GTKY: Holidays, vacation, PTO and sick days.

als1982 · February 2016

I realized this afternoon that part of the reason it's quiet around here is likely because it's Presidents Day! I didn't realize, mostly because I don't get it, or any holiday for that matter, off work with pay. Instead I get 30 days per year of PTO that count for holidays, sick days lasting 1-2 days (after that we can tap into a separate bank of "extended illness time" or EIT) and vacation days. We usually take 2 two week long vacations a year and then I sell the rest, though it can roll over from year to year. I think it's been a good policy, though some of my coworkers, especially those with kids, disagree. Do you get Paid Time Off at your job, and if so, what does that look like?

formerlyGDaisy09 · February 2016

we also don't have president's day off.

we earn time throughout the year (22 days) that is given to us on July 1st and is use it or loose it time, so it can't be cashed out or rolled over into the next year. That time is sick, personal and vacation time, I usually plan to use a week or two of it as vacation and save the rest for appointments and sick time; I often get to may and have a week or more of time to use up and end-up taking a bunch of long weekends.

we do get major holidays as PTO: Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and the day after, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve, and New Years Day. Additionally we get the week between Christmas and New Years off as paid time...though I did not get that time this year because I was on maternity leave (yes I'm very bitter about it, and they never explained why that time is lost well...something to do with short term disability).

labro · February 2016

I'm so jealous that so many people seem to get Presidents Day off! I had to work but everything has been super quiet so I think people must have taken it as a vacation day.

I'm currently at 10 days a year of PTO. I'll accrue another 5 days on my 5 year work anniversary....which is still so far away (I'll be at 3 years in September). Alternatively, if I get promoted, I should get more vacation...but I haven't been given any hints about that. At my last (extremely positive) annual review I let it drop that I'd like to see more time off and I hope my manager keeps that in mind. H is at 20 days right now so it kind of sucks when we want to plan out any vacations for the year. I usually end up planning on 5 days of spending time with his family since they live far away, and the other 5 days either go to a week long vacation for us, or split up into long weekends.

15 days of sick leave but I'm never sick and I don't like taking the time if I'm not actually sick. You can take that time (and I think some extra) off for family care if you need it which I think is a nice policy.

I get what I consider the normal holidays - Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and the Friday following, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years, one floating holiday. H works for a financial institution so that jerk gets ALL the market holidays....

I kind of wish I had a policy like yours. I would NOT mind my vacation and sick time being tied up together. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had children who needed to be cared for, or if I had a long-term illness....but I don't. Our company also used to offer vacation payouts if you accrued over 30 days but they stopped that policy shortly after I started working there.

emily1004 · February 2016

We don't get Columbus Day, Presidents Day or MLK Day off, but we do get PTO for all the other federal holidays off. We get one day of Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Passover off because all of the partners are Jewish. (As am I). We also get Good Friday off. We get another 160 hours = 20 days of PTO, but you have to be mindful of it, as it is sick days and vacation. We do get short term disability if we have an extended illness or maternity/paternity leave. The coolest thing about my job is the health care. I don't pay a dime for medical, dental, or vision. Neither does my husband or family (when we have one).

Edit: We only have 40 hours that roll over. This is such a high paced office, they encourage time off, just so we can keep our sanity.

hoffse · February 2016

We get holidays - New Year's Day, MLK, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving+Black Friday, and Christmas Eve+Day. We don't get President's Day, Columbus Day, or Veteran's Day, though the biggest Veteran's day parade in the country is right outside our office, so most people work from home that day.

Other than that, technically 3 weeks of PTO. That said, we don't clock in/out or anything, so nobody really tracks it. They really just care that you make your billable hours for the year. If you hit the hours minimum in November you could take the rest of the year off, but that's usually not practical.

They just increased maternity leave to 12 weeks paid, and I think you can tack on your 3 weeks of PTO to the end of it to get to 15 weeks. I'm very pleased about that.

We also have a sabbatical policy. After 15 years of work you can take 4 months paid time off to do whatever. The only rule is you have to turn in your cell phone so that you're off the grid. They let you do this every 15 years, up to 3 sabbaticals (or 1 year total). I've been telling H he needs to start prepping his office for this now, because I plan to take any children we have at that time and travel to Asia.

vlagrl29 · February 2016

we're self employed so if we don't work we don't get paid

short+sassy · February 2016

@als1982, the last company I worked for had a policy like that. All your time off...including holidays...was lumped into one bucket.

At my current job, we get 10 days of sick time in the first year with two more days added with each year of employment. But it is "use it or lose it" within the calendar year.

Everyone gets three weeks of vacation time. I think we get a fourth week after working here for 10 years. 5 hours are accrued with each pay period, which is nice because you don't have to wait an entire year to get a big chunk all at once. Vacation time is rolled over from year to year. I actually live in one of only about 15 states where companies are required to allow vacation time to either be rolled over or paid out. However, any employee who has more than 160 hours of vacation time as of Sept. 30th, gets paid out for anything over that.

