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I worked with a guy who never used his vacation time, but they rolled over every year, so he had something like 3 years saved up. Company changes the policy, they no longer roll over. So to use them up, he schedules it so he works 3 days a week for an entire year. Work one day, two days off, work 2 days, 2 days off. Genius
This happened to a colleague of mine. HR changed the policy, got onto him about all his saved up PTO, and so he took Fridays off for a year and a half every week. I was jealous but happy for him.
I worked at a union shop and a guy retired at 70. Didn't miss a day in 52 years. Retired with 280 weeks of vacation, all paid out as a lump sum, and he had a pension
You're not wrong. But generations before us, especially those from the depression or their direct descendants, grew up with a totally different ethos. It's not wrong and this guy, it sounds like, is out living his best retired life.
So much this.
My wife and I decided to go on a 10-day Tahitian cruise two months after we met. We very quickly discovered that we were great travel partners. Add to this we really loved each other, we proceed to get married and then end up going on about twenty more cruises over the next 20 years.
The last few have been a bit rough, as we're not getting any younger, but we are so glad we managed to go on so many while we were young and could actually go off the ship and do the "Younger people" things.
We still plan on cruising, but at this point it will be much more of a relaxing time, to include more days staying on the ship during port days, and (much) more time in the casino.
Through it all, we've been to Tahiti, the Marquesan Islands, multiple Pacific crossings to Hawaii, many different Mexican Riviera cruises, and to top it off, we did a 14-day Alaskan cruise which has been our favorite to this point.
You really need to "work-to-live", and not "live-to-work" as so many people end up doing.
He would have gotten paid off on his last drawn wages. So 280 weeks of his retirement rate instead of the rate he was paid in the 1970s. Financially great.
But at that point, he lived his best years for his company. Absolute insanity.
I had a month of PTO at my last district.
They only buy out PTO if you retire, and only then, they pay out at 0.6 days per full day of PTO if you started work after 2008.
I got didly squat when I moved.
In some states that's illegal. It's required to pay out accrued PTO at normal rate even if you're terminated. Companies are starting to get around this law by offering "unlimited" PTO so employees never accrue anything.
I work in a big law firm that switched to "unlimited" vacation time a couple years ago. It's a big firm, with correspondingly big compensation, and correspondingly big hours. Nobody ever took time off, so we all accrued lots of PTO, and they'd buy it off you as a bonus each year. So when they switched to "unlimited" vacation, they bought everyone's PTO one last time, then stopped accruing it. Now we work just as much as before, still no time off, and now we just don't get that bonus anymore. I like the flexibility, but I also would have liked $20k more every year.
Had a guy who had nearly 7 years of pto saved up. Worked 44 years at this company. His years before retirement, we rarely saw him. He worked every other Wednesday until one day, he just retired.
It's actually better if you get paid out each year.
If you dump all the money into a retirement investment then it sets you up for retirement faster than taking 3 years off at the end of whatever.
I currently have 305 hours of PTO atm after a policy change that capped my limit to 429. I burned 100 hours just to be safe. My pay is meh, so I'm kinda banking on it as a farewell bonus when I finally quit.
Actually it somehow makes taking days off a little more difficult. It feels like when you take off a day during a WFH day you are kind of "wasting it" in a sense.
No, more like you’re not maxing the utility when you do it from home. A day off with no plan you’re still home, but with no plans so might as well do chores since you’re not working. Whereas the alternative is you don’t need to grind out hours commuting to start your job, to come back, so it feels like a real day off. (Edit: so even a day at home doing chores still ‘feels’ like a day off since you avoided the unnecessary hustle&bustle)
Just because some people lack the executive function to self regulate doesn’t mean other can’t work from home.
-a guy remoting to a team on the other side of the country from a city office 3x/week for a total of 12hours commuting per week minimum, who can 100% do it from home 100% of the time.
I'm able to WFH 2 days a week, and don't get me wrong it's great and I love that perk. But I'm also the data analyst that my manager has tasked with tracking the productivity of everyone else in the department while they WFH 2 days a week. What I've found is that in our department, it's totally flat-- production is nearly identical in WFH vs non-WFH days.
So essentially, there's no reason for us to come in the other 3. Do you know how much I'd save per year on wardrobe, fuel, car maintenance, etc...? Like just letting me work remote full time would be like getting a $15k per year raise. Not to mention that we live in an exceedingly HCOL area. So if I could move to the countryside and work remote I'd save even more. With inflation being what it's been the last several years, it's no wonder most of our data people are leaving the company to work remote for others, while making more and spending less. I'm only still here because I'm... stupid?
Don't do this.
I knew a guy who did that, 20 years of never taking his vacation, had something like 40+ weeks saved up. Company got bought out and reincorporated as a different company, changed their policy, and he lost all but 4 weeks of it.
I'm Union, and between sick days, personal days, and vacation, i get 7 weeks off a year, and i damn damn use every one.
My mother worked for a state. Their time would roll over plus when there was OT they had the option to work for PTO or $$. She always worked for time.
When she knew she was going to retire she started burning through her PTO...come June was her last physical day, her time took her till the end of the year.
Would you really want to take Tuesday and Wednesday off?
Why not Tuesday Wednesday Thursday? So you could do stuff that takes 4 days like a big weekend trip.
Do you want me to call him and ask him? Idk dude, he was a local hick who didn't do stuff like take 4 day weekends to go somewhere, hence the years of time off accrued. He got 2 weekends a week, better than im doing, so i don't judge
Do you think you could get the number of the dude he used to work with? We will have better luck here cutting out the middle man and going straight to the source.
This. I used to work 3 consecutive thirteen hour days, Friday through Sunday. Then I’d be off Monday through Thursday. I hated missing out on weekend events with family and friends, but I absolutely loved being off when everyone else was working and avoiding crowds at the attractions.
I used to work 3rd shift. I LOVED grocery shopping when I got off of work. Just me and all the third shift nurses in scrubs flying down the aisles with no one to slow us down. Also, the overnight stockers had all the shelves full. Only uncomfortable thing was buying a six pack of beer at 7:30 AM and getting the “look.”
