A question for all of you in Employment Land, past or present. What is it like (or was it like) for you when you want to schedule time off? How difficult is it? I don’t mean coordinating with family at home — I mean talking to your boss or HR, finagling backups and coordinating with your peers, or whatever else you have to go through.
This thread is borne out of my own current frustration. I work in a law firm where the (semi-)formal policy for the last few years is to email all of the partners in your practice group, any other attorneys you might currently be working with, any staff who might have to cover for you, and a few administrative folks in order to ask if ANY of them have a conflict with time you’re planning to take off. In the case of the email I sent this past week, this involved 18 people.
I will say that most people in my job are pretty accommodating and will definitely try to work with you even if some conflict exists because, you know, we’re all human and have lives and want to spend time with our families. But there is inevitably one person (and in my case, nearly always the same person) who has an issue, no matter when the vacation time would be (week between Christmas and New Years, anyone?) or how far in advance I ask (because seven weeks is clearly short notice, no?). I’m not being told no (yet, although that has happened); instead, I’m being told that there might be a problem, and we’ll have to discuss it.
What this amounts to, time and time again, is an extremely high level of stress that goes with any thought of taking vacation. There is ALWAYS a hurdle. I honestly can’t recall the last time I was able to schedule more than a day off without any hassle.
But, of course, I know my story. What I’m interested in is yours. What hoops do you have to jump through to get away from it all?
I am responsible for managing my own workload, including time off. I inform my manager that I am taking the time off, he might ask about what will happen with some key projects, but it’s up to me to organise cover or inform stakeholders that nothing will happen whilst I’m away.
When I did the armored thing, Vacation was doled out by seniority. Given that there were a bunch of guys with 15-30(!) years of experience and they ran so slim that only 1-2 guys could be off at a time, there was pretty much no chance I’d get a vacation outside of the dead of winter, and maybe not even then.
Doing the tech support thing in the call-center, they were jerks about letting people take vacation. For the first 2 years I was there, they had only 7-10 people in my department scheduled for Saturday morning. So they would NEVER approve anyone for a vacation that included Saturday. Lost a number of people who quit over it, or people would just call in sick that day, usually from out of town.
My current job, I just need to fill out an on-line form and it goes to my grandboss, who has his system set to auto-approve.
Oh, the call center. One person requested a week of vacation and went on it. When he returned, he found that they had sent an email to his internal email (not his personal email, not calling him) hours after his work week was done and he was on his normal weekend) revoking that approval. When he came back, he found that they had fired him for ‘job abandonment’ - having no-showed the job for 3+ days. No one called him or made any effort to actually contact him at all to tell him his vacation was no longer approved and he needed to come in. A rather assholish way of firing someone, overall.
The actual process is extremely straightforward, and no one gives me any grief. I only have to let my boss know, and he’s never had any issue with any request. I am technically “asking,” and I think it’s respectful of his position that I frame it in the form of a request, but in reality, it’s like I’m telling him.
The esoteric parts of the scheduling are what screws me. For example, our deadlines for projects are often moved around with very little notice. In theory, there is no reason that I cannot be out on vacation when a deadline for one of my own projects hits … but in REALITY, I know it will be miserable, work-wise, for me both before and after the vacation, in trying to race through work prior to leaving or playing catch up upon my return.
I also travel for work, and I like to plan my vacations around my travel schedule so that I can get the “good” work destinations (I have seniority so I get first choice). Otherwise, I will have to fill my quota with “crap” work destinations. This throws a wrench into my planning because again, the work travel schedule isn’t prepared very far in advance.
I know that’s mostly on me to deal with. I could decide to just CARE LESS about what’s going on when I’m away, although it does legitimately create more work if the timing isn’t right.
I get five days a year and, providing I don’t have to take any of them for illness or family emergency, I can take them any time I want providing I give one month’s notice.
The only restriction at our office is that only two people can be off at the same time. Since I usually use up all of my vacation before Halloween and the other guys save theirs for Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is rarely any problem getting time off when we want it.
It’s pretty easy in my world. Step one is to look at the group calendar - if your desired time off is clear or just one or two people have already requested it, you’re all but assured to get it. There are some limits on how many people can be out on any given day, (think it’s seven) so it can be tricky around holidays. Requests for holidays are taken near the beginning of the year, and settled by lottery.
We have people that have been with the company for 45 years, and I’m one of the “newcomers” at 14 years, so we agreed as a group to do the random lottery rather than adherence to seniority.
I don’t think it’s ever been a problem that someone wants a day like Christmas Eve and loses the lottery, but on December 24, they suddenly fall ill. As a whole, we’re oddly professional about things and nobody stomps off whining about being unable to take a day off.
Large law firm? Tries to make it impossible for you to take vacations? The hell you say.
Seriously, get a job with the government or a small boutique firm… I request vacation by emailing my boss, and, as long as it doesn’t conflict with a court imposed deadline, I get it.
