How much vacation do you take?

[ziggy29]

we work a 9/80 schedule (every other friday off) and i use every second...maybe a little more. i like to take vacations over my fridays off, and 9 hours fits into 120 hours a little oddly.

I used to work in a place where we could pick a 4x10 work week for a while. Most people wanted Friday and few more took Monday for three day weekends. I liked Wednesdays off because it meant never working more than two consecutive days. Sure, if we were going to go away for a long weekend I'd switch to Friday or Monday, but I did like never working more than two straight days.

 

[KM]

I get 30 days a year (vacation/sick, they don't care what you use it for), plus 4 floating holidays. I can carry over 20 days a year, which I built up a long time ago and carryover every year - so I get to use my 34 days a year.....and I do. One year when we had a lot of year-end work, and I had 5 "use or lose" days left (above my 20), my boss agreed to have me carry the extra 5 over "under the table" and use them in January "off the books".

Over the years all of my bosses have been very supportive of taking vacation time and/or being flexible about working off-hours, coming in early, working a w/e to make up for a weekday missed etc. I am the same way with my staff. By mid-year, if they haven't taken much time, I am the one telling them to start taking some. We all put in some long hours when we are knee-deep in projects. Vacation time is critical, just to recharge for the next [-]disaster[/-] project.

The more I read this forum, the more fortunate I feel when it comes to my job....

 

[ziggy29]

For what it's worth, I probably have about as generous a vacation benefit as there is in the U.S. private sector -- 5 weeks after 10 years of service.

I should add this is strictly vacation time. Sick leave isn't even formally tracked and the only real corporate guideline is that it's the manager's duty to make sure employees aren't using excessive sick leave without demonstrable cause or abusing the policy. So my Megacorp's paid time off policy is about as liberal as they come. Having said that, I've probably taken three or four sick days since I've been there -- and I've been there over 11 years now. Of course, working from home makes it easier to "show up" when you aren't feeling well and perform at maybe 50% or for a shorter period of time, but that's better than 0%.

I just wish that living in Texas, it were feasible to to take 3-4 weeks off in one chunk in (say) late July or early August and rent a vacation home in a place where it's a lot cooler like we did for a week in Ruidoso last year. It's hard to get much more than about a week and a half off at once without causing a disruption.

 

[tulak]

I just wish that living in Texas, it were feasible to to take 3-4 weeks off in one chunk in (say) late July or early August and rent a vacation home in a place where it's a lot cooler like we did for a week in Ruidoso last year. It's hard to get much more than about a week and a half off at once without causing a disruption.

If you work from home, couldn't you spend some of the time in the vacation home working remotely?

It might not be ideal, but at least you'd be able to enjoy evenings/weekends in a differrent environment.

 

[hankster]

My vacation/sick leave is combined and we can bank up to a maximum of 750 hours. With nearly 30 years of service, I accrue about 265 hours per year plus an additional 40 hours for holidays that I'm scheduled to work (24/7 operation). I use at least 280 hours per year. Some guys save it up to go out the door on extended vacation leading up to retirement.

I like to use it frequently. DW is semi-ER, we're both fit and healthy and enjoy traveling. Now is the time to enjoy it.

 

[tulak]

My boss is a heartless SOB who pinches pennies at every turn and has the bottom line as his major concern. I have no guaranteed amount of vacation so no worries about leaving anything on the table. That being said, I have managed 2 weeks of vacation so far this year and plan on squeezing in one more week before the year is over. Oh yeah, I'm self employed.

You should fire him. But then again, you'll have three weeks of vacation for the year, so maybe you should keep him. Your choice, eh?

 

[jayc]

Some benefits are considerably more generous in the public sector, but I'm not sure vacation time is one of them.

21 days to start on the Ohio Public University gravy train. 10 days for private sector. Please provide 1 example where private is greater than public.

 

[Walt34]

When I left public service I was getting the 26 days a year. At the time I retired I had a big chunk of rolled-over annual leave and compensatory leave so when the dust settled I got a check for almost five figures. I always carried a minimum of two weeks for "emergency leave" which could roll over indefinitely. Their policy was that I could carry over 340 hours (42.5 eight-hour days) from year to year.

Now in private sector I got no leave the first year, two weeks/year until three years, then three weeks/year after that. Welcome to the real world! As a practical matter I just take time off whether there's leave or not. Taking leave w/o pay is acceptable to them, and to me.

And every day in WV is a vacation day compared to the DC area!

 

[harley]

Not to mention accrued sick leave in the public sector. As a DC area resident, I would estimate that 40% of the people I know are in the public sector. Many of them have months worth of sick leave accumulated. Many, many months in a lot of cases. Most of the higher level employees probably never use it, but I know it's often used as vacation in the more mid to low level positions.

Very few private sector jobs (in my experience) offer the same perk.