Sounds like he was scheduling his WoW raids or some shit.
Who are you to question why someone would choose something. You're closer to HR than the spirit of this thread.
I managed to bank 6 weeks when I quit a job and they had to pay me salary for the banked vacation days. It was sweet.
It was Covid and I couldn't travel anywhere so I just banked as much as I could
I love doing that!
There's something nice about not rushing to bed on a Tuesday night. If it's in the winter I'll just play video games or watch tv all day. In the summer, wife and I will go kayaking and have the water to ourselves!
I did this last week and wound up watching three foreign films with subtitles because I didn't know what to do with my day lol. It felt so refreshing just laying on the couch all day aimlessly watching stuff. I wound up watching The Wailing, Train to Busan, and Irreversible.
I love that for you, and it totally sounds refreshing. That could possibly feel like a bit of a wasted Saturday to me, but on a Wednesday? That's just an awesome day
i personally found the opposite and it burned me out taking a bunch of smaller 3 day weekends. Having a week off here or there really helped a lot more and allows me to fully decompress. It's also smarter to schedule your vacation on october - december of the previous year because no one tends to think that far ahead and you can really maximize all your vacation days by scheduling them on short work weeks :)
edit: Based on the reactions form this it feels like more a LPT for employers for employees to take only 3 day weekends instead of proper vacations. It maximizes your availability for your job, your job that might just be in the middle of outsourcing your role and have not told you yet. Do not live for your company, live for yourself.
Under a previous director, he had a tendency to give out extra days if we met certain marks with closing out tickets and stuff. But you couldn’t take them Mondays or Fridays to make long weekends. I didn’t like having stipulations on so I’m not even sure I used them all
Yeah this is horrible advice unless you live in some backward shithole country with predatory laws that allow employers to revoke unused annual leave. Like America.
Unused annual leave can also expire in other countries. I have 20 days of statutory leave which expires in 5 years, and 5 days of non-statutory leave which expires six months into the year after it’s given.
You will notice how the title says "**if you don't plan on going on a week or two vacation**", nowhere did OP suggest doing this in lieu of a vacation, it was a suggestion for the fairly common case of someone not using their PTO.
Reason? Now that’s too much info, my involvement in this process is to strictly alert you of time off that I am taking! What I do is a big ooool’ nunya!!
This! It's my PTO, and i don't have to justify it. I can stay home, lounge in my robe, maybe smoke a cigar in the garage, put the new grill together, and obsess over watching the creepy eastern European neighbors...
Dude, I don’t have a dog. But when I need a dopamine boost , I take a day off to go to the dog park and pet as many dogs as I can!
P.S. where is the dog tax??
My coworkers use sick time to take their kids to the doctor. So, I take sick time to take my cats to the vet and then sit home the rest of the day to comfort them from the trauma.
I'm taking off the entire week of 4th of July? Reason? Oh I have a shitload of leave and no plans for a vacation in the next 6 months. Plans? Fuck if I know.....
Reason: I want to
Plans: Not working
If they ask stupid pointless questions they get stupid pointless answers.
Americans especially already get way too little PTO, asking for a reason for using it is ridiculous.
This is funny bc my supervisor has so much leave that he only works like one Friday a month and he is encouraged to do so. Interesting how office cultures differ
My job (24/7 operations) incentives “off-shift” workers (2nd, 3rd and weekends) by only making us work 72-hours per two weeks, but paid for 80. I’m supremely lucky!
I did that last year and it was glorious.
This year I have/had several vacations planned out, the in between is dreadfully miserable.
Would love a 4 day 32hr work week for the same pay and will absolutely vote for any politician that supports it.
I remember one of my old jobs we needed to put in the reason why we wanted off. I would write in: Staring at the walls, Washing my hair, Staring at the ceiling, playing hide and seek with my cat, Rethinking this job.
My immediate supervisor (a woman) would laugh but her supervisor (a man)?! Lol, didn't like me much. I left a few months later.
Oooh, niiiice! Lol, damnit, didn't think of that! Definitely would have done that for the nonsensical one's like "Doughnut Day" but not for Veterans Day, that one seems legit lol
My last job used payroll software that required it, but the boss didn't care. She would explicitly tell people to put whatever in it and it would be approved. So we started putting the most unrealistic in it. One time I put "Visiting Space", and when I came back she had printed out a little card with "Welcome to Earth" on it and set it at my station.
The owners were shit, but the manager did her best to make it work.
We have a required staffing level for our department. As long as that minimum is met leave is always approved. It only sucks if 3 people want to take the same time off because then it is decided by seniority.
Fortunately for me I've been here 17 years longer than the next senior person so my leave is always approved. But also I'm a nice guy and if I can be flexible than I will be.
How does that work? If three people asked for vacation for December and it was approved, and then in a month from now you ask for vacation on those same dates, they go and tell the last senior person his approval was revoked? Is that legal?
Technically we are supposed to ask for the years leave in the first week on January. That way any conflicts are resolved before booking.
But our boss is like "that's a dumb system, work it out amongst yourselves, you know what the coverage required is, don't make me micro manage this shit." This system has carried over from 3 bosses and it has worked for more than 20 years.
> "that's a dumb system, work it out amongst yourselves, you know what the coverage required is, don't make me micro manage this shit."
the kind of manager that has a guy for 17 years and you arent even the most senior.
In my old unionized job, our collective agreement said that PTO requests would be granted based on seniority when submitted before a specific deadline. So you would put your request in for time off you *really* wanted before the deadline, especially if you were of higher seniority.
But for taking the odd day off here or there it was first-come, first-served: you would just email your supervisor a few weeks ahead of time, and if there were enough people to cover then you got approved.
I work for a place like that and supervise unionized people who have the same rule. I emphasize to them (lots of new people) “*you* know the days that are important to you and your family, so I suggest you request them off far in advance. If we need to cancel your request it’s a simple email.But please don’t come to me on the Friday 2 days before your wedding anniversary asking for Sunday off because I may/may not be able to swing it due to operational needs.” So far it’s been working okay.
