My company has a mandatory shutdown every year at XMas where they require everyone to take a weeklong vacation regardless of how much paid vacation you have. It is automatically deducted from your vacation account unless you and your manager can come up with a good reason why you MUST work over the holiday. If you don't have enough vacation days, you don't get paid for the days you cannot account for.

Here's the screwy part. I was just told I was "on call" over the vacation period, so if they need someone to come in and reboot a server during the XMas break, I have to come in and do it. This means I cannot go anywhere while on vacation because if they call me, I must be in the office within 2 hours.

Is it legal for them to force me to take vacation, and then to require me to stay nearby for the duration? I can't help but feel like I'm screwing the pooch here.

Any employment law expertise would be appreciated.