exist to own that and fix it, or their dream of a successful startup is over. That's different than large companies, where if some random department 300 levels down the org chart is unhappy, it doesn't matter, so the CEO is not going to step in and work extra hours while someone is away. It just doesn't matter to the company that one department is disgruntled, the company can do fine without them. If taking advantage of your benefits is going to kill the company, then the company probably wasn't meant to exist. After you get your kid off to a good start in life, begin the job search. The market isn't quite as bad as the gossip blogs say. Companies still need people to write software and people to manage the teams that do that. I really don't think any of this is going to happen to the OP. Their manager will handle 1:1s. Someone on the team can run meetings. Some decisions will be made while they're away, and they'll have to accept them even if they disagree. That's the worst case, but that's management in general.