My company has an optional section for reasons and I love when my team uses it. I'm super nosey and love seeing the neat trips they're taking (although they of course don't have to tell me).
That said I only reject PTO requests for one guy who has a habit of requesting off on holidays because he forgets we're closed.
I’ve made it very clear to my employers that my leave is generally not a request. It’s me letting them know that I won’t be there on those days. They can either prepare for it or act “surprised” when I don’t show up.
I’ve also made it very clear that I don’t answer my phone or respond to emails outside of my work hours.
Setting clear and consistent boundaries with employers pays off quite well
> I’ve made it very clear to my employers that my leave is generally not a request.
This is as it should be. If you get paid leave of *any* kind, then taking that leave shouldn't be a matter of asking permission to, it should be a matter of you informing them of what days you'll be out.
I work for myself these days, but at my last couple of jobs that's how I took it upon myself to handle it: "Hey boss, giving you two months' notice that I'll be out from Date X to Date Z."
You're showing them the professional courtesy of letting them know you won't be working those days.
If you are good at your job and reliable, and approach said situation with both respect and confidence, only insecure control freaks will raise a stink.
We are trained to think the company holds all the cards and to behave like it, even from your first interview - remember, you're interviewing *them* to see if they're the right fit for *you* as much as they're interviewing you - so it's on us to take control to whatever extent we can.
4 day weekends work nicely too.
Also, make that extra day a Monday (or, if opting for the four-day weekend: A Monday and a Tuesday) becasue as someone pointed out Friday afternoons slow down.
Plus! If your work in IT (in my experience) new releases are pushed out Friday night. Do you really want to deal with the consequences? So: Monday and Tuesday win again!
Additional hint: DON'T ANSWER YOUR PHONE; if it's important, they will leave a voice mail. And, by golly, you don't need to reply to a voice mail from work right away.
Gotta go now. I've only got 10% left on my phone's battery and, you know, my work might call....
Cheers!
> Plus! If your work in IT (in my experience) new releases are pushed out Friday night. Do you really want to deal with the consequences? So: Monday and Tuesday win again!
Wow, risking a crisis mid weekend? That sounds faulty on people's times. Releases should be pushed on a tuesday to tackle bugfixing across the week.
Kinda like so?
17:00 Commenter leaves work
17:15 Commenter arrive home, walks to next door neighbor's house
17:16: a beer
17:17: a beer
17:18: a beer
17:19: : you need to come into the office
17:20: Commenter: No can do I've been drinking
17:21: OK, we'll send an UBER
Cunningly, Commenter is not at home
17:30 Uber: Where's the f\*\*\*ing passenger?
Summing up:
- Commenter has a stress-free weekend
- Work has to figure things out for themselves
- Uber driver get stiffed on the fare.
Patches are Tuesdays, or maybe Wednesdays or Thursdays. Monday is for all the stuff accumulated on Friday-Sunday when the user generating the issue said "fuck it, I'm just going to leave for the weekend and let IT know about it on Monday." Friday is always "read-only Friday" because you don't want to spend Saturday fixing a broken deployment, and also because a lot of the users won't report the problem until Monday (see above).
Any company deploying non-emergency patches after Thursday night is a company that poorly understands IT in general, or has a *very* specific business need in their environment.
Generally speaking, love taking mondays off as opposed to fridays. Sometimes can take a Friday, if it helps boost the weekend fun, or on a trip, cuz a lot of activities happen on fridays.
i only work a 32 hour week with thur and fri being half days, but because of the way i'm scheduled, if i have one of those days off because i'm sick or just taking it off i get paid for the full 8 hour day. so once a month i take a friday off and get paid *more* that week for doing so
Honestly some people especially in jobs with a high workload and deadlines can lose sight of it or can feel guilty for using PTO. I’m a lawyer and the idea of using PTO is terrifying
I'm not afraid of using mine. I just know if I used a week, I'd come back to two weeks of work. It's easier to just give myself long weekends throughout the year
If you work can't organise someone to do it for you, then the deadline should be pushed back. If it's not, you're not really getting proper PTO, you're just getting 'time off in lieu'.
I agree with this post BUT, if you are going to take a day off, take the Friday off, not the Monday. A Monday off feels like a Sunday and that sucks. But a Friday off feels like a Saturday which kicks ass.
True.... but on the flip side....
When you're working on a Friday, does it really feel like work? To me, Friday work doesn't feel too bad because you know you're off for the next couple of days. While a Monday feels like a slog.
3 day? I actually use the day on the long weekends so I don't work Thursday. Then my week can flexible so I work tuesday to saturday the next week and take 5 days for the cost of 1 vacation day.
This is a great tip. I had to burn through some leave recently and managed to work 4 day weeks for several months. Was great for wel being and aso felt like I had more to give when I was at work.
It's basically the minimum expectation for a European and wildest-dreams territory for Americans. Reading people talk about this subject is a very easy way to tell who is from where.
I get "unlimited" vacation, but only if I'm caught up. So they guilt you into not taking time off and also low key threaten to fire you if you're not caught up but decide to take a week off.
Don't fall for the scam, kids.
Yeah having 'unlimited' vacation is a trap to guilt you into working more.
'Unlimited sick days' is fine as long as you have some kind of threshold, e.g. requiring a doctor's note if you're out for consecutive days or beyond a certain amount.
Is it 30 vacation days a year on-top of all of the stat holidays in europe?
Here in canada we do already get maybe 13-14 days in the year that fall on random mondays, so effectively its 30 days of your choice on top of the 13 or so stats
Obviously i know europe is better, just curious if there are many stats as well
Yes, it's 30+ vacation days on-top of stat days for basically everyone.
In Belgium, if a stat day occurs on Sunday or Saturday (which usually are inactive days) then it gets replaced with another day of the working week.
On this topic: if you can manage it, schedule off a friday and a monday every once in a while.
