Manager messages employee on Facebook on their approved PTO days asking for help with a project: 'I muted both, marked them as read, and didn't reply'

When you're off, you're off. This is the philosophy that most of us subscribe to when it comes to working. We work so hard and so often that we relish the times when we don't. We work hard for our paid time off, and we expect not to be bothered while using it. But this isn't always the reality. Sometimes people in your workplace decide not to respect boundaries and end up bothering you while you're using your time away. Vacation should be for vacation. It's your time to unwind not only from your daily tasks, but from the thought of them. It's as much a mental break as it is a physical one. Not only do you not want to be in the building, but you don't want to be thinking about your job at all. Otherwise, that's not really a break. It's more of a pause. 

For a true break to happen, you need to be able to ignore everything. You need to let your mind wander to the corners where it wants to wander, and not have to circle back to the tasks at hand. It's so rare that we get the opportunity to do this, so when we do, we expect to use them to their fullest extent. Not all workplaces are good at doing this, though. And sometimes a project demands your attention. But if you've taken the proper steps to get the time off, and your manager approved it, then nobody can say anything. Unless it's a true emergency, which it rarely is, then you shouldn't be bothered.