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More Than Half of US Workers Didn't Use Up Their Time Off Last Year (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: Americans, famously, take far less vacation time than their European counterparts: less than 17 days, on average, compared to 30 days in France, for example. But for many Americans, that's apparently all the time they need. More than half of all US employees (54%) didn't use all their days off last year, working a combined total of 662 million more days than required. Of those days, 206 million couldn't be rolled over or cashed out, meaning they were forfeited, costing the equivalent of $66 billion, according to a report (PDF) from Project: Time Off, a group funded by the travel industry. While it's a group with a strong interest in promoting more vacations, their findings are still revealing about America's unhealthy reluctance to take time off. Almost 60% of US workers who don't take their allotted vacation say they fear the amount of work they'll have to return to, according to the survey of 7,331 working Americans. Others (47%) say they stay put because they believe no one else can do their job, or because they want to impress their bosses with their dedication (36%).
US workers are absolutely terrified of taking time off lest it gets used against them in a review and they get fired and replaced at a moment's notice. How many people really think anyone at Netflix or elsewhere takes advantage of the ludicrous notion of 'unlimited holidays'? But hey, the American dream........
Maybe that's the reason US American's are sooooo stupid :-D
What if you take 1 week of vacation, then need to work twice as hard the next week? Every small to medium business I saw theses past years had this consequence for vacation. It's simply better to not take them.
Does that mean that USA work contracts have too much vacations?
(I jest, of course).
In the US, we reward hard work with promotions and higher salaries. In Europe, they just tax the wealthy while the six hour work days and bans on checking email outside of work decrease productivity. It's hard work versus socialism taxing successful people. One of these leads to a strong economy, the other to massive debt. There's no incentive to be successful in Europe, anyway, because the government will just take your money away with taxes to pay for ridiculous social programs that would be unnecessary if people just had jobs and worked 40 hour weeks.
- snruter rotsac
It's not 'cause they didn't wanna. It's 'cause they died.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
if we only had EU workers rights or an union!
In the EU they can't block you from taking time off.
A lot of other people (and myself) have combined leave (sick and vacation) hours. I don't use all my leave because you never know when you might be sick, and if you get laid off it's nice to have some extra money that you get by cashing in your excess PTO hours.
Just because you "have" vacation on paper doesn't mean you can actually take vacation.
Have they tried that? I am sure the boss will be impressed.
I get 20 days of PTO each year and only 10 days will rollover into the new year. If I don't use it, then I'll lose it. Everyone at my job takes time off throughout year. I typically take time off for comic cons and work through the year-end holidays while everyone else takes time off.
Because my work is pretty much like a vacation. At a huge defense contractor, the company expects so little work out of me that it is shocking. They give me 120 hours to write a SEMP. Really? So four hours later the SEMP is done, and I have 116 hours to read books, run two outside businesses, and, oh yeah, post on Slashdot. I once complained to my boss (maybe 25 years ago) that I wanted more work, and he literally told me that if he gave me more, someone else wouldn't have any, and he wanted to maintain headcount. Sit back, charge my time, make no waves. I have this daydream about calling the waste, fraud, and abuse hotline and telling them that the whole company is endless waste. Perhaps when I retire in 5 years.
CAPTCHA: Adapts
...and it's not because I love work.
The simple fact is that if I'm gone for a day, the amount of work I come back to is more than a day's worth.
-Styopa
That's because in America Gaslighting is the status quo especially in corporate America. It takes this form: "You are weak and should fear job loss if you don't work 80 hours a week." Basically, the labor shortage that was brought on by the Great Recession which was brought on by the Foreclosure crisis scared people to death. Corporate America wasted no time using this as an opportunity to terrorize the work force into being "more productive" with complete disregard for employee health. Also, this isn't really news. The good news is we are about to hit a boom cycle hopefully. Boom/bust economics folks.
We'll make great pets
The boss might find they can get along just fine without you.
photosMy Photostream
When you are self-employed, vacation and unemployment are roughly the same thing. Either way, you don't get paid.
Many people prefer to have the benefits associated with being an employee, I suppose. That's ok. But I personally prefer working for myself, even if that means I never get any paid time off.
(This is a generalization, I don't want to see hundreds of posts stating that they are the exception)
In general Americans will define themselves on what they do. When meeting a new person, one of the first questions asked is what do they do for a living. We use the answer of this question to help define and place themselves in society. Before you realize how unfair this is, other cultures, will make the same judgments based on family, religion, race, political standing, their dress, their car...
Being that what we do for work is a key part of our identity, we prefer to spend a good portion in enforcing and strengthening it. While the numbers show the opposite, taking time off, we get the perception that we will be considered lazy, not a team player, and not productive if we take too much vacation. So we usually keep these vacation days, not as vacation but as emergency time off days.
