My GF is constantly complaining that she has no leave. This is because she uses it all as soon as she accumulates a few days.
I’m the opposite. I like to see those numbers go up and up every pay period. I’ll use some here and there during the summer and over the winter holidays, but for the most part I try not to use it if I don’t have to; sick leave is just as good and accumulates twice as fast ;). Once I get maxed out I’ll be more liberal with it but until then I’m just gonna work my weeks and enjoy my weekends.
I’m a saver. Have about 75 days and another 30 of use or lose that I need to burn before October. If the job made it easy to burn leave, I’d definitely have a low amount, so I’d say I’m a saver by necessity.
At the beginning of the year, I already know what times I have planned for vacations and long weekends. Staring in September, I look at how much I have planned to take for the rest of the year, take that out from my available days left, and whatever is left, I burn up by marking Fridays starting in December and working my way back.
I don’t get to roll over my days each year, well I do but I don’t get to use them until I burn through all of my leave and have a doctor’s note, so I burn all of my days each year. I am a saver in that I like big vacations so I’ll take two weeks in the summer and two weeks at christmas but besides that I rarely take a day off.
I like to take a day here, and a day there, but over all, I’m a saver. Ever few year, we manage to take a multi-week trip some place, and I hoard my vacation time for those occasions. (We can have upto one years worth of vacation in the bank at any time. Vacation time is accrued with each pay period.)
I’m a saver. I’m perpetually near my cap (356 hrs). Since I earn 8.4 hrs every two weeks, I’m taking a lot of afternoons off or the odd 3 day weekend here or there. Luckily sick leave has no cap, so I’m well over 2400 hours there.
I get four weeks’ annual leave a year and generally use about three. I’ve got six weeks’ annual leave accrued at the moment. Plus four months’ long service leave.
There is no option for me. I get four weeks and I use four weeks. Why? Because we aren’t allowed to roll over and they won’t pay it out. It’s called the ‘use it or lose it’ policy.
This is why I started saving mine. I used to use it as it accrued but about 3 years ago there was a giant kerfluffle and our contract went from every 3 years to, “Well the contract is ending.” Then two weeks before the contract was to end we got, “Hey good news we got a 3 month extension.” That’s when I started saving my vacation time in anticipation of getting laid off. The 3 month extensions went on for 2 years. We’d get an extension and then hear nothing until the last week or two about getting another 3 month extension. Then we finally got a 1 year contract and hopefully the next time will be a multi-year contract.
So I saved up until I maxed out and now I wait until it’s maxed and then I take a day or two off and then wait untl it maxes out again and then I’ll take another day or two. I like having the security knowing that if I do get laid off I’ll have that three week pay-out to keep me a float for a little while.
All of my leave is available to me on January 1st (even though it’s accrued over the course of the first 10 months). It’s also use-it-or-lose-it. Therefore I usually take December off, because I forget to take it during the rest of the year.
Spender. My company limits carryover days to 5 per year, unless you buy a week of PTO in which case you can’t carry over ANY time (for tax reasons). So there’s no way or reason to save any more than that.
Same here, except for me it’s 2 weeks. Otherwise I’d probably roll over some, so I could, you know, have the option of taking a whopping 2 weeks at once and still have some time left for the rest of the year. With our families spread all over the place, it’s already hard enough to squeeze everyone in now and again and still have time to take an actual vacation once in a while by ourselves.
I have three weeks and am allowed to roll one, but I only have six days of sick leave. With small children, that usually means taking some vacation days for illness in the fall. I never know for sure how much of a Christmas vacation I’ll be able to take until it’s upon me.
We’re allowed to carry over PTO, but have to use it by the end of March. I carried over four days, and have taken three long weekends in the last five weeks. I’d originally hoped to do another long weekend this weekend, but I’m in the middle of a project that needs to be completely done by the end of the day Monday, so will take Tuesday or Wednesday instead.
I’ve never had a job with a leave policy (I’ve waited tables and delivered pizza etc while in school and been a lawyer since). The whole thing just sounds annoying to me.
I use about 75% of it every year. I don’t have any plans to take a long period of time off at any one time, but I want to have some time saved up in case of an emergency. I take it one or two days at a time, my job is stressful and I want the sanity.