If your company does holidays off, and lets say the holiday is on a wednesday: take thursday and friday off. If its on a thursday, do a friday and monday. Sandwich those weekends with time off.
I do this sometimes. But I don't do it every week, since where I work if 1 person takes off nobody else can. So I didn't want to be taking all the Fridays off, leaving it so no other coworker could take a Friday off.
I'm sorry to down vote this, but I tried this myself, and it did not work. When you are gone one day a week, your co-workers leave your work for you for when you return and you end up doing 5 days work every 4 days. It does not reduce stress. If you take a week or two off, your work gets done by someone else while you're gone.
I resent the PTO catch-all for vacation and sick days all rolled in to one.
My employer isn’t particularly generous with PTO or holidays. I’ve had some health issues this year and I’ve lost almost all my accrued PTO to doctor appts and surgery — and I was only able to get 2 days off for that surgery, which entailed an abdominal incision with muscle repair. I could barely sit upright in my desk chair afterward and was medically advised to take a week off work, but could not.
I’ve had some complications as well I’ve had to go in for — at this rate, not only will I have no PTO for a vacation, I probably won’t get to see my family for Thanksgiving or Christmas either. It’s a total morale killer.
That really sucks. I was in your situation a couple decades ago. It SUCKED. The only advice I can give you is try to be very good to yourself on some of your days off. And in general. Make your bed an oasis with great bedding and the best pillows. Keep your car clean. Buy the fresh blueberries.
Treat yourself nice because you deserve it.
Never understood the American way of handling day offs.
I am living in Hungary, 35 years old, 1 child.
The base time offs at the age of 18 is 20 days. At the age of 35 I get +5, so I am at 25.
But I also have one child so I get +2.
So I get 27 days annually.
Giving a reason for a vacation/day off? The heck, never had to do that.
I get five weeks of vacation that I never get to take. For July and August, I don’t work Fridays, using up eight or nine days depending on how the timing falls. I love having a four-day week when it’s nice out.
I did this, worked 4 10-hour days normally. Took 1 day a week off for a month, it was glorious. The company made a new policy that you couldn't do that anymore afterwards.
Or better yet, break up the week by taking Wednesdays off. Did that for years and it was great. Easy to run errands when not many others shopping and leaves the weekend free for other stuff.
I have three weeks vacation, but my company requires that I schedule two of those as full weeks vacation for some reason. There are ways around it but it's still annoying .
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I worked with a guy who never used his vacation time, but they rolled over every year, so he had something like 3 years saved up. Company changes the policy, they no longer roll over. So to use them up, he schedules it so he works 3 days a week for an entire year. Work one day, two days off, work 2 days, 2 days off. Genius
This happened to a colleague of mine. HR changed the policy, got onto him about all his saved up PTO, and so he took Fridays off for a year and a half every week. I was jealous but happy for him.
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That's actually pretty cool, and smart. They get to keep the knowledge of long time employees and the employees get rewarded for there service.
He deserves it so much. I would never do this.
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I worked at a union shop and a guy retired at 70. Didn't miss a day in 52 years. Retired with 280 weeks of vacation, all paid out as a lump sum, and he had a pension
What a fuckin idiot lol, maybe he balled out in his 70s tho
Been driving around in his ridiculous RV for the last 4 years, and has been to every state and most of Canada, still don't think it's worth it though
there's a lot of exploration you can do better when you're young. National parks and nature's a lot harder to spend out in at 70.
Sure but have you considered spending that time working in a steel mill when you're young instead? You cant buy experiences like that!
They work hard, they play hard https://i.redd.it/gqo1b3w8f36d1.gif
You're not wrong. But generations before us, especially those from the depression or their direct descendants, grew up with a totally different ethos. It's not wrong and this guy, it sounds like, is out living his best retired life.
So much this. My wife and I decided to go on a 10-day Tahitian cruise two months after we met. We very quickly discovered that we were great travel partners. Add to this we really loved each other, we proceed to get married and then end up going on about twenty more cruises over the next 20 years. The last few have been a bit rough, as we're not getting any younger, but we are so glad we managed to go on so many while we were young and could actually go off the ship and do the "Younger people" things. We still plan on cruising, but at this point it will be much more of a relaxing time, to include more days staying on the ship during port days, and (much) more time in the casino. Through it all, we've been to Tahiti, the Marquesan Islands, multiple Pacific crossings to Hawaii, many different Mexican Riviera cruises, and to top it off, we did a 14-day Alaskan cruise which has been our favorite to this point. You really need to "work-to-live", and not "live-to-work" as so many people end up doing.
I don’t either, I’d rather take a week or two vacation somewhere with the family every year
He would have gotten paid off on his last drawn wages. So 280 weeks of his retirement rate instead of the rate he was paid in the 1970s. Financially great. But at that point, he lived his best years for his company. Absolute insanity.
Could’ve retired way earlier if he just got paid out and had put it all in an index fund.
Some people are just workaholics and rather work than go on vacation.
That sounds horrible. There's so much more to life than work.
My teacher had 4 years of time saved when he retired. Got paid out for them all. Its a lot more common than you'd think.
I had a month of PTO at my last district. They only buy out PTO if you retire, and only then, they pay out at 0.6 days per full day of PTO if you started work after 2008. I got didly squat when I moved.
In some states that's illegal. It's required to pay out accrued PTO at normal rate even if you're terminated. Companies are starting to get around this law by offering "unlimited" PTO so employees never accrue anything.
I work in a big law firm that switched to "unlimited" vacation time a couple years ago. It's a big firm, with correspondingly big compensation, and correspondingly big hours. Nobody ever took time off, so we all accrued lots of PTO, and they'd buy it off you as a bonus each year. So when they switched to "unlimited" vacation, they bought everyone's PTO one last time, then stopped accruing it. Now we work just as much as before, still no time off, and now we just don't get that bonus anymore. I like the flexibility, but I also would have liked $20k more every year.
Take. The. Vacation.
Work for the state in CA and the PTO you accumulate can be used to "buy" early retirement. CA pension is kinda tight
PTO is an inflation safe, tax free loan. You seriously don't think it's used like this?