Also we subconsciously control our work environment so we necessary as an individual to the institution, and poorly sharing your information with other workers. So if you take time off, you get back with a weeks worth of work that you will need to do, being an other intensive to not take time off.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
At my last job (retail), at one point, I had built up enough time off to take two weeks in a row off, and still have some time off left. So, you know, I did.
A week into the vacation, I go into work to pick up my paycheck (because direct deposit through the job was specifically not working for me), and my manager is there. On a Saturday morning. Which never happens.
He takes one look at me, and says "Never again." "What?" "I'm never letting you take two weeks off IN A ROW again." Apparently, nobody but me really liked working the graveyard shift, AND all the weirdos and jerks who I normally dealt with came in during the first week and had a collective case of the chapped ass.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Just because the time wasn't used doesn't mean it wasn't needed. Perhaps those workers just couldn't afford the time off.
unlimited holidays = we can call you when on one of them to remote work if needed.
Land of the free.
I noticed that the PDF did not list that travelling sucks as a reason. It could be that reason did not crack the top 5 or 10, but it's up there for me. The airlines and TSA have made travel an absolute nightmare. It used to be fun to hop on a plane. Now it's excruciating as I watch a TSA agent pat down my teenage daughter because she had a pudding cup in her backpack.
I actively avoid flying at all costs now. Screw that. Screw them. I haven't been on a cruise ship, but I hear mixed stories ranging from "amazing" to "nightmare". Like everything else in this world, if you want people to do something (like travel), then make it as easy as possible. Right now, the cost isn't worth the hassle.
I could see more of the world, meet great people, be forced to apologize to them for the shit-show we've become lately, and spend a hell of a lot of money to do that. Or, as a tabletop gamer, I could just drive to Origins, Gen Con, BGG, PAX, or similar convention and have a great time playing games at minimal cost and downtime at work.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
My boss calls me on vacation to ask me about stuff that some times comes up.
It doesn't mean they didn't use vacation, sick time, or take holidays off. That's a lot of time off, even more is given if one is a government employee. We are lazy in America, plain and simple. Millennials want to be paid literally for the mere fact of their existence, which is of course pathetic in the extreme. I, for one, am not picking up their slack when they finally bankrupt their parents and have nowhere to turn and no maturity or skills to speak of.
the EU makes it a right to have paid time off in usa under the unions they got that but to bad now days union jobs are going away.
For those unfamiliar with the employer "benefit" of "Paid Time Off", it's a system where your "sick time" and "vacation time" are pushed together. So you get to make choices like "should I stay home with this fever/cold/bronchitis/stomach flu/kidney stone OR do I get to see my family at the holidays this year?" and "I already paid for that cruise, I'll just bring in four boxes of kleenex and power through". I get that PTO is an accountant's wet dream, combining all those liabilities into one column on the balance sheet. In reality, it becomes a fantastic way for everyone to bring their germs into the office and spread their sickness and being ineffective at work when they should be at home getting better, so they can see their family at the holidays. My employer says "if you are sick, stay home", and there's no number of "counted" sick time. Some years I've not taken a sick day, other years I've been out two weeks. It's not like kidney stones or bronchitis were the same as sipping a drink out of a coconut on a tropical beach, or that I planned it.
A lot of people aren't interested in simply sitting around the house, and don't have the disposable income to spend it on traditional airfare, hotels, extra tanks of gas, food out, and other "vacation"-ish activities. Yes, there are plenty of cheap (or free) things to do. But many typical 40-hour-a-week types already DO those things evenings and weekends all year long. Don't underestimate the "I can't afford a vacation anyway, and don't feel like sitting at home so I can have a really sucky following week catching up on my work" factor.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I was told by a former boss that "If a person could be gone for two weeks from their job then that person's position in the company is unnecessary."
I was repeatedly denied vacation requests during my time there. It got to the point where I would just tell my boss to tell me what week would be best for them if I took a week off.
I'm at a much better place now that don't hold these views but they are quite common here in America.
I honestly think that given our history - a country founded by Puritans, an early economy supported by slavery, and is seemingly in the process of destroying the middle-class by establishing an oligarchy/plutocracy has these sorts of attitudes about time off.
I consider myself extremely lucky to work for a company that lets vacation to continue to accrue no matter how much gets accrued. None gets lost to the annual purge like many companies. Still have to plan ahead to actually use it in significant amounts, but it's an option to keep it till you would even have a whole year of vacation built up. And bonus if I really want to I can "sell" it back to the company and get cash instead.
I get 35 paid holidays. I am required to take them. I can transfer 5 to next year and those I have to take before then end of February. If I don't, they are gone forever. That is not the issue. The issue is that I will pay 85% income tax on it, so I get almost nothing.
