How much vacation do you take?

[Randi]

Glacier, you have quite a good deal there, compared to many others - good for you! Hope you'll have a wonderful vacation with your family! When you go in September, you should consider Dominican Republic... great beaches, friendly people and it's cheap.

Sick days? Many of you talk about sick days. So you have a certain amount of sick days to use in a year? What if you are sick for more days? Don't you get paid anything, or do you have use your vacation days, then?

[pomtzu]

Sick days? Many of you talk about sick days. So you have a certain amount of sick days to use in a year? What if you are sick for more days? Don't you get paid anything, or do you have use your vacation days, then?

If you are just sick a day here and a day there, then you use your sick days and/or vacation days as needed. If you will be out for an extended period of time, like a month or two for surgery, then that's when your short term disability takes over at whatever rate of pay that your company provides for this. There is usually a 1 week waiting period for the pay to kick in, but you can use any sick days or vacation days that you still have for this week so that you aren't without a paycheck during that waiting period.

[caseysmom]

We can use vacation days too for being sick but I have so much time I could be sick for 7 months. We also have a program where if someone has a catastrophe others can donate their excess time. And as pomtzu said you can get ND
I, my daughter just had babies and she got 8 weeks paid leave from our state disability insurance.

[Glacier]

Glacier, you have quite a good deal there, compared to many others - good for you! Hope you'll have a wonderful vacation with your family! When you go in September, you should consider Dominican Republic... great beaches, friendly people and it's cheap.

Sick days? Many of you talk about sick days. So you have a certain amount of sick days to use in a year? What if you are sick for more days? Don't you get paid anything, or do you have use your vacation days, then?

The benefit plan has been a deciding factor in staying at my job several times! I've looked at the Dominican Republic but it's right in the middle of the hurricane belt and September is the height of hurricane season. Stuart has issues with all inclusive resorts too and getting to the Dominican from here without doing a an all inclusive package deal is tricky. I've been looking at Bonaire, one of the Dutch Antilles islands. It's below the hurricane belt and supposed have amazing snorkelling/diving. I'm considering going back to Cuba too. It's hurricane prone, but I'd like to go to Santa Clara and see Che's grave. Santa Clara is hit less often by hurricanes than the Havana area of the island.

At my job, we earn a day and a half of sick leave for every full month worked. That time can be banked indefinately. If you get seriously ill, you need to use all your sick leave first; before we can apply for our disability insurance plan, we have to use all our leave time. So once you're out of sick leave, you have to use any vacation, special leave, long service etc that you have banked. If you're off for more than 3 consecutive days, you have to provide a doctor's note.

[Randi]

If you're off for more than 3 consecutive days, you have to provide a doctor's note.

We have to do that also, but here, your vacation can not be influenced by your sick days.

Santa Clara and seeing Che's grave sounds like a brilliant idea! Hope you can do it!

[krazyaboutkatz]

A week here and a week there is nice, and also to be able to extend weekends.

Wow KAK, 16 days aren't much, and I bet you work more than 37 hours a week. You need to talk to you boss and negotiate.

I think is unfair that the rules aren't the same for everybody.

Yes, it sure isn't. I do usually work 40 hours per week and sometimes a bit more. Ever since the poor economy though, our boss doesn't want us to work any overtime. Since I'm now paid an hourly plus a commission, I'm required to do a certain amount of work per day within my 8 hours. If I can't do this then I will just punch out after 8 hours and then work off the clock which I don't think is fair but if I don't finish my work then I don't get my commission and in my department we have to always finish all of our work. I work at fairly small company of about 40 or so workers. We're actually one of the largest dental labs in our area though. Most dental labs are very small with only from 2-5 employees.

The way the I make the most of my vacation time is to not take it all at once. For the past few years I've been taking off a few days here and there during the summer so that I get long weekends. I usually do this in the months of July and August. Then I only work either 3-4 days a week depending on if I have a 3 day weekend or a 4 day weekend. I use my 10 days during this time and I save my other 5 for the end of the year between Christmas and New Years. Since we also get some paid holidays during this time, I've been able to take almost 2 weeks off sometimes. My holiday birthday is also in Dec. so I always use it during this time too. We work with a limited staff during these holidays so my boss encourages us to use any vacation time that we have left. We're also usually very slow the first week of Jan. so many people take that week off too.

We have an employee handbook that is updated every year but it also says that things are subject to change without notice. We receive the following holidays:
New Year's Day
Presidents Day
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
Thanksgiving Day
Day After Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Eve (1/2 Day)
Christmas Day
1 Floating Holiday- Employee's Birthday

We aren't allowed to keep accumulating a lot of vacation time though. We can carry over accrued vacation time into the next year but when our total vacation accrual reaches 150% we will no longer accrue vacation until we reduce the total below the maximum. I do remember there was an employee that had build up so much vacation time that my boss forced him to take some time off. My boss also doesn't like us to take long vacations like a month off at a time. I don't know why people wouldn't just want to use their vacation time every year.