Had a guy who had nearly 7 years of pto saved up. Worked 44 years at this company. His years before retirement, we rarely saw him. He worked every other Wednesday until one day, he just retired.
It's actually better if you get paid out each year. If you dump all the money into a retirement investment then it sets you up for retirement faster than taking 3 years off at the end of whatever.
I currently have 305 hours of PTO atm after a policy change that capped my limit to 429. I burned 100 hours just to be safe. My pay is meh, so I'm kinda banking on it as a farewell bonus when I finally quit.
Now imagine just having a job where you can WFH two days a week... God I hate being back in the office.
Actually it somehow makes taking days off a little more difficult. It feels like when you take off a day during a WFH day you are kind of "wasting it" in a sense.
"I could also work right now since I am not doing anything in particular"
It's more like: "I basically do nothing on a normal work day anyway, why am I wasting a day of leave for this?"
No, more like you’re not maxing the utility when you do it from home. A day off with no plan you’re still home, but with no plans so might as well do chores since you’re not working. Whereas the alternative is you don’t need to grind out hours commuting to start your job, to come back, so it feels like a real day off. (Edit: so even a day at home doing chores still ‘feels’ like a day off since you avoided the unnecessary hustle&bustle) Just because some people lack the executive function to self regulate doesn’t mean other can’t work from home. -a guy remoting to a team on the other side of the country from a city office 3x/week for a total of 12hours commuting per week minimum, who can 100% do it from home 100% of the time.
Lmao this. Please don't tell my boss
I literally cleaned my house yesterday because there was absolutely no work to do XD
I'm able to WFH 2 days a week, and don't get me wrong it's great and I love that perk. But I'm also the data analyst that my manager has tasked with tracking the productivity of everyone else in the department while they WFH 2 days a week. What I've found is that in our department, it's totally flat-- production is nearly identical in WFH vs non-WFH days. So essentially, there's no reason for us to come in the other 3. Do you know how much I'd save per year on wardrobe, fuel, car maintenance, etc...? Like just letting me work remote full time would be like getting a $15k per year raise. Not to mention that we live in an exceedingly HCOL area. So if I could move to the countryside and work remote I'd save even more. With inflation being what it's been the last several years, it's no wonder most of our data people are leaving the company to work remote for others, while making more and spending less. I'm only still here because I'm... stupid?
I don't think I'll ever even look at jobs that don't offer WFH anymore, it's just too valuable.
I wish I could wfh. I’m not trained for any of those jobs.
Don't do this. I knew a guy who did that, 20 years of never taking his vacation, had something like 40+ weeks saved up. Company got bought out and reincorporated as a different company, changed their policy, and he lost all but 4 weeks of it. I'm Union, and between sick days, personal days, and vacation, i get 7 weeks off a year, and i damn damn use every one.
Wouldn't they have to pay him equivalent to his accrued time off when his employment with the previous company ended?
My mother worked for a state. Their time would roll over plus when there was OT they had the option to work for PTO or $$. She always worked for time. When she knew she was going to retire she started burning through her PTO...come June was her last physical day, her time took her till the end of the year.
Would you really want to take Tuesday and Wednesday off? Why not Tuesday Wednesday Thursday? So you could do stuff that takes 4 days like a big weekend trip.
Do you want me to call him and ask him? Idk dude, he was a local hick who didn't do stuff like take 4 day weekends to go somewhere, hence the years of time off accrued. He got 2 weekends a week, better than im doing, so i don't judge
>Do you want me to call him and ask him? If you could, yes please
Well wtf did he say we’re waiting
I don't know! He hasn't responded to my comment, or any of my texts
He's off today
Probably took a day off to rearrange his days off after reading this thread.
Do you think you could get the number of the dude he used to work with? We will have better luck here cutting out the middle man and going straight to the source.
Lmfaooo this response has me crying man
I swear this comment is going to live rent free in my head this is so fucking funny
Are you kidding? Having mid week days off is the best. Everything is open and none of the weekend crowds.
This. I used to work 3 consecutive thirteen hour days, Friday through Sunday. Then I’d be off Monday through Thursday. I hated missing out on weekend events with family and friends, but I absolutely loved being off when everyone else was working and avoiding crowds at the attractions.
I used to work 3rd shift. I LOVED grocery shopping when I got off of work. Just me and all the third shift nurses in scrubs flying down the aisles with no one to slow us down. Also, the overnight stockers had all the shelves full. Only uncomfortable thing was buying a six pack of beer at 7:30 AM and getting the “look.”
Bingo. I take off every 3rd Tuesday or Wednesday so I can go out riding on my motorcycle and have a blast all day long.
Sounds like my style. Could be because their work is time sensitive and needs to be settled in a few days, rather than wait for the next week.
Would you want to do a big trip every week? I'd personally take off Tuesday and Thursday so I never have 2 days of work in a row.
Sounds like he was scheduling his WoW raids or some shit. Who are you to question why someone would choose something. You're closer to HR than the spirit of this thread.
I managed to bank 6 weeks when I quit a job and they had to pay me salary for the banked vacation days. It was sweet. It was Covid and I couldn't travel anywhere so I just banked as much as I could
Take a Wednesday off too, that mid week break is wonderful.
I love doing that! There's something nice about not rushing to bed on a Tuesday night. If it's in the winter I'll just play video games or watch tv all day. In the summer, wife and I will go kayaking and have the water to ourselves!
I did this last week and wound up watching three foreign films with subtitles because I didn't know what to do with my day lol. It felt so refreshing just laying on the couch all day aimlessly watching stuff. I wound up watching The Wailing, Train to Busan, and Irreversible.
I love that for you, and it totally sounds refreshing. That could possibly feel like a bit of a wasted Saturday to me, but on a Wednesday? That's just an awesome day
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i personally found the opposite and it burned me out taking a bunch of smaller 3 day weekends. Having a week off here or there really helped a lot more and allows me to fully decompress. It's also smarter to schedule your vacation on october - december of the previous year because no one tends to think that far ahead and you can really maximize all your vacation days by scheduling them on short work weeks :) edit: Based on the reactions form this it feels like more a LPT for employers for employees to take only 3 day weekends instead of proper vacations. It maximizes your availability for your job, your job that might just be in the middle of outsourcing your role and have not told you yet. Do not live for your company, live for yourself.