The 5 days and end February depends from company to company. Once company the HR manager (Why are they always women?) came to me on a Friday mid Febfruaryand said I still had 10 days I had to take before the end of February. I asked if it was possible to extend it, because I thought it was end of March (as in the previous company I worked at) She said no and I said to my boss: See you in twee weeks.
He was not happy, but could do nothing.
In Belgium this is pretty standard. The manager should pay attention that not too many people keep their holidays and wait till e.g. end of December and take of the holidays. That is also why you can transfer days. That way they can refuse those specific days.
The taking of holidays, when to ask for them and such are all written into law. Extentions in favour of the employees are possible (e.g. transferring the days to next year) are possible from company to company. It might even differ from department to department.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
... or cashed out, meaning they were forfeited ...
I think you meant to delete "or cashed out" as it is inconvenient to your point.
Time you don't take off before you quit has to be paid out. Now, to make sure that your company CAN actually pay the time they "owe" you if you quit today and they go bankrupt the same day, your company has to stash money in government bonds to the tune of what they'd have to pay their workers if all of them went out the door today.
Calculate about, say, 25 vacation days per worker, for a workforce of, say 10,000. Let's be conservative and say that a day/person is about 100 bucks.
Can you see how companies can have a HUGE interest in their workers actually going on vacation, and doing it as early as possible?
I MUST spend my vacation every year. They now even made it a bonus-valued goal, not to spend my vacation days and letting them roll over threatens my annual bonus. And since March I get weekly reminders from HR that I still have 10 unplanned days and that beautiful days are coming up, and whether I don't feel like taking some of the upcoming Fridays (with Thu being a holiday) off to enjoy a 4 days weekend.
I kid you not.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
>"Almost 60% of US workers who don't take their allotted vacation say they fear the amount of work they'll have to return to,"
Yep, that is me. When I take off time to "rest and recover", I come back to an even more stressful mess. Not exactly restful. The only true time off I get is when others in the facility are also off at the same time... meaning holidays. Except most of the facility is still "open" 24/7/365 so even that is a shot-in-the-dark.
How many standard holidays does the US have VS the European countries being considered in this article?
...more fucking fool you. No doubt the Rayntards will be out in force later to preach about "success" and "socialism" (hint: if you don't know the difference between socialism and communism, you are likely to be a Rayntard), but working yourself into an early grave to potentially see some tiny benefit to yourself, all the while allowing some greedy, tax-dodging parasite to further profit from your work, is pure idiocy. It is the slave dreaming that he will one day own slaves; that you are prevented from doing so by the current slave-masters and that they will brook no further competition, especially from your sort, doesn't enter your minds. If you want to relieve him of his whip to flog yourself into a coffin before his arm gets tired, be my guest; I'll be making enough to keep me and my family fed, housed and looked after while still having enough time to enjoy having a family.
Would that mean that you are prohibited from vacationing in areas where you would not be reachable remotely, eg, camping in the mountains?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"Why do you pick up the phone?" would be my first question.
The next ones would deal with questioning your mental health...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I had a generous PTO plan with my employer and was fortunate to be rarely sick. My PTO accrued and I am paid for it if I change jobs. In fact, my boss asked me to take more vacation days this year to get my balance down.
Among other reasons, I hold onto 10 days to help bridge the time before short-term disability insurance kicks in. I had to dip into savings last time I got hurt and was out for a few weeks.
It's important to be careful with accounting as all too often reports can be skewed by hiding funny math in accounting assumptions.
Here, for example, it's not actually a cost that vacation isn't taken. If the worker didn't value the vacation time enough to take it, then it didn't have value in the first place, and seeing the worker let it go is really just a reflection of the lack of value.
It's like a person declining an offer of dog food because he doesn't have a dog: that's not a cost; it's a lack of benefit.
The substantial difference is on the other side of the ledger, though. Workers who work more provide value to society, making more food, providing more customer service, and building more cars for the rest of us. There is no cost to a worker not taking vacation, but there IS a benefit to a worker who's more productive because he stays on the job.
In short, it's a good thing that workers work.
Banks have forced full time off to stop embezzlement
Who the heck wants to have 0 vacation days? In my case it is just PTO, so if I get sick or have some personal emergency it is good to have some kind of buffer available.
love is just extroverted narcissism
well bob we have really have unlimited time out of the office but we want to be in for core hours for about 85-90% of the year. But some people like jay are in the office 125%-150% of the time and we want to be like jay on this job.
These days unions only provide cushy bonuses to management, and churn out then little guys as much as possible.