We get 4 sick days a year and we can carry over a maximum of 48 hours of sick leave from calendar year to calendar year. If we are absent for more than 3 consecutive work days due to our own illness or injury, then we must provide a physician's statement verifying the disability, its beginning and expected ending dates. This verification may be required as a condition for receiving sick leave benefits. Also if we're out for 10 work days or more then we must provide a physician's verification that we may safely return to work. When I had my eye surgery I had to do this.

After receiving approval from our supervisor, we can take up to 3 days of paid time off because of the death of an immediate family member. My company defines "immediate family" as our spouse, parent, child, sibling, in-law, grandparent, domestic partner, child of domestic partner, or significant other. When my grandparents passed away I never took any time off. I did,however, take one personal day off when I had to put my RB Pepper to sleep. This was back when I was able to take personal days off though. I guess I should just be glad that I have any benefits at all.

[Alysser]

Well, it's not easy, but first and probably most importantly, I pay and pay well! Critter care is always a big part of our holiday budgeting! I'm always a bit amazed that anyone will agree to take this place on! Even more amazed that anyone agrees twice and are still my friends after!

I have paid airfare to bring a friend here to dogsit. She used to live here so it's like a paid visit for her. I'm hoping she'll be able to come again in September. I provide a car and gas card for non-local dogsitters. Locals can use the vehicle too, especially if they have to take a dog to the vet and want to avoid getting fur in their own car!

I always leave the fridge fully stocked along with a beer fridge full of whatever their drink of choice may be! I leave cash for supplies and a gift card to a gas station if the dogsitter lives in town normally. I make arrangements with both my vets so that the sitter can take any animal in any time without worrying about the bill. I made a book with a page for each animal, includes their picture, age, any medications they take and a description of their personality and habits. It has saved a few people from freaking out when they can't touch Delta or when Felicia comes limping through the room(her limp is permanent and doesn't bother her at all, but at first glance she looks like her leg is broken!). Also has a list of the basic chores that have to be done every day and a list of emergency phone numbers.

We have satelitte tv, wireless internet and a hot tub too! I also bring back presents from wherever we go!

We had the best dogsitter ever for awhile, but he went back to university down south. I tried to convince him to get his Master's degree on line, but he wouldn't go for it! He's coming back in May for a couple months. He's staying here while I go to see my family. I think he's more excited about hanging out here than I am about my new niece! I need to find a new Todd. It was very nice to be able to go away for even for a night and have someone we trusted completely stay here.

Not trying to hi-jack the thread..

but wow!! Sounds like a real good deal you have set up. If you ever need a permanent dog sitter let me know..

[Suki Wingy]

Last year I got about 130 hours of paid time off. I use almost all of it between "home base" being 270 miles away, my conventions, and simply having days where my shift is canceled because I have no dogs on my schedule. I should say I work for the same company as wolf_Q but I currently don't make commission at all, just hourly for now.

And Glacier, I dogsit and I have several references!

[Queen of Poop]

I get 25 paid vacation days a year and 2 flex days one to be used in the first half of the year, one in the second half. We also close the office the Friday before every long weekend from May to September. And we close the office between Christmas and New Years. With the divorce and having no funds for vacation I currently have 55 vacation days to use up. Not sure how I'm going to manage that.

[Suki Wingy]

I forgot, when my dad was being laid off (they gave him a heads up several months in advance, he worked for a university) they let him use up all the vacation days he had accumulated so he kept taking days off whenever it was nice out to go looking for snakes or birds and when I came to visit he took the entire time off.

[Randi]

Here's a new list of how much vacation the boss in various countries take. Twelve days for the US bosses certainly isn't much.

[pomtzu]

Only 12 days for U.S. bosses??? - that's a joke!!! I wonder who compiled those figures?

[Randi]

I wonder who compiled those figures?

It does sound very little. The source is someone called Grant Thornton.

[Jessika]

I get 5 days of vacation a year (get another 5 after I've been there 5 years...), no sick days, and I haven't taken any yet this year because they encourage us to switch shifts with other employees instead of taking a day of vacation... oh, forgot to mention, if I do take vacation, I also have to plan out who is going to cover my shifts...

[snakemama]

My vacation is earned based on hours worked and it does not roll over. I have about 60 hours accumulated right now and I'll be using them next month. I guess maybe I'm lucky that I don't like to travel, I haven't had a vacation in awhile and I don't have a strong desire to take one. I am such a homebody.