Current one: I’m a part-time worker; I’ve signed up for X total days in the project, we’ve already worked out how many days I’m alloted from now until the end of it, and not only does he have no problem if I schedule things so that I am not coming in for one or more weeks (as is about to happen), he is perfectly happy to deflect any complaints with a more polite version of “you’re the ones who asked for part-time, this is what part-time means”.
I’ve had other bosses who would deny us a day off unless we could produce a doctor’s appointment in writing and a note after the visit, and that only with a lot of grumbling; those same ones would insult anybody who dared get sick, or tell someone who was leaving due to illness “if you leave don’t come back” and then be surprised to receive notice. IME, the bosses who are more likely to be assholes about time off are also the ones who are worst at managing anything.
One of my brothers tends to work for the second kind of boss. The other one has usually had processes along the lines of “these are the days the company will be closed, these are how many days you have to choose, this is the order in which dates will be alloted: so long as there is no conflict between yours and those of someone who chooses sooner you’re golden. If there is a conflict I’ll let you know. Please email me at least a rough draft before January 15.”
Last job, very difficult…basically had to reserve your vacation days at the beginning of the year. If you needed to change them, you had to trade with somebody. Nobody will trade? too bad.
Current job. E-mail my boss, say “Boss, I want to take Thursday and Friday off. Nothing going on. Going to get Mike to take my calls.” E-mail Mike, say “Mike, I’m jetting out. Setting my out-of-office to contact you if it’s urgent.”
I get 5 weeks a year and really the only hurdle is that 3 of us are critical to one aspect of operations and at least 1 of us must be here at all times. The other two guys don’t have kids, I do so our desired schedules really don’t conflict that much. Like you we all send out a informal email or IM early to clear it with the other 2 and once that’s done I send out a notice to everyone in our group that might need my help to let them know I’ll be away.
At my last place it was a bigger issue, but maily because of a dishonest, selfish coworker. She’d take 5 weeks in summer to go back to Africa but then when Thanksgiving and especially Christmas rolled around she still wanted then off too and would make up ridiculous stories to make a case.
“Oh, you’ll be in a training class December 28 - 30th? really?”
Starting January 1st, I go up to 39 PTO days a year +8 holidays. My co-workers and I pretty much come and go as we please, meaning in some cases, vacation is just taken that day or that afternoon. We know our workflow and will back up each other as needed, so it’s not a big deal. If we know more than half of our team of 6 is going to be out-as we have a group PTO calendar- we will work it out amongst ourselves first actually before thinking of getting our manager involved.
Only 1 our of 18? In that case it’s that individual’s problem and not yours.
I’ve worked with individuals that throw up roadblocks to any plans or schedules. It must make them feel important. Sometimes you just have to make a stand. And if they are doing it to you, they’ve probably pulled the same stunt on others. In other words, most people will understand.
Now if it’s one of the partners or your boss, that’s a different issue. In that case you still want to push back some, and maybe start looking for another job.
Also consider that a reason companies give out vacation days is so that you can have some recreation ( re-create yourself) and come back a refreshed and better employee. They are doing you and themselves a disservice by not allowing you to take earned vacation time except in extreme circumstances.
Current job: I tell them when I am taking a vacation, usually with at minimum three weeks notice, and then I take it. They randomly decide whether they do or do not want to pay me the days off because they’re both stingy and can’t get their act together. I act as though every day I take off I am not going to get paid because why set myself up for dissapointment. As such, even a simple cheap vacation to the beach can quickly become expensive when you’re “paying” for the day off itself.
Last Job: Two weeks in advance, but the boss would be a jekyll and hyde about it (“You’re not authorized for a paid day off!” “That’s okay I’ll take it unpaid” “Well since you’re such a good worker I’ll give you a paid day off” [three weeks later you’re fired]). I never had the chance to ask for more than one day off at a time before I was gone from that place.
Job Before That: Two months in advance, no pay, grumbling duly noted, but you would get the days off. I didn’t try for anything more than two days at once because it was a severe sort of workplace.
Ever notice how many bosses don’t believe in families or holidays…except when it’s theirs?
I work in a team of 6 people. We try to make sure that there are at least three of us here at any given time.
This means that there is a lot of leeway for vacation. Also, if you really want/need it, we can go down to one person and have in the past (especially in the week between Christmas and New Year’s).
The only policy that really sucks is that all vacation for a given year must be used in that year. So, I have a ton of vacation time left to use before the end of December and nothing I really want to do with it.
Government lawyer checking in. Yup, it really is just that simple. Slightly simpler, actually, as my office very rarely has to deal with court-imposed deadlines. The only annoying thing is that the federal government treats leave time as a form of compensation, alongside your paycheck - every two weeks, I get X dollars, six hours of annual (vacation) leave, and four hours of sick leave, which I can bank or use. That works out to sixteen days of annual leave a year - but I can’t generally use leave in advance, only the leave time that I’ve earned to date.