There is a story, probably apocryphal, that in the UK banking industry, staff used to be required to take a minimum break of 2 consecutive weeks. The reasoning being that if they were involved in a scam, it would probably come to light during that time from whoever took over their work. Whereas a staff member might be able to cover up wrongdoings if they were only on vacation for a week.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"Fear the amount of work they'll have to return to"
In other words, while they are gone, the things someone else should be doing do not get done. When they return, all that work - including missed deadlines for things that began and ended after their departure - will be blamed on them personally.
"Stay put because they believe no one else can do their job"
That is, without them losing it to the new person who didn't take time off because *they* are a "team player". Management puts out memos to go on vacation because it looks good, not because you are allowed to do so without being replaced "like you deserve".
"They want to impress their bosses with their dedication"
See above. Notices such as "everyone should use their vacation time" are 'company policy', much like 'there is always less than 50$ cash in the drawer' or 'there must always be at least two people in the store at all times'. That is to say, these are fake notices meant to absolve the company from the 'misdeeds' of 'rogue employees and lowest-level-managers' when anything goes wrong as a result of the amount of cash needed in the drawer to be able to give people their change (easily twice that at least), of the budget to cover for that night shift (enough for one maximum, and it can't be the assistant manager because her rate's too high for that), or of fire safety protocols (it's not the people in the shop that put those slushie machines in front of the fire exit).
By claiming everyone must use their vacation time, they place the blame on workers for things such as repetitive stress injuries, productivity loss due to exhaustion, and accident rates increased by fatigue (and safety regulations that the budget did not allow the proper following of either obviously). Anyone daring to take all of the vacation time they are owed will be treated as a bad employee, a burden and a liability; and anything going wrong while they are gone WILL have been their fault for leaving it unchecked no matter what.
The company uses deceptive practices to steer us away form using benefits to increase productivity (theirs).
They pay so little we can't do without the money you get selling it back.
They don't really offer more than a week off now anyway.
Time off is expensive. Going anywhere or doing anything typically requires that you spend money. If you don't have the money to spend, you won't be going on many vacations.
If your spouse works and your kids are in school, what good is staying home? Sitting at home just to burn vacation time sucks. If I'm not laying on a beach somewhere, I'd rather be working.
I have worked for roughly a handful of different companies in my IT career and vacation benefits were all over the map. I worked for the federal government once and we got a ton of vacation time. I really liked that and used it, but I remember having two older co-workers who would basically never take a day off because they were truly convinced that the entire US government would collapse if they were gone. Maybe they took 2 days at most of vacation. We had a program where you could donate vacation to fellow employees who had catastrophic illnesses (ie. cancer) and would be out a lot and they used to donate tons of vacation days to that.
I worked in the US office of a European company and we got European vacation benefits on a PTO system. I loved it and thought it was great. I'd still be working there just for the vacation time had the company not gotten rid of a lot of US employees in my city to save money.
My current employer is a US based Fortune 500 company who treats us pretty well in general, but on the downside they have acted like every vacation day we take is stealing from their very soul. No PTO here. We don't get sick leave, but if you are sick for a day or two, you can just stay home and get paid - no vacation time used. If you're out for, I think, 4 days or more, you have to go on short term disability. We got a new, younger CEO a few years ago and he bumped up our vacation time a little bit and they stopped acting like taking vacation was almost like killing the company, but still it will never, ever equal what I was getting with the US government or the European company. They severely limit how much vacation time we can carry over (5 days) and pretty much force us to burn it up. If you really just refuse to take a vacation you can just throw your days in the trash I guess, but I've never heard of that. We get a lot of reminders to use vacation time and there is a policy in my organization that encourages you to use your vacation so you are better rested. I've never heard of anybody having anything negative happen to them because they used vacation time, which is good, but I still wish they were more generous with the amount we get. A lot of US companies are like mine, and they're just not all that generous with vacation time, but at least when we do use it there is no punishment for doing so.
Currently, Wal-mart actually pays you the time due (and actually, this was the first year). I hadn't taken any of my time off, so I got roughly a month's pay extra on that paycheck ...
well bob we have really have unlimited time out of the office but we want to be in for core hours for about 85-90% of the year. But some people like jay are in the office 125%-150% of the time and we want to be like jay on this job.
Lived that nightmare as an employee while I was getting my work completed by noon Tuesday each week and a favoured co-worker never did a damn thing.
I'm always on projects that cannot be walked away from. So if you want to take vacation you typically need to have it booked more than 6 months out. My wife and I have trouble planning that far ahead.
Did the 38k/year in medical end up taking more out of your salary than the 50 percent tax would have, given the other public services I assume were included in that 50 percent income tax?
I often hear people complaining about how terrible 50 percent tax is compared to America, but they seem to gloss over how bad pricing for private service equivalents of what those taxes pay for have gotten here in the US.
some needs to win the lotto in a place like that and really quit hard after not showing up for a few days. And then that ass hole PHB will get the idea.