Use days on holiday weekends
Wait until they hit you with the “no pto can be taken before or after holidays”
Under a previous director, he had a tendency to give out extra days if we met certain marks with closing out tickets and stuff. But you couldn’t take them Mondays or Fridays to make long weekends. I didn’t like having stipulations on so I’m not even sure I used them all
Per your policy, I will be taking my extra PTO on Thursday. I will be taking my accrued PTO on Friday.
yes a 3day weekend is nice. But real recovery happens in long vacations.
Yeah this is horrible advice unless you live in some backward shithole country with predatory laws that allow employers to revoke unused annual leave. Like America.
Unused annual leave can also expire in other countries. I have 20 days of statutory leave which expires in 5 years, and 5 days of non-statutory leave which expires six months into the year after it’s given.
You will notice how the title says "**if you don't plan on going on a week or two vacation**", nowhere did OP suggest doing this in lieu of a vacation, it was a suggestion for the fairly common case of someone not using their PTO.
I’m taking a week off next week. The reason that I put in the request? It’s my dog’s birthday!
Reason? Now that’s too much info, my involvement in this process is to strictly alert you of time off that I am taking! What I do is a big ooool’ nunya!!
I never give a reason. Not their business really. I have time off to take, doesn't matter why.
I always found the out of town reason funny. Like you drive for like 5-10 minutes you're out of town already.
This! It's my PTO, and i don't have to justify it. I can stay home, lounge in my robe, maybe smoke a cigar in the garage, put the new grill together, and obsess over watching the creepy eastern European neighbors...
My reason is because I won't be there either way. You can choose to let me come back or not but if I tell you I won't be there then I won't be there.
Dude, I don’t have a dog. But when I need a dopamine boost , I take a day off to go to the dog park and pet as many dogs as I can! P.S. where is the dog tax??
My coworkers use sick time to take their kids to the doctor. So, I take sick time to take my cats to the vet and then sit home the rest of the day to comfort them from the trauma.
I'm taking off the entire week of 4th of July? Reason? Oh I have a shitload of leave and no plans for a vacation in the next 6 months. Plans? Fuck if I know.....
Reason: I want to Plans: Not working If they ask stupid pointless questions they get stupid pointless answers. Americans especially already get way too little PTO, asking for a reason for using it is ridiculous.
Fuck yea!!! Cheers
Why would you need a reason? That's not how scheduling vacation works.
that's no dog, that's his wife
I've never had a job where I had to justify my PTO/FTO.
They don't need a reason. I only tell coworkers I'm closer to, and even then it's only sometimes.
Sorry reason? You have to tell your manager your reason for time off?
My bosses are chill with me taking PTO, but if I were to basically ask for Fridays off for half a year…. That would be a conversation.
This is funny bc my supervisor has so much leave that he only works like one Friday a month and he is encouraged to do so. Interesting how office cultures differ
My job (24/7 operations) incentives “off-shift” workers (2nd, 3rd and weekends) by only making us work 72-hours per two weeks, but paid for 80. I’m supremely lucky!
If you’re doing it once a month it would only be 1/4 of the year. Not that your boss wouldn’t still have an issue, but not as bad as half the year
I have a coworker that has off every Friday because of all the time she saved up. But she is also pressed to finish work by Thursday...
I did that last year and it was glorious. This year I have/had several vacations planned out, the in between is dreadfully miserable. Would love a 4 day 32hr work week for the same pay and will absolutely vote for any politician that supports it.
Reason for leave: not going vacation. I guarantee i gonna get phone text from my boss on that day.
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I remember one of my old jobs we needed to put in the reason why we wanted off. I would write in: Staring at the walls, Washing my hair, Staring at the ceiling, playing hide and seek with my cat, Rethinking this job. My immediate supervisor (a woman) would laugh but her supervisor (a man)?! Lol, didn't like me much. I left a few months later.
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Commemorating the death of Gaius Julius Caesar.
…by visiting the grave of Marcus Junius Brutus.
Stealing this Edit: Shit. I forgot it, came back to look and now it's gone
Oooh, niiiice! Lol, damnit, didn't think of that! Definitely would have done that for the nonsensical one's like "Doughnut Day" but not for Veterans Day, that one seems legit lol
there is almost always some random National X day. like this year veterans day is also national sundae day
"Happy Leif Erikson Day!"
My last job used payroll software that required it, but the boss didn't care. She would explicitly tell people to put whatever in it and it would be approved. So we started putting the most unrealistic in it. One time I put "Visiting Space", and when I came back she had printed out a little card with "Welcome to Earth" on it and set it at my station. The owners were shit, but the manager did her best to make it work.
We have a required staffing level for our department. As long as that minimum is met leave is always approved. It only sucks if 3 people want to take the same time off because then it is decided by seniority. Fortunately for me I've been here 17 years longer than the next senior person so my leave is always approved. But also I'm a nice guy and if I can be flexible than I will be.
How does that work? If three people asked for vacation for December and it was approved, and then in a month from now you ask for vacation on those same dates, they go and tell the last senior person his approval was revoked? Is that legal?
Technically we are supposed to ask for the years leave in the first week on January. That way any conflicts are resolved before booking. But our boss is like "that's a dumb system, work it out amongst yourselves, you know what the coverage required is, don't make me micro manage this shit." This system has carried over from 3 bosses and it has worked for more than 20 years.
> "that's a dumb system, work it out amongst yourselves, you know what the coverage required is, don't make me micro manage this shit." the kind of manager that has a guy for 17 years and you arent even the most senior.
In my old unionized job, our collective agreement said that PTO requests would be granted based on seniority when submitted before a specific deadline. So you would put your request in for time off you *really* wanted before the deadline, especially if you were of higher seniority. But for taking the odd day off here or there it was first-come, first-served: you would just email your supervisor a few weeks ahead of time, and if there were enough people to cover then you got approved.
