Do you take vacation days?

[project15]

The reason people don't take vacation days is because it's a catch 22. If you take them, you fall behind in your work and have to work longer hour days.

[disneysteve]

I take every day I have coming to me and then some. I rarely hesitate to take a day or a partial day off if there is something that I feel is important for me to attend. For example, last night, my daughter was participating in the district-wide gifted program Renaissance Faire. I ended my hours at 5:00 instead of 8:00. Being there to see that was more important to me than working 3 more hours.

I get 4 weeks of vacation time each year. It does not accrue. We generally travel 2 or 3 of those 4 weeks. Only one year, 2005, did we travel all 4 weeks. I usually take one week in the late winter or early spring and work around the house, clean the garage, basement, yard, etc. During the summer, after DW is done camp, we do a family trip. This year, it will be 2 weeks in New Hampshire. Then we do our annual Disney World trip in November.

I need my vacations. I need the break from work for my own mental health and to spend time with my family. I believe taking those breaks makes me more effective at my job. Sometimes, when my vacation weeks are scheduled kind of far apart, I'll squeeze in a mini-vacation like a 3-day weekend trip to Lancaster, PA or something like that. Just to get away, clear my head, and return recharged with a fresh outlook. I think folks who don't take their vacation time are probably having a negative impact on their health and job productivity.

[pearlieq]

When I had paid vacation/sick/personal days I would NEVER leave one on the table. I couldn't see the point of not taking it if it was coming to me.

Now that I'm consulting on an hourly basis, I'm very careful about dropping time. I will take time off to travel, but otherwise I try to keep work absences to the bare minimum since they're money out of my pocket.

[jodi]

I take every day I have coming too. My personal days have to be used within a year, so I make sure to use them first for appointments, etc. before dipping into vacation time. Vacation and sick time roll over. I get about 2.5-3 weeks off each year. At least one week of that is spent camping in the summer, with an occasional shorter trip thrown in during the year. We probably won't do any longer trips until the kids get bigger. Sometimes I just take a day off here and there to get things done around the house, or when my mom can't watch the kids and DH is already scheduled to work.
I used up every last bit of my personal, vacation, and sick leave during my maternity leave. If I am still working there when we have more kids, I'll do the same. Might as well get paid as much as I can while I'm out.

[carsensejoe]

if you gotm usem

I just got my time back...april 12th... i've used 3 days already and scheduled another 1 for tommorrow i have tons of stuff to do. If I gotem I have to use em plus the weather is great.... i use them to interview for new jobs!!!

[Fern]

Well God yes! I use sick time as needed, and yes, i have used sick time in the past for a mental health day.

Some of my so-called vacation time is spent at home, just catching up on home maintenance stuff. It's still great to get a break from the mind-numbing routine of work.

Right now i get 1 day shy of 4 weeks, if you include our summer Fridays and personal days.

[fairy74]

Court holidays only. But since I work contract and don't get paid for vacation/sick days I try to avoid it. Currently, I'm on partial bedrest with my pregnancy so I have two days a week I cannot go into work, but laying on your left side all day is really no vacation!

[MonkeyMama]

Always!

You know my first job out of college we could take our overtime as vacation holiday or cash. Actually, maybe we had to take it as vacation originally. I remember one year I took a good 2 months off. But most of the rest of the year I was working 60-80 hours. Really, overall, wouldn't recommend it.

But my current job I get 3 weeks of vacation and I squeeze it for all it's worth. I think I was in negative vacation for a while. I now have the kind of vacations where no one calls me and I don't have to check in and follow up on work. We get plenty of personal time to care of personal things too, so vacations are vacations. I actually plan to take 2 weeks spread throughout the year and use my 3rd week just for more flexibility and personal time in the summer. All very appreciated and well needed. Since I have been off on months for maternity leave, I think they will survive if I take a few days off. Nice to work a job where other people can cover for you I guess, as we all kind of share the workload. Plus it is slow in the summer, probably would be forced to go on vacation regardless.

[Elgin526]

I take all of my vacation days (18 of them) and both my personal days (2 of them) each year. We can't bank them so it's use-it-or-lose-it. My company wants us to take time off, they feel a happy employee is a productive employee. I don't nessesarily travel when I take time off, in fact my last one week vacation I stayed at home the whole time! We usually take one trip a year and the rest I use to take long weekends and stay at home or take a day trip someplace.

