Spin-Off from Work Hours: Do You Take Your Vacation Time?

[tvguy]

I was forced to take an extra week (2 instead of 1) at Christmas time because I had too much on the books. I get 4 weeks a year, and I took almost 5 weeks off last year, and still carried over 64 hours.
We have new managers, and corporate policy is "use it or lose it". We are the only California location, and "use it or lose it" is illegal here. You can put a "reasonable" cap on vacation. I guess Corporate was really shocked that the example California gives as "reasonable" is 200 hours. I normally take Christmas week off, but that really isn't 5 days vacation since 2 company holidays fall in that time frame, and those 2 days I thought I was using vacation, kind of snowballed.

 

[ronandannette]

I was forced to take an extra week (2 instead of 1) at Christmas time because I had too much on the books. I get 4 weeks a year, and I took almost 5 weeks off last year, and still carried over 64 hours.
We have new managers, and corporate policy is "use it or lose it". We are the only California location, and "use it or lose it" is illegal here. You can put a "reasonable" cap on vacation. I guess Corporate was really shocked that the example California gives as "reasonable" is 200 hours. I normally take Christmas week off, but that really isn't 5 days vacation since 2 company holidays fall in that time frame, and those 2 days I thought I was using vacation, kind of snowballed.

As to my OP, I'm curious to know WHY people don't take their vacation days. I realize not everyone travels every year but is there really nothing else you'd rather do than work?

 

[tvguy]

As to my OP, I'm curious to know WHY people don't take their vacation days. I realize not everyone travels every year but is there really nothing else you'd rather do than work?

I try and take it. But I have to coordinate with when my wife can get time off. Her employer wants vacation requests for the next year in by September if you want to use your seniority. The goal is, everyone gets they first pick. Then they try and get everyone their second pick. As you move down to third, fourth and fifth picks, the odds of a week being closed increase.
My place.......well, my last vacation was requested 11 months in advance and not officially approved until 2 DAYS before it started.
We're trying to book a Disneyworld trip now in June, my wife's time off has been approved for 4 months, I'm still waiting to here.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

With 4 kids, I usually manage to use all my vacation in one year even if it's a day at a time- we do have vacation and personal, but there is currently no distinction between the 2. I get a total of 23 days, and can roll over 8, but since depleting my vacation for maternity leave 2 years ago, I haven't been rolling over the max. In 2016 I took more vacation than I earned, and we didn't even get a real vacation!

 

[prprincess]

Yes, most definitely. Like my response to the original thread stated, the organization I work for is pretty inflexible, and a few times have rejected people's vacation week requests. I'm hoping I don't have that issue any time soon!

 

[lanejudy]

Ours is use-it-or-lose-it, so I do plan most of my vacation time to be used. My DD has a lot of medical appointments and occasionally surgery so I try to hold a few days unscheduled for "just in case" situations. With approval I can carry a couple of days forward to use early the following year, so if it's been a good medical year and I find I have a couple of extra vacation days to push forward I'll take a day or two in January and get an extra project done at home.

 

[North of Mouse]

And if not, why not?

I get 5 weeks a year (25 days) - started with 3, got an extra week at 5 years and 10 years. I take every single day and sometimes borrow against next year (which we are allowed on a case-by-case basis). I take at least 1 actual week-long vacation per year, sometimes more and extend several long weekends. Most of my days are used to attend to family and/or personal needs. Our company does not offer personal days or flex days. We are allowed 7 sick days per year; any excess is deducted from vacation time. Unused days do carry over, but it's use-or-lose after 5 years.

I agree with your philosophy. Take those vacation days - well needed for mental and physical health of employees!

Didn't vote as we're now retired, but dh retired from a company that gave about the same length of vacations. Some of his co workers used to hardly use any vacation time to 'save' it to 'cut off' weeks of retirement age - a ridiculous practice! The company finally 'made' them take x weeks a yr. and could 'bank' (up to 10 wks.) no more than 2 wks per yr. or lose them. We did have unlimited sick/personal days at the manager's discretion.

We always gladly took our weeks and enjoyed them thoroughly - what great relaxation!! Can't understand 'anyone' not wanting to use their vacations even if you do no more than sit home and veg out!!

 

[CdnCarrie]

I can roll over 10 days maximum. As in I can't bank 10 days a year and let it accumulate.

I get 5 weeks but a seasonal close down. Sometimes I don't use all 25 but never bank all 10 days.
To me holidays are renewal resource and life isn't all about work so why save them. If I have a ton of trips planned in one year maybe I would carry over the extra 10 days but that has yet to happen.

Sick time is separate and has nothing to do with our vacation time. Doctor's appointments are part of sick time. We also have family sick time.

No personal time.

 

[rastahomie]

I voted other - we don't have vacation days or sick days where I work. You just sort of come and go as you please, and nobody says anything as long as you are doing your job. So I take a lot of "vacation time" (I'm planning to only work for four weeks between June-August), but nobody writes it down or anything.