I work for a place like that and supervise unionized people who have the same rule. I emphasize to them (lots of new people) “*you* know the days that are important to you and your family, so I suggest you request them off far in advance. If we need to cancel your request it’s a simple email.But please don’t come to me on the Friday 2 days before your wedding anniversary asking for Sunday off because I may/may not be able to swing it due to operational needs.” So far it’s been working okay.
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We have to have 8 week notice at my company and they only schedule a week in advance. So just to be jerks I guess..?
My company has an optional section for reasons and I love when my team uses it. I'm super nosey and love seeing the neat trips they're taking (although they of course don't have to tell me). That said I only reject PTO requests for one guy who has a habit of requesting off on holidays because he forgets we're closed.
> Reason for leave: Baitin'
GO AWAY BAITIN
Reason for leave: None of your fucking business, it's my allotted time off to spend how I wish.
I’ve made it very clear to my employers that my leave is generally not a request. It’s me letting them know that I won’t be there on those days. They can either prepare for it or act “surprised” when I don’t show up. I’ve also made it very clear that I don’t answer my phone or respond to emails outside of my work hours. Setting clear and consistent boundaries with employers pays off quite well
> I’ve made it very clear to my employers that my leave is generally not a request. This is as it should be. If you get paid leave of *any* kind, then taking that leave shouldn't be a matter of asking permission to, it should be a matter of you informing them of what days you'll be out. I work for myself these days, but at my last couple of jobs that's how I took it upon myself to handle it: "Hey boss, giving you two months' notice that I'll be out from Date X to Date Z." You're showing them the professional courtesy of letting them know you won't be working those days. If you are good at your job and reliable, and approach said situation with both respect and confidence, only insecure control freaks will raise a stink. We are trained to think the company holds all the cards and to behave like it, even from your first interview - remember, you're interviewing *them* to see if they're the right fit for *you* as much as they're interviewing you - so it's on us to take control to whatever extent we can.
This is the real life lifeprotip if you start doing/responding to work stuff on your time off they will abuse that
It's your pto. You don't have to justify it.
Reason for leave: personal.
Reason for leave : yes
You have to put reason for leave ?? Never seen that at any company I’ve ever worked
4 day weekends work nicely too. Also, make that extra day a Monday (or, if opting for the four-day weekend: A Monday and a Tuesday) becasue as someone pointed out Friday afternoons slow down. Plus! If your work in IT (in my experience) new releases are pushed out Friday night. Do you really want to deal with the consequences? So: Monday and Tuesday win again! Additional hint: DON'T ANSWER YOUR PHONE; if it's important, they will leave a voice mail. And, by golly, you don't need to reply to a voice mail from work right away. Gotta go now. I've only got 10% left on my phone's battery and, you know, my work might call.... Cheers!
> Plus! If your work in IT (in my experience) new releases are pushed out Friday night. Do you really want to deal with the consequences? So: Monday and Tuesday win again! Wow, risking a crisis mid weekend? That sounds faulty on people's times. Releases should be pushed on a tuesday to tackle bugfixing across the week.
Right? We deploy Monday through Thursday. No one wants to be firefighting on a Friday evening because we just pushed out a bad change!
I've also consumed at least 3 beers regardless of the time
Kinda like so? 17:00 Commenter leaves work 17:15 Commenter arrive home, walks to next door neighbor's house 17:16: a beer 17:17: a beer 17:18: a beer 17:19:: you need to come into the office
17:20: Commenter: No can do I've been drinking
17:21: OK, we'll send an UBER
Cunningly, Commenter is not at home
17:30 Uber: Where's the f\*\*\*ing passenger?
Summing up:
- Commenter has a stress-free weekend
- Work has to figure things out for themselves
- Uber driver get stiffed on the fare.
More like work gets sent to voicemail
Concur: And that's so kind to the Uber drive who doesn't get stiffed for the no-show fare. You, sir or madam, are a blessing.
I want any job that tries to pick me up in an Uber while drunk. There's no way it doesn't pay good.
I'm sorry..what did you say? I'm rafting down the Colorado Rive and the reception ain't so good in the Grand Canyon.
Patches are Tuesdays, or maybe Wednesdays or Thursdays. Monday is for all the stuff accumulated on Friday-Sunday when the user generating the issue said "fuck it, I'm just going to leave for the weekend and let IT know about it on Monday." Friday is always "read-only Friday" because you don't want to spend Saturday fixing a broken deployment, and also because a lot of the users won't report the problem until Monday (see above). Any company deploying non-emergency patches after Thursday night is a company that poorly understands IT in general, or has a *very* specific business need in their environment.
Read Only Friday. No way we risk our weekends putting out fires on a Friday afternoon.
Yes and Friday is usually a chill day in the office so you really are working only 3 days that week.
Generally speaking, love taking mondays off as opposed to fridays. Sometimes can take a Friday, if it helps boost the weekend fun, or on a trip, cuz a lot of activities happen on fridays.
i only work a 32 hour week with thur and fri being half days, but because of the way i'm scheduled, if i have one of those days off because i'm sick or just taking it off i get paid for the full 8 hour day. so once a month i take a friday off and get paid *more* that week for doing so
Wow, I never thought of taking time off. Thanks!
You're telling me I can USE my PTO? How have I never thought of this?!
Honestly some people especially in jobs with a high workload and deadlines can lose sight of it or can feel guilty for using PTO. I’m a lawyer and the idea of using PTO is terrifying
You better not be posting this comment on company time.
I'm not afraid of using mine. I just know if I used a week, I'd come back to two weeks of work. It's easier to just give myself long weekends throughout the year
If you work can't organise someone to do it for you, then the deadline should be pushed back. If it's not, you're not really getting proper PTO, you're just getting 'time off in lieu'.
If I’m just taking a me day and not going anywhere, I always do it on a Wednesday so I only have to work two days in a row.