Well that was expected but I do not agree that US workers do not need all their vacation.
The biggest difference between Europe and US has to do with working mentality and how the workers' rights are PRACTICALLY respected.
With respect to mentality, the average european won't do overtime just because he is ask to (or ordered to do so) just like that (even if he/she is being paid for that). The average european seek a balance between work and personal life. The employer also does not find it "easy" to ask for the employees to stay more, take less vacation days (or re-arrange vacations). Lastly, I think that the average european does not run so much behind "money" and big-fat salary pay slips...
BUT when it comes to "rights", well lets put it this way in most of the european countries working rights are quite well enstablished (contrary to US). Moreover, these rights are RESPECTED (and sometimes even enforced by the employer). This means in practice that employer expects (and plan) based on e.g. 25/30 days of vacation per employee. Moreover, as said before it is not trivial to ask employees to work overtime or take less vacation or in the US way "The work has to be done!" (Don't care if you have to work 24/7, take less vacations etc). Plus the fear of getting sacked for that reasons is virtually non existent in Europe.
I didn't, for one very important reason: we don't get to "cash" in any unused days at the end of the year, but instead roll them over. Unused vacation time is only paid out on separation.
My accumulated vacation time (over 115 days worth) is essentially my severance package if anything were to go wrong with work (ie, layoffs, firing, outsourcing etc - it's a government job so the organization can't really "go out of business")..
It's not like I never take a day off, but I try to take fewer than I earn for sure.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
And when your sick days come out of it, and you don't ever plan on being accidentally sick, you need to keep some in hand in case you get a really bad cold.
But if you only have a few days off a year, you can't actually do anything other than sit at home and do nothing.
Trust americans to make holidays just as pointless and meaningles as they can so they might as well be at work...
So if I'm away from the office for a substantial period of time,
1- my work piles up
2- if shit breaks, it may not get fixed correctly
This is obviously a management problem. But I have to live with the consequences of that problem.
Personally, I don't use every single day of vacation because I'm never secure in my job. That's just the nature of the work we're in...if the MBAs ever get around to replacing us with someone cheaper, I'm out no matter how skilled and useful I am. We're only allowed to bank 5 days of vacation, but I tend to hang onto it because honestly that's an extra week of pay at a time where I might need it. The fact remains that the US is a very hostile environment to be unemployed in; unemployment insurance barely covers anything if you've had anything approaching a middle class job previously.
I work for an employer that treats people pretty well on balance...it's very true that there are a lot of sweatshops out there and people continue to work there for many reasons. Web startups and small businesses would probably be at the low end of the spectrum -- most businesses I've worked with in the small to medium category already treat non-family employees as "the help" and are extremely stingy when it comes to pay, time off and benefits. Web startups are their own brand of crazy because everyone's hoping to win the IPO or buyout lottery. At the other extreme end of the spectrum, I know a lot of people who work for the state and can actually bank all of their sick and vacation time, to be paid out at the end of their service. Most people use this windfall to buy into insurance that will last them through their retirement...and along with their pension they are able to enjoy a worry-free retirement just like the old days.
Most people I work with are older and fewer management "tricks" work on us. But, there are still plenty of younger domestic workers who haven't learned that employers will take anything they can from employees and fall into the trap of working crazy hours. I'm by no means a clock-watcher; my employer routinely gets tons of "free" work out of me, but I do this because they also offer me a lot of flexibility. Everyone's trade-offs are different; I trade off raw salary for better retirement benefits, a shorter commute and a better ratio of home to work time. Other workers might just want the money regardless of how bad the work environment is, or they may trade off even more salary for a more stable job working in something like government, or they absolutely have to work for the hottest Silicon Valley employer. I do think employers should staff accordingly so that people can actually take time off from work -- so many places I've seen will only hire one person skilled in some job function, effectively chaining them to their desks or slowing down everyone else when they do need to be off.
I'll vouch for this, at least when I was working for a bank. We were required to take 5 consecutive days off every year. During that time we weren't to have anything to do with work. The intent is to have someone else do your job for those days to see if anything hinky is going on.
And it works. An AVP got called back on day 4 of his mandatory 5 because he had been kiting checks for a client and it got caught out while he was gone. He left with his stuff in a box.
Monitoring IT folks is more difficult due to the amount of automation we can build into our jobs but we're also rarely near where the money moves around. Regardless - work for a bank, mandatory 5.
It took me 5 years to reach my employers three weeks per year of time off. I made long weekends taking off a Monday or Friday. Originally there was separate sick and vacation days buy my Union caved in and I lost seven says per year. I explored Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona and New Mexico. My manager hated when I took off and the people I assigned to take care of things usually failed, leaving me two weeks to fix things.