What the hell kind of job do you have?

 

[Darcy03231]

I get 3.5 weeks between vacation and personal days and use it all. In fact, since DH retired I usually end up taking another 3-5 days unpaid. We aren't allowed to carry over vacation/personal time.

 

[rastahomie]

I'm self-employed, so I don't *get* vacation time. I can work or not work, my prerogative. If I take a week off, I will undoubtedly miss out on a week's worth of earnings. So that means that if I want to take some time off, I need to have some money put away to cover what I'll lose.

 

[wvjules]

We have to use the hours earned that weren't used in the previous year. For me, I have to use 15 days carried over from last year and this year I will accrue another 25. If I don't use all of those 25 this year the remaining will carry over and have to be used next year.

So, since I carried over 15 days from last year, no I don't use all of my vacation. I used 10 days last year but we didn't really go on a vacation. And most I did take off were to study which counted as continuing education and were charged as such, no using PTO for that.

 

[BLAZEY]

I get 4 weeks and have carried over 2 days from 2016. I usually hang on to a day or 2 in the winter in case of school closure/or DD gets sick. I am lucky our family will keep her if she is ill, but I always like to have a backup plan just in case. I have until Feb 28, 2017 to us up my 2016 allotment, unless arrangements have been made. I currently have 2 day unused from 2016. I have booked Feb 14, 2017 off and have mad arrangements to use the last day for 2016 as my first day of my March 2017 Disney Trip. The policy came into effect after have many long term employees having 6+ weeks of banked holiday time from previous years in addition to the 5 weeks for the current year.

 

[DennyCrane]

I had a bit of a long vacation after that James T. Kirk stuff I did, so I try to keep pretty busy these days. Becoming Denny has allowed Alan and I to take our families on little mini vacations when our schedules match and I also try to take a break to keep my mind sharp. I like to stay busy so my vacations must be short and sweet.

 

[AlohaNow]

Oh, heck yes. Life is too short! I currently get four weeks PTO. We have a use it or lose it policy for any amount over XX hours, with a cut-off date of the end of our fiscal year. My co-workers have lost their time. This is a concept that my brain simply cannot understand. Again, going back to the life is too short thing!

 

[soccerdad72]

We can roll over up to a year (20 days) of vacation each year. If your balance at year-end is higher than that, you lose that portion that you're over.

I generally roll over a couple days each year - right now, I'm up to 26+ days accumulated (plus 4 personal days) and I think we only have 6 or 7 days scheduled for vacation for the remainder of the year (our fiscal year ends Jun. 30), so I might end up rolling over 17 or 18 days this time around. The personal days are use it or lose it, so I often use those first (as long as it's just day off here or there).

I generally take 12-15 days of vacation a year. I like to have a balance banked for the occasional times that we are looking to do a longer trip, so I have extra available. We get a lot of paid holidays as well as Christmas week off separately, so there are only so many times that we go on vacation these days.

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

I get 6 weeks of PTO a year. We can only carry over 3 days at the end of the year.

I've always been able to use all of my PTO each year but with the management/operational changes at my company it is becoming increasingly difficult to take PTO. There's just so much to do and no crosstraining/backup/support. It's worse in other departments - I know people that forfeited 3+ weeks of PTO last year.

 

[Marchand63]

Get 5 weeks, been there over 30 years, 5 personal days, 10 Holidays & I use every minute of it every year

We are a 24/7/365 business so we can bank holidays to use when we want.

 

[MomofKatie]

Part time job- no paid holidays, vacation, or sick days. My employers are pretty good about giving me time off for vacations as long as I let them know a month in advance. We have several holidays off each year, but they aren't paid.

DH gets 15 vacation days per year, plus 2 personal days and 5 or 6 paid holidays. Vacation is "use it or lose it", although he can hold over a day or 2 to take in January if he can't fit them all in by the end of the year. He takes all of his allotted time off- I make sure of that! He tends to be a workaholic, but is getting better as he ages.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I accumulate PTO per pay period. I accumulate 10.77 hours per pay period which comes out to 280 hours a year which is 7 weeks. We have to use our holiday's out of the bank so it comes to 6 weeks of vacation, sick, personal, etc. It all comes out of that bank. I use it all. You are allowed to sell back 40 hours in December as long as you have 75 hours remaining in your bank after you sell back. You can only roll over 200 hours. I've seen people scrambling to use their time as not to lose it January 1. I don't get it.

Also the reason we have to use our bank for holiday time is because this is a hospital and essential employees work the holidays. I forget exactly how it's worded but it's really that the hospital doesn't want to pay us non essential people for the holiday and then have to pay essential employees double time and a half. Instead they get time and a half and don't use that day out of their bank. If I wanted to work a holiday I would get time and a half and the time would remain in my bank. It made better sense when they explained it to me.