Edit: Maybe this is what Walt is talking about with his compensatory leave. I'm not sure.

 

[ziggy29]

21 days to start on the Ohio Public University gravy train. 10 days for private sector. Please provide 1 example where private is greater than public.

I know people working for state and local governments who are getting maybe 3 weeks a year after 10 years of service. I'm getting 5. One difference is the ability to accrue sick leave (and to have it paid out when you separate) which rarely exists in the private sector.

 

[Katsmeow]

Working as an attorney I used to think it is was nice that I was limited to a set amount of vacation. So if I wanted to take a total of, say, 4 weeks or 5 weeks off during the year...no problem.

But, I realized that this was misleading. In truth, I really received no vacation. Sure, I could take off and go somewhere on vacation. But, here's the thing. The amount of hours of work I was expected to bill didn't vary depending on whether I took vacation or not. And the expectation was really based upon the idea of working without taking vacation.

There were many vacation where I ended up working during vacation. On others I worked extra hours before/after so I didn't get behind on hours.

DH worked for a megacorp. By the time he retired he was entitled to 7 weeks of time off (plus holidays) that could be used for vacation or sick days. Also, when he retired he was paid for unused vacation time for that year (you could only carry over one year) and, if he retired after June 1, have of the vacation time for the following year. That was a nice check to receive.

 

[HornedToad10]

So my Megacorp's paid time off policy is about as liberal as they come. Having said that, I've probably taken three or four sick days since I've been there -- and I've been there over 11 years now.

Mine's pretty nice also. At 10 years you would get 4 weeks vacation + 17 company holidays (including the week between Christmas and New Years and the week of 4th of July) and 10 use or lose sick days. I think I use maybe 2-3 sick days a year. We can roll over 1.75x our annual vacation allowance each year.

I get only 3 weeks vacation since I've been there less than 5 years but I wouldn't let any vacation expire. I normally keep around 3 weeks vacation stored as I typically take 2 full weeks of vacation sometime throughout the year (1 in summer and 1 with Christmas to have 2 weeks off) and the other days in piecemail or save. I'll probably take Fridays off if it becomes necessary and I start losing the vacation days but I haven't accumulated that much yet.

 

[WanderALot]

I have never let vacation time go unused in 15 years of being in the workforce. My best friend had something like 6 weeks of vacation and started losing vacation time; basically working for free!

I work in the private sector and get 4 weeks of vacation. I have been fortunate to always have at least 3 weeks every year, even when I worked for megacorp. The two small companies that I've worked for only offered 2 weeks but I negotiated longer vacations before I started. It's more important than pay for me.

Taking anymore than a 2 week vacation causes feelings of guilt because most of my coworkers never seemed to take longer vacations.

 

[FIREd]

My wife gets 5 weeks of vacation and/or sick time. She can only rollover a maximum of 7 weeks from year to year, which she already does. So she has to take her 5 weeks off or lose paid vacation days. It's a struggle. Sometimes she blocks some time off months ahead of time and then "something comes up". Sometimes she is already on vacation when she is asked to come back or call in for some "urgent" matter. Her employer has zero respect for employees' time off. None. Even sick days mean nothing if they need something from you. The only time they leave her alone is when we go "hide" overseas.

 

[WanderALot]

Sometimes she blocks some time off months ahead of time and then "something comes up". Sometimes she is already on vacation when she is asked to come back or call in for some "urgent" matter. Her employer has zero respect for employees' time off. None. Even sick days mean nothing if they need something from you. The only time they leave her alone is when we go "hide" overseas.

Same situation here. I'm much better about this now than I was before. My boss used to guilt trip me about taking trips, especially overseas, because of an "urgent project". But the thing is, there's ALWAYS an urgent project or fire to put out! My boss once had the gall to suggest that I shouldn't buy tickets till a week or two before vacation! I told him that I would do that if they would pay the difference in the higher fare that I would have to pay by buying it close to the date. He never brought it up again.

I think the turning point came about 5 years back when I was preaching to my coworker. We worked on the same project and often took over for one other when the other was away. He wanted to go visit some relatives and friends in Asia for Chinese New Year. He was going to cancel the trip because of the hard time he got from our boss. I convinced him to go and when he came back he was raving about how great of a time he had with all his friends and family. This made me realize that I should follow my advice and not worry about what my boss or other coworkers thought. As long I give me plenty of notice and finish my responsibilities, why should I worry?! When I'm on my deathbed, I can guarantee that I'm not going to fondly reminisce about that work project I completed because I canceled that vacation.

 

[Khan]

I know people working for state and local governments who are getting maybe 3 weeks a year after 10 years of service. I'm getting 5. One difference is the ability to accrue sick leave (and to have it paid out when you separate) which rarely exists in the private sector.