I don't take my sick time unless I'm really too sick to work. As a result, in 8 years I've banked 65 days of sick leave, which is the max allowed. Soon they'll start paying me for my unused days over the 65 limit. Since they will be paying me not to call in, and I'll soon be working from home, I doubt I'll take any sick time at all, unless I'm litteraly too sick to get out of bed. I can use my banked sick time to take paid maternity, too, which is another bennifit of not calling in for "mental health days".

[Coleroo]

I keep seeing this commercial on TV that says the 26% of people never take their vacation days. Do you take your full allotment of vacation days? How about sick days? And when you do take them, what do you do? Do you really take a vacation or do you use them for other things?

Whew... not me. I DEFINATELY take them.

Our company has one of the best PTO (vacation / sick) plan banks for "paid time off" that I've ever heard of.

We earn a pro-rated amount of PTO for every hour worked. After being here for 12 months, the amount doubles. I've been here 3 years and currently earn close to 8 hours off every paycheck (im paid bi-weekly). So with 26 paychecks a year, thats right around 5 work weeks of paid vacation per year. It can be used in as little as 15 minute increments or up to your entire amount. As a member of staff, for me to use it I have to have prior written permission from my center manager (which is really easy to get) but our operators only have to give 90 minute notice to not come in, be late, or leave early.

Our banks continuously roll over year to year and the PTO never expires. We do have yearly limits that our banks can hold at any one time (like, 250 or something like that) and staff members have to have less than 80 hours in their bank at the start of every fiscal year, but thats easy to do since its so tempting to use. lol

My poor husband only got one week (!) after being there for a year...and since he is on a 3 man crew, he had to use his week last month when the 2 other men took off for their week. After being there 5 years he will get 2 weeks per year.... Gosh.

[Ima saver]

Well my husband has always been self employed, so he never gets a paid vacation. We use to take a vacation every year, but now we don't go much because we won't leave our dog. We only stay at motels that take dogs.

[BCHGRL]

I don't take vacation too often. Where is there to go when you live in paradise? I have no desire to go to a tropical location (cruise, bahamas, etc) when there is a beach five minutes from my house. I do enjoy traveling and exploring cities but with my husband being a firefighter, his schedule is not conducive to it. I try to enjoy cities when I travel there for work. For example, I've been to Orlando many times with work and stayed a day or two extra to do the tourist thing. If it is within driving distance, my mom comes with me. She hangs out by the pool all day and when I get off work we go and see the sights. Occasionally I'll take a sick day or just take a day in conjunction with the weekend.

If my husband and I do take vacation and travel, it is to his hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. God knows I love him because there is nothing that interests me whatsoever about that place. I enjoy seeing his family but that's about it.

[nanamom]

i work 24/7 or you could say I am on vacation 24/7. Thank goodness my DH says it is the former. He does take the vacation days his company gives, as well as all personal days he is entitled to in his contract. We travel 3000 miles to see family twice a year and it isn't enough. We occasionally steal a bit of time for the 3 of us but that is rare and usually because we have to do X somewhere for church or school or he will do 4 10 hour days so we can get a bit of time together. But most of our vacation is devoted to GA and NC where those we love live.

[Ini_g]

Wow. Vacations are very important, I love money... but I love more my life!

[rob62521]

I don't get vacation per se as a teacher, but we do get one personal day a year which if you don't use, acrues to two. I was just thinking the last time I used a personal day was over 10 years ago for dh's 50th birthday so I could set up for the party. The problem with taking time off as a teacher is you have to have substitute plans in place before you can leave and then like someone said, make up for the work. Usually that means grading two days' worth of papers in one evening instead of just one set, plus dealing with whatever problems weren't resolved the day with the substitute, depending on the quality of the sub.

Yes, I know many of you are saying, well, you are a teacher and you have the summer off. Well, yes, technically, but my state requires in order to keep our teaching certificates that we do lots of professional development. For many of us, doing the pd during the year is too difficult, so we spend a big chunk of the summer taking classes to keep updated.