I usually have 3-4 days of unused vacation time. I'm single, have no kids, don't like to travel. Homebody. Other than photography that gets me out, that's about it.
and China's labor are not fully enforced as well.
"Americans, famously, take far less vacation time than their European counterparts"
Famously? I'd call it 'stupidly'.
Additionally they come to work before their boss and leave after him, without compensation naturally and they come to work even when sick, thus infecting everybody else in the company.
And now most of them will lose their health insurance or pay a couple of hundred percent more.
It sucks to be you.
Meanwhile, millennials love "unlimited time off" vacation policies. Use it or lose it policies are a major reason employees use what little time off they do use. Companies love UTO because you use less time off and we don't have to carry the liability or deal with complicated accrual accounting. Or pay out any PTO balance when you quit. Great work, millennials.
Who has the money to take a vacation and after three or four days sitting at home, I'm bored to tears and end up doing some work, even if it's just reviewing e-mails or notes I've taken.
In some other country, our unions fought hard for us to have proper holidays. Now I take 2 (two) 15-days off, paid, during the year. We also have a 33% bonus added for spending during vacation. I take 15-day at every 6-month and come renewed for working even harder. Would never accept to work as a horse in US receiving carrots for that. My off-life is more important than work, always.
Always be sure to vacation in places without cell phone coverage.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Don't confuse work and life. You work to live, you don't live to work, that's what differentiates us from beasts of burden. Yes, I love what I do and I'm good at it, but I put my tools down at the end of the day and go home. I garden, I make cheese, I backpack. I unapologetically use up all my time off. When I first started working, I didn't use any and I burned out.
I once had a boss complain to me that use all my vacation time, I ask them if they'd like to go to HR and formally complain I'm using the vacation time that's part of my compensation package. Oddly, they didn't. I then pointed out that they thought it was sad that the company I should value my job over my health and my family. I pointed out that when I'm on the clock I work my ass off. I then mentioned that first line I wrote. Oddly, after that he started using all his vacation time and become a happier person, and a better manager.
As for co-workers saying stuff, they have and I always respond with some variation of "Yup, thirty years from now I'll still have the photos from these trips and the memories but I won't remember a single line of code I've written today"
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
They haven't been giving enough of their time to the job! They should feel ashamed. Never have we had a generation that refused to sleep, eat, and shit at work. The nerve of these horrible bums. They should be grateful for the age they live in. And Then they ask for a raise, HA! As if they've earned it. You don't get living wages unless you work for them and you people surely haven't even rolled out of bed yet. Time off indeed. /sarcasm
Yet, if you look at every fricking article on millennials, that's the drivel you'll get. But I suppose all of that extra work and discarded free time was given by those who are at least 40+ years old right?
Nevermind most of us (everyone not just millennials) have no job security. If we don't show up, we wouldn't have a job the next day. Also try taking that time off, most of the time you can't leave if someone else in your department / team / etc. gets there first, even if there's others who can still do the job that day. Forget about taking it during peak periods, and even when you do get it, you'll get guilt tripped to hell and back by everyone when you return, as if you killed the Pope.
Heck today, because of cellphones, there's a bunch of people who never leave work. They are basically on call 24/7 and get no compensation for it, with the assumption that you'll do it at home and bring it in at the start of your next shift. (Perfectly legal btw as long as you signed that job application.)
Finally, do I really need to say anything about the wages? No? Good.
There's a reason people in the US work this hard, it's because we have no other choice.
People in the US seem not to think of vacation as a priority. They often sacrifice everything on the altar of getting ahead at the office. While this kind of competitive attitude is (I think) partly responsible for the way the US dominates the world economy, it also takes a toll on the people who prioritize their time this way.
I've always made it a priority to take time off. When I work, I work hard. When I'm on vacation, I'm really on vacation. That philosophy has never cost me at work, I've had no problems climbing the corporate ladder. I'd guess that if more people looked at it this way, they would find that they too don't suffer at work for taking time off.
A typical yearly accrual is just barely enough for a reasonable vacation. Unfortunately, there is always a need to take off a day here and a day there throughout the year. In the end, there isn't enough time unless your idea of a vacation is a staycation or a long weekend. Thus, for those who really like to travel, it often necessary to accrue for a second year to get enough time to actually go someplace. This is especially true when starting a new job. Since you start at zero, there is virtually no chance for a vacation the first year. My last job only lasted two and a half years. I never did manage that vacation. Between unsteady contracts, short duration jobs and actual unemployment, I haven't had a real vacation in seven years. Since I only started the current job two months ago, it will be at least another year before that dry spell ends.
What's the difference between a company that treats you with depraved indifference (as most large ones do) and a company that treats you as an adversary?
As near as I can tell the only difference is that the company has to respect you before they'll treat you as an adversary.