Under the current fed retirement system (FERS) you can accrue sick leave with no limit but it's lost when you retire.
(unless it's changed since I retired)

Under the previous system (CSRS) you weren't paid for sick leave but at retirement it was added to your time worked and would increase your pension by a bit.

I switch systems while employed and got the sick leave I had at that switch added to time worked.

 

[Milton]

I just wish that living in Texas, it were feasible to to take 3-4 weeks off in one chunk in (say) late July or early August and rent a vacation home in a place where it's a lot cooler like we did for a week in Ruidoso last year.nce without causing a disruption.

Cf. General Philip Sheridan!

Working as an attorney I used to think it is was nice that I was limited to a set amount of vacation. So if I wanted to take a total of, say, 4 weeks or 5 weeks off during the year...no problem.

But, I realized that this was misleading. In truth, I really received no vacation. Sure, I could take off and go somewhere on vacation. But, here's the thing. The amount of hours of work I was expected to bill didn't vary depending on whether I took vacation or not. And the expectation was really based upon the idea of working without taking vacation.

So true!

Lawyers in private practice are glorified piece workers.

 

[TomG]

There should be no such thing as vacation time

Increase wages and let people take off whatever time they want without pay

If abused, your employer can stop approving the time off or let you go

For myself, often have plans come up on short notice, so take lots of three to five day breaks throughout the year. Other than moving across the country, can recall only once taking more than one week off in my entire time in the work force

 

[tulak]

Well, after a few days of voting, it looks like this community uses more of their vacation then the US average of 57%. 87% members take their vacation and 13% do not.

I guess it's not too surprising, considering overall goal for most of us.

Not only do we want to FIRE, but we want to take as much time off - that is given to us - while working towards that goal. That seems like a healthly balance.

 

[avengerki]

I work for a megacorp and I try to use all my vacation time up each year. I think my megacorps vacation time is pretty good. I accrue 3.5 hours every 2 week so 91 hours a year. We can have up to I think 120 hours saved up but I have never hit that. We also get 3.5 hours every 2 week or 91 hours a year of sick time which we can use as vacation. We get 7 floating holiday days a year which do not roll over. We also get an extra day of vacation each year on our anniversery for each year we have been working here up to I think 10 years.

On top of all of that every 7 years we get a 2 month sabbatical we can take(can push it out up to 3 years or lose it).

I work a compressed work week scheduled of 3/12's followed by 4 days off then 4/12's with 3 days off so it is possible to take just 3 days off and have a week and a half off.

If we need to we can even sell our vacation or sick time, but not the floating holidays.

 

[kcowan]

I carried over the maximum allowed (8 weeks) then took every last drop of time off (including time off in lieu).

 

[foxfirev5]

Early in my career I didn't use all my vacation time. During my annual review my boss noted that he questioned my managerial abilities if I couldn't even schedule all my vacation days. Thirty years later and I haven't left a day on the table. The business and your career will survive if you take some time off. Plus your productivity,attitude and results will improve.

 

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by ERD50
This poll would have been more 'fun' if it was divided into vacation for public versus private sector employees....

Some benefits are considerably more generous in the public sector, but I'm not sure vacation time is one of them.

Maybe (with one obvious exception), but I was wondering about if there would be a difference between how much was taken versus allowed.

-ERD50

 

[aida2003]

I take 100% of my vacation. DH does, too.
If I'm entitled and it's paid, I consider it earned.

 

[BigNick]

You aren't going to like this, so I'm pulling on the flameproof suit.

There.

Regular French employees get a minimum of 25 days vacation per year, plus 10 public holidays.

I get:
- 30 days vacation, basic
- 4 extra days for my ex-pat status (because when my employer was founded in 1949, it took 1 days each way to get to your vacation destination, twice a year)
- 8 extra days every 2 years for "home leave" - but that got simplified, so now it's another 4 days a year
- 10 public holidays. But wait, there's more! We're an international organisation, with people in several countries. Some of those have more than 10 public holidays. It would be wrong for them to have more than us, right? So we all get 16 public holidays a year. If there aren't enough local holidays, or if one falls on a weekend, we get the rest off between Christmas and New Year.

Still counting? That's 54 days, where the average American probably gets 10-12 discretionary vacation days plus 10 (?) holidays.

And the worse part? Per Katsmeow, for every day I take off other than general holidays, when I get back, there are 60 e-mails waiting for an answer. It takes me a day to recover from 3 days vacation, plus half a day to recover from that day.

I try to take all of them, but DW can't always come along, and she is consuming days on regular visits to her aging parents. So I'm accumulating days. I have a 3 month final notice period, so my aim is to FIRE with 38 days in the bank from last year, 20 or so from this year (you can't carry days past August), thus saying "I'm leaving in 3 months, but don't expect to see me as from tomorrow".