Wally World weeps

Survey finds Americans gave back to employers 448 million earned but unused vacation days in 2010:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/25/pf/unused_vacation_days/index.htm?hpt=T2

Taking into account the average salary, that equals more than $67 billion, which of course is a false equivalency because that money isn't given back or left on the table. Still interesting, though. I damn sure take every minute of vacation I earn.

 

I too take every day of vacation I've earned. The window is small - summer and Christmas time - but I cannot remember the last time I ate a vacation day.

One guy I work with uses maybe half of his vacation time. But then again, he's probably accumulated enough comp time to take every day off from now until Jan. 1 2016.

 

That was one plus of being in an union; we HAD to take them. No matter what. You couldn't work on your vacation, period.

 

Happened to me at my last job. Had scheduled a vacation week before Christmas, football team goes to national championship game so I scrap that. Then the next month, SE leaves and we are short-handed for two months, so basically lose the time during that fiscal year. Left bad taste in my mouth. Interesting to see I'm not alone.

 

Heh. Many moons ago, I was in the final stages of the interview process for a managing editor job.

I had been working for another paper in the chain for several years as a SE on a 6-day daily. In four years, the only days off I had ever had were Saturdays (no Sunday paper). A couple times I had taken a "day off," but I always had to have my sports pages completely done in advance (all features). No sick days.

OK, anyway, I was interviewing for this ME job, and I could tell they really wanted me. So with the sudden rush of having some bargaining power, I shot for the moon: "I want two weeks fully paid vacation per year, plus five sick days."

Mr. Publisher smiles and says, "Surrrrrrre. No problem."

I should have known. I was there three years -- never took a day off. It was a four-man staff -- if I didn't put the paper out, the paper didn't get out.

After I had been there a year, in late December (too late to take any vacations), completely appropos of nothing (I hadn't brought it up or anything), Mr. Publisher says, "oh hey in case you were wondering, vacation time does not carry over, and if you don't use it you lose it."

Just in a friendly joking aside, like "just in case you forgot, we're fucking you. Just thought you would like to know."

Gee thanks sir. May I have another.


Actually now that I remember it, he was talking about another employee in the front office who had requested some time off, been turned down, and then said something about the time carrying over. Mr. Publisher was recounting this to me in great amusement, in a "can-you-believe-this-shit" type of conversation, just to impress upon me that any idiot knows vacation days don't carry over.

 

I've had to eat vacation days the last two years because of stinkin' furloughs screwing everything up. I hated losing those days, but when you're basically a two-man staff doing the work of six, days off from August until May aren't possible.

This year, we're doing everything in our power to make sure every vacation day gets taken. So far, so good. But something usually comes up to screw things up and one of us usually has to end up eating days at the end.

 

I lost two weeks vacation in each of my last two job moves. I had earned it, but hadn't used it when I got offered new positions and neither paper was willing to pay me for the time I had earned. That always bothered, especially since I gave both papers two weeks notice. I considered asking for my vacation time to cover my notice.

 

A former coworker once put in for two weeks vacation, got it approved then turned in her notice the day before her vacation started.

 

MC, paying for vacation upon departure depends on the type; earned or granted.

If you earn it, then it has to be paid. If you are granted the time, then no.

Also, some places can require that you pay back used vacation time that you borrowed, i.e. You haven't earned yet.

Say you get 2 weeks each year, earned at the rate of .9 days a month. If you take a week in april, you are actually borrowing against time you haven't earned. If you quit right after vacation, you may have to pay it back.

 

That's what I thought.

 

There's no law saying they have to give vacation time, so there's no law saying they have to pay out for unused time.
If you work in a union shop and have that kind of deal, then yes, they're required to pay out.
If you work in a non-union shop, it's up to the company. At the one newspaper and one law firm I've worked at, the vacation time was "use it or lose it". With the newspaper, the buyout offer took place at the end of the year. So I believe those that didn't use their vacation time that year got paid for it. At the law firm, I got laid off mid-year, so I was paid a pro-rated vacation pay for the amount of vacation time I would have earned for that part of the year.

 

Our place allows you to accrue one week more than your yearly allotment, i.e. If you get 2 weeks of vacation a year, you are allowed to have 3 weeks on the books. Once you reach 3 weeks, it stops accruing until you get below 3 weeks. So that essentially is use it or lose it. But they do send out warnings that you are approaching the limit.

I had one of those vacation/job change deals. I had a two-week Hawaii vacation booked and OK'd at work. Then I got a feeler from another job that I wanted. During the interview process I told them about this vacation and I hoped that it wouldn't affect whether I got that job. They assured me it wouldn't and it didn't. I got the job offer, went and peed for them and it was a done deal on a Friday. I was leaving for Hawaii the following Monday. So I went to work that Friday and gave notice. It was 5 p.m. The SE was still there and he congratulated me. The other management people were gone already. So I worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday and was gone. Any feelings that I might have had regarding the timing of bailing on them gave way to the fact that I worked there 5 or 6 days a week for 14 months, never missed a day being sick or on vacation. I ran into the editor a few months later at an event. She said, it was weird, you were there, then you were gone. No hard feelings. It ended good.