Who have never been able to train a replacement to fill in cant take time off and can not be promoted either. Stuck usually the result of fear being replaced fired in 50 years of working fortune 500 I seen the best gone first many times.
Every job that I've ever worked at prior to my current one, and every job my wife has ever had, simply paid you out 4% of your hourly wage per hour worked every 2 weeks. That 4% is the vacation pay you earn in Canada. Its supposed to amount to 2weeks of full pay per year so you can take 2weeks off and get paid during that time (be it all at once, or broken up).
But, who looks at their paycheque and says "hmm, I'm gunna put 4% of each this into a savings account for when I take my vacation"?
Nobody. They use the money as they get it because most people live paycheque to paycheque not because they want to, but because they have to.
And yes, just taking a week off and sitting at home playing video games all day, or going to the outskirts of town and roughing it for a week of camping and destressing is ABSOLUTELY good for you. But aint nobody got time for dat! not when you can make an additional 4% of your yearly salary just by not taking time off. Besides, burning out is a future-you problem.
Americans are raised brainwashed. Corporate culture has spread into the workers (the last place you'd imagine.) People brag about how little vacation they use - it's a point of pride! Letting work get into your private life is also the norm; the opposite of Germany where it's illegal to email you on vacation. Also we all cheer when "productivity" goes up completely unaware of what that usually means and how shallow those numbers usually are. The idea that jobs/employers/capitalism exists to provide work so people can have a better life has completely died off... we are supposed to worship the "job creators" and quietly sacrifice jobs and wages on the alter of the almighty "job creators." The classic argument for capitalism is dead-- which is a socialist argument btw; the very selling point has gone and only mindless dogma remains. It's like the Star Trek reboots, or putting a MacOS theme on Windows-- it's shallow stuff to fool simple people.
People also fear (often wrongly) that they will be harmed in some way for using their rights.... but we also have almost no rules for firing in this country unless you are a minority or a woman with a lot of proof; HR is designed to come up with legally safe ways of doing illegal and immoral acts. Other countries with different rules do not allow you to easily be fired for some political bumper sticker (actual true story around here.)
The sole purpose for business in the USA is to maximize profits, the important aspects of providing jobs with some purpose have been forgotten and attacked dogmatically. As robots take over more people will wake up to the old ideas. We already have many demanding tariffs and ending free trade deals (most those people are only partially awake and unable to argue against the BS economists who always preach for the status quo, who are like televangelist preachers.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Seriously, who can afford to spend the money that going on vacation requires
You are the EXCEPTION that highlights the rule!
If you have sick time rolled into your PTO, then you are probably afraid of getting sick and running out of PTO. So you might end up saving it all until the end of the year and lose those extra days. Here's what I've learned to do: Accumulate PTO until you have 1 week's worth of guaranteed PTO, then take a Friday or Monday off to burn a day. If you want to go on an actual vacation and travel, then save up two weeks and burn the extra time beyond that as it becomes available. It makes PTO rather manageable and you get an extra day off here or there to unwind or catch up at home (or go on vacation).
Most people like to take more time off at the end of the year. If you don't, then adjust to the point you are comfortable.
Most people spend more money on vacations than during days of work. If more people are taking vacations, then more people are spending money, then there is more demand on goods and services are required, then you will get increased production of these goods and services, and more people are required to produces these goods and services, thus more jobs, so on. If guided properly, vacation, in general, is good for the economy.
Does not match that of many others....
My company forces employees to take all of their 25 legal holidays before end of year !
Of which you have about 40 at my last count. Practically every other week i get an out off office reply from an american or canadian colleague saying it's independence day or presidents day or hotdog thursday or hockey puck moose moose mapleleaf monday.
Not to mention the baffling compulsion to not show my favourite tv shows that week because of them. Jesus christ the TV show calender is like a scattershot with all the random times they just decide not to show it.
In my situation, I get about 6 weeks of vacation a year. But the catch 22 is that if I take all of what I have earned, it looks like shit on me, and my work gets backed up. If I don't take it, 10% of it rolls over, to another year. So I end up losing it. No option of taking a check. Which would be my preferred option, and have had it in past jobs. So screw em, its my vacation, I have put in all the years to get it (14 so far).
I've been with the same organization for some time, so I get a fair amount of vacation now. However where I work we are allowed to rollover up to one full years worth of vacation. As a result I never use all my vacation really. I keep rolling it over more less to keep the maximum amount allowed available. I do this for three reasons.
1) Is perhaps I'd like to take a big trip or more vacation some year, that way I have the days available to me,
2) I know if I were to be laid off, they would have to pay out my vacation time, which would give me a nice cash buffer to work with should that ever happen, and
3) I figure all things being equal, should layoffs occur and management be considering laying off employee A who they don't have to pay out, or employee B who they would have to pay out many thousands of dollars, they are probably going to layoff employee A. Particularly if layoffs are to do with saving money (which is usually is), and management is rewarded for finding said savings (which they probably are)...
