I'm realising how lucky we do have it over here with out leave benefits reading all this, appreciate the discussion. Everyone has valid points in relation to my situation. I get what Chad means with 'bare minimum,' we know each other well enough that I can take that term and run with it, without it diminishing my work performance that it suffers and creates another problem for myself. I know what he means by that term.
To put it in a little more perspective, the company do have limits on how much paid leave you can bank, however, my role as Supervisor covers rostering, managing people, booking and running programs like school groups, school carnivals, groups wanting pool space, ordering food and merchandise for sale, venue presentation and running the pool plant systems and making sure the water quality is at standard. making sure multiple venues open 7 days a week with everything at standard is ongoingly stressful. From that point of view, I am the only person across all the centres that knows how the plant operations work too. We have a maintenance team for major breakdowns, but for day to day stuff, that's me.
As some of you know from the past, there is supposed to be another one of me to spread the load, but I've been solo now for maybe 2 years. To be fair, this new guy is trying to put ads out to hire another Supervisor, and interviews were supposed to be two days ago. 3 no shows, so I do have a bit of pulling power that if I just took extended leave, that would create a big hole. The industry itself is struggling and finding someone to cover what my PD says these days is impossible and I'm the idiot for still doing it.
Like Bill said, I'm under no illusion that I'm irreplaceable, but I'm somewhat enough of a figure that if I wasn't there, in the short term would certainly be noticed and cause some pain. I am indeed the fool for not taking my leave, I know that now.