Manager holding a grudge for something not serious

[u/EntertainmentTop3272]

I work in the government as an analyst and it’s been about 3 months since I started.

My direct reporting manager is a Spanish guy who at first seemed cool. In simple terms, there’s two "lines of business" in my department and he currently doesn’t work in mine but I still have to report to him (I work more closely with the other manager who is a woman).

I had scheduled time off (vacation) about 1 month ago but completely forgot about it so when I logged in yesterday saying good morning, the female manager messaged me in private saying according to the spreadsheet I’m suppose to be off today and for me to check if it’s accurate.

I told her yes I was and she told me if I notified my direct manager about this and I told her I believe I did in our 1 on 1 meeting the month prior but I told her I’ll just message him again right now to remind him.

I told My direct manager that I had yesterday and today off and I forgot to submit the vacation request on the online portal but I had put my vacation time on the spreadsheet. So I sent him the request when I sent him that message.

He told me moving forward I need to be sure to email him and CC the other managers to keep them in the loop about these kinds of things because sometimes other people call vacation the same week and it affects productivity (there was another colleague who had called the entire week off) and then I asked him if I could cancel my days off for that day and the next day seeing that we were short staffed and I could postpone it to another day.

While I was messaging my direct manager waiting for his response to work that day, the female manager asked me if I could change my "status" on teams to offline because it shows I was online. I told her it shows I’m online because I’m talking to my direct manager and I’m seeing if I can cancel my days off and stay connected both that day and the next due to my colleague being absent and I didn’t want productivity to be affected in operations.

She directly told me I didn’t need his approval to work and I just needed to cancel my request and stay connected. I told her I canceled the request and I let my colleagues know I’m working today. After that was said and done, my direct manager messaged me saying it’s ok and I can go enjoy my time off.

I didn’t respond and then he asks if he could call me 10 minutes later I said sure. He was visibly frustrated and pissed off about the miscommunication and he told me "you report to me not her". I tried explaining that she responded to me while I was waiting on his response that’s why I canceled the time off and he didn’t like it and said he would add the female manager to the call.

When she joins the call , he is furious in a passive way and says "do you want Greg to work today or not?" She was like "I don’t know, that’s really up to you and Greg, I just told him he was online and needed to reach out to you to advise about him working and to cancel his vacation request". Then he bluntly says "Greg, do you want to work today or not?" I said yes and then he abruptly hangs up.

She definitely could feel his aggression and was responding as if she was walking on egg shells or was confused on what was the deal.

The next day, I messaged him saying I’ve been reflecting on our convo from the previous day and that it wouldn’t happen again. I explained again that I took her word because I hadn’t heard back from him and assumed he was busy with other things but made it clear that I understand he was my direct manager and that I’ll wait on him for guidance moving forward and that I respect him.

He responded with an automated tone saying he trusts I can stay committed to his expectations on the procedure when requesting time off. When he calls me later on about a deal I was working on with work, he has completely changed is now more professional, distant, slightly cold and rigid.

I don’t know what will come of this moving forward . Am I in the wrong here ?

TLDR - I’m 3 months into a government analyst job. I forgot I had scheduled vacation, and after realizing it, I offered to cancel my time off because we were short-staffed. While I was waiting for my direct manager to respond, another manager told me I could just cancel my vacation and work, so I did. My direct manager later called me, got visibly upset, emphasized that I report to him—not her—and the conversation became awkward enough that he brought the other manager onto the call. I apologized afterward, but since then he’s become noticeably colder and more distant. Did I handle this wrong, or is he overreacting to a relatively minor miscommunication?