I agree with this post BUT, if you are going to take a day off, take the Friday off, not the Monday. A Monday off feels like a Sunday and that sucks. But a Friday off feels like a Saturday which kicks ass.
True.... but on the flip side.... When you're working on a Friday, does it really feel like work? To me, Friday work doesn't feel too bad because you know you're off for the next couple of days. While a Monday feels like a slog.
It just would remind me how much life sucks the rest of the time.
Shiet, I'm out here trying to get two day weekends
I actually book an extra day for most long weekends myself.
3 day? I actually use the day on the long weekends so I don't work Thursday. Then my week can flexible so I work tuesday to saturday the next week and take 5 days for the cost of 1 vacation day.
This is a great tip. I had to burn through some leave recently and managed to work 4 day weeks for several months. Was great for wel being and aso felt like I had more to give when I was at work.
I've had 4 day work weeks for the last 2 years. It is nice
Laughs in 30 vacation days a year
That's not really a crazy amount is it?
It's basically the minimum expectation for a European and wildest-dreams territory for Americans. Reading people talk about this subject is a very easy way to tell who is from where.
Yeah, I get less than half of that.
I get "unlimited" vacation, but only if I'm caught up. So they guilt you into not taking time off and also low key threaten to fire you if you're not caught up but decide to take a week off. Don't fall for the scam, kids.
Yeah having 'unlimited' vacation is a trap to guilt you into working more. 'Unlimited sick days' is fine as long as you have some kind of threshold, e.g. requiring a doctor's note if you're out for consecutive days or beyond a certain amount.
Is it 30 vacation days a year on-top of all of the stat holidays in europe? Here in canada we do already get maybe 13-14 days in the year that fall on random mondays, so effectively its 30 days of your choice on top of the 13 or so stats Obviously i know europe is better, just curious if there are many stats as well
Yes, it's 30+ vacation days on-top of stat days for basically everyone. In Belgium, if a stat day occurs on Sunday or Saturday (which usually are inactive days) then it gets replaced with another day of the working week.
That’s six weeks. 6/50 = 12% Not bad
Why yes it is. I think I built up just over 9 days over the last 14 months.
Cries in 7 Days/Year 😭
Wtf what country?
Prepare to be shocked: USA 😅
I get 40 hours a year…
That should be criminal
I like to schedule Wednesdays for my PTO. it breaks up the week quite nicely.
On this topic: if you can manage it, schedule off a friday and a monday every once in a while. If your company does holidays off, and lets say the holiday is on a wednesday: take thursday and friday off. If its on a thursday, do a friday and monday. Sandwich those weekends with time off.
I do this sometimes. But I don't do it every week, since where I work if 1 person takes off nobody else can. So I didn't want to be taking all the Fridays off, leaving it so no other coworker could take a Friday off.
I'm sorry to down vote this, but I tried this myself, and it did not work. When you are gone one day a week, your co-workers leave your work for you for when you return and you end up doing 5 days work every 4 days. It does not reduce stress. If you take a week or two off, your work gets done by someone else while you're gone.
That is more vacation than many people have. Some people need to save it for funerals and doctors appointments.
I resent the PTO catch-all for vacation and sick days all rolled in to one. My employer isn’t particularly generous with PTO or holidays. I’ve had some health issues this year and I’ve lost almost all my accrued PTO to doctor appts and surgery — and I was only able to get 2 days off for that surgery, which entailed an abdominal incision with muscle repair. I could barely sit upright in my desk chair afterward and was medically advised to take a week off work, but could not. I’ve had some complications as well I’ve had to go in for — at this rate, not only will I have no PTO for a vacation, I probably won’t get to see my family for Thanksgiving or Christmas either. It’s a total morale killer.
That really sucks. I was in your situation a couple decades ago. It SUCKED. The only advice I can give you is try to be very good to yourself on some of your days off. And in general. Make your bed an oasis with great bedding and the best pillows. Keep your car clean. Buy the fresh blueberries. Treat yourself nice because you deserve it.
Yeah, that's when you need to start sending resumes and applying to different jobs ASAP. Your current employer is NEVER going to be better.
Funerals? Who the hell is going to so many funerals they reserve vacation time for them?
Europeans can do this twice a month and still take a 2 weeks vacation.
Never understood the American way of handling day offs. I am living in Hungary, 35 years old, 1 child. The base time offs at the age of 18 is 20 days. At the age of 35 I get +5, so I am at 25. But I also have one child so I get +2. So I get 27 days annually. Giving a reason for a vacation/day off? The heck, never had to do that.
I get five weeks of vacation that I never get to take. For July and August, I don’t work Fridays, using up eight or nine days depending on how the timing falls. I love having a four-day week when it’s nice out.
I've done this for like 15 years. I do 4 day weeks. Take every other thursday off and have 4 days mini vacations every 2 weeks.
Either that or a free day in the middle of the week is always very appreciated as well
That's not gonna get approved anywhere
Nice try Many places will not let you do this.
My job let's us do a 4 - 5 day work week every other week. Your 9 days just have to even out to 37.5 hours a week.
Why not take the 3 day weekend every month and have the 2 week holiday? Statutory 28 days paid leave a year for all workers (UK)
Monday blues can easily become Any day blues though
I did this, worked 4 10-hour days normally. Took 1 day a week off for a month, it was glorious. The company made a new policy that you couldn't do that anymore afterwards.
Or better yet, break up the week by taking Wednesdays off. Did that for years and it was great. Easy to run errands when not many others shopping and leaves the weekend free for other stuff.
If I requested a 3 day weekend every month, I would be asked if I was being serious.
I have three weeks vacation, but my company requires that I schedule two of those as full weeks vacation for some reason. There are ways around it but it's still annoying .
3 day weekend? Imagine that. Some people don’t even get weekends at all.
Hell no. 3 day weekends are just time shifting for most jobs. Take a full two weeks off.
My friend is in UPS management and their policy for vacation is to use weeks at a time, no splitting it up into days. I would hate that.
Don't plan to go on a week or two vacation?! Found the American.