Anyway not really sure if #3 is a thing, but it makes sense to me.
I have only had this feeling once in any job, after my most recent promotion. The immediacy of my new position meant if I missed a deadline that appears today by noon tomorrow our company could get hit with a five figure fine. My response is to change the job in a way that allows for vacation - proper scheduling of payments, cross-training redundancy with coworkers, making daily/weekly immediate tasks more automated and so on. Yes, this involved presenting the changes to management and some arguments, but persistence pays off when you have a good argument. You still have a couple hours of organization to do after a long vacation but it's not like nothing got done while you were gone.
I thought Slashdot was full of automation experts? What gives? The only major thing I can imagine is that too many here unintentionally isolate their work and processes via poor social skills. I used to think communication wasn't important but then I grew up. From my position, a desk that can't go unworked for two days or a week is either a poorly designed job or an entrepreneur. Small businesses that do this are the ones that don't grow because they continually harvest their "human" resources by cutting at the root rather than harvesting the fruit each season and letting them grow.
Often it just means any "vacation pay" is rolled into your salary, and then actual time off is unpaid. It is just paid time off + flexible scheduling + hyperbole.
IOW, Amazon, land of the slave.
I stress this to my crew. I am a supervisor for a rough and tough group of guys in the building trades. We are tasked with such things as performing miracles, being in two places at once, and doing it all with an insufficient staff, budget, and schedule.
Based on the square footage of the locations we maintain, we should have over 40 tradespeople. We have 10. That means that, even if they worked all day each day, we would still be behind. In our situation, the options include working more, reducing services, and contracting out the difference. We use a combination of the three.
I understand how hard all of my guys work. I let them off any time they like, though on any given day I want to keep at least one person in each craft. The policy where we work is that I can deny personal leave if I have insufficient coverage, but I cannot deny sick leave. I make sure my guys are well aware of this policy, especially when I cannot let them off on personal time.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
yeah that's actually bad!
I'm working in a big silicon valley IT company, but in the EU.
Sometimes I can tell how bad colleagues on the US side feel when I'm taking 2 weeks vacation, no questions asked;
Then in couple of months - another one. And around Easter and Christmas, the whole country is closed anyway.
It really helps me detach of the stress and focus on my family, friends and life - where life, well, does not looking at a monitor for 12+ hours a day.
You guys (fellow americans) should stand up for your rights and start taking what's yours. Vacation, I mean.
the EU makes it a right to have paid time off in usa under the unions they got that but to bad now days union jobs are going away.
Not just a right, its a law. Under EU law you have to take 20 days off at a minimum and you cannot sell back any of those 20 days.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Our PTO is ALL of our time off. We fear using it in case we become sick and need it.
When I work, I make money and can pay the bills, when I don't work, I am spending money and it soon runs out.
I read an article months ago about how employees on vacation are not allowed to even receive email, in that it never gets delivered. I spoke with my boss about it and we were both under the impression that was a good idea.
Now we're not quite at that level where I work in the US but I was given approval to word my out-of-office message in a way that basically said "when I return from vacation, your email will go straight to the trash. contact me after this date if the issue is pending".
I was gone for 2 weeks, when I came back I had only 2 people follow up with me.
I learned 2 things - 1st: that most "hot" issues are really not that important and 2nd: the world doesn't stop when I'm gone.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
If the boss was reasonable, this would not come up in the first place. If you talk it over with them then they will just not like you, and you will move up a slot on the potential redundancy list. Do not waste time talking to a bully unless you have power.
Getting a job elsewhere wont work. If the industry you are in had job openings then you would not have this problem in the fist place. You will find similar attitudes in other related employers, and moving will just look bad on your resume.
But the good news is that if you say Yes Sir often enough, and smile as you are being beaten, then you may eventually become a boss, and then be able to inflict pain on others. It will seem normal and the right thing to do, because you have been on the receiving end for so long.
The solution is political. Join a union (secretly), even though it costs you a little money. Join the Democratic party, and contribute -- yes you will only have a tiny influence, but that is better than none at all.
And stop voting for people that will make America great again.
Of those days, 206 million couldn't be rolled over or cashed out, meaning they were forfeited, costing the equivalent of $66 billion
It's basically fraud to not compensate people for the time they work - not all that different from stealing their time by kidnapping, or selling a shoddy product.
The right to not be subject to fraud can be asserted under the 9th and 10th Amendments as a basic human right.
It follows that - regardless of federal or state law to the contrary - the highest law in the land requires businesses to compensate people for vacation that they don't take, or extra hours that they work.
Failure to do so is illegal.