I used to work for a defense contractor and miss those days of having all the Federal holidays off. Now I get 8 holidays...but oddly, three of those are not Federal holidays (Mardi Gras, Good Friday and the Friday after Thanksgiving). We DON'T get Memorial Day off . It comes as a surprise to me every year, lol. We also didn't get today off.

And now for my President's Day rant. So I called to place my order for insulin pens at my online Canadian pharmacy, where they are almost half of what they cost in the U.S. But that's a big Pharma rant for another day. When I first started ordering from them, they took credit cards...then for a time they didn't...then they took credit cards again. Except when I called today, now there is a $25 fee for paying with a credit card. Argh!! Ok, whatever, I paid with my checking account which I don't keep much money in and didn't have enough in it. Even at "cheaper Canada prices", it's still $280.

SO...at lunch...I had needed errands I was going to get done to cut down on what I needed to do after work. But no. Instead, I spend my lunch hour rushing down to my bank to make a deposit.

Forgetting it was President's Day and the banks are closed. (beating my head against the wall)

Mustard76 · February 2016

I have 16 days of vacation, 10 holidays, and 6 sick days. Vacation and sick days are use them or lose them each calendar year. It's company policy that we take one week of vacation in 5 consecutive business days, but can split the rest of the days at our discretion. All employees have two weeks to start, then another week is added based on salary band or years of service. Since I'm at three weeks (plus a day) for salary band, I won't get the 5 year additional week. My years of service additions will start at 10 years. Sick days can be used for dr visits and family care if needed. Since I'm salaried, though, if I work at least half a day, I'm not docked from any PTO bucket.

AprilZ81 · February 2016

I get 3 weeks of vacation (I will get 4 if I make it to 5 years service, I have two more to go), 11 days PTO, two flex holidays that we can use whenever we want, then we get Memorial Day, Fourth of July (usually an extended holiday due to the end of the fiscal year), Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and then the week between Christmas and New Years. The firm shuts down that week and they pay for 3 days and we have to use or flex holidays or vacation/PTO for the others. Pretty sweet deal overall.

JoanE2012 · February 2016

I get the major holidays (including President's Day!). This year, I get 7 weeks PTO! That's a combination of base PTO, floating holidays, personal days and 10 days I carried over from last year (the max allowed and what I usually carry over each year).

dragonstarjk · February 2016

I work at a bank, so we are closed for all federal holidays, including President's day. We have PTO hours in one big pot; I currently earn 212 PTO hours/year. These hours are used for holidays, sick days, and vacation days, or whatever we want to use them for. If you subtract the 10 holidays, that leaves approx. 16 days to be used for vacation and/or sick days. I can roll over up to 80 hours at the end of the year, or they can be sold to pay for medical benefits.

We have separate, short term disability we can use after 4 days of PTO. Example--last winter I was sick with a nasty cold and missed a week and a half of work. I only had to use 4 days of PTO and the rest was paid under STD. This also applies if a person has to have surgery, etc.

The bank also pays 3 days' paid bereavement for the loss of a family member.

We earn an additional 24ish hours every 5 years, and also additional time when you become a bank officer (hopefully someday).

csuave · February 2016

I started with 22 PTO days (vacation and sick, use or lose). At 5 years I moved up to 27 and if am there at 10 I'll get 5 more. I used to go in when I had a bad cold. Now that I am at 27 I am more likely to use a day to be home sick. I feel bad going in when I may be germy but when I had 22 I usually didn't have the days to spare with OOT trips to see family, etc.

When I started we had 6 holidays. I think HR focus groups with employees indicated this was low so they added 3: President's Day, MLK and Columbus Day. I never had these days off at other jobs.

Every year they also announce early out Fridays during the summer. It is usually out at 1pm from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

bmo88 · February 2016

I run a school and get the following time off:

50 days paid off for breaks that come in the form of 1 and 2 week breaks through the year (we are year round and our summer is only 3 weeks, and admin don't take it)
15 Flex Days (sick or vacation)
up to 12 weeks short term disability (injury, illness or maternity) at 60% pay

I never use all my time off because of the breaks. We can cash out up to 10 days for $100 per day. I usually work during the breaks though (like today, we were closed, but I worked about 4-5 hours) because I need to catch up on work and meetings.

kmurphy2131 · February 2016

I get three weeks of vacation. That was negotiated I was suppose to have one at one year, two at two years, and three at five years. I had three at my last company so I negotiated that going in.

I also have 6 holidays (new years, memorial day, july fourth, labor day, thanksgiving, christmas) & we always take the day after thanksgiving (I use vacation time).

I think I get two weeks of sick time. Not sure if its one or two. Honestly I use usually one day a year for a doctors appointment, plus a few hours here and there for personal or family medical appointments. Calling out sick in my job means canceling on patients so it's easier to just go to work sick (common cold type sick).

I work 40 hours/week but only mon/tue/thur/fri. So often if I do something like take a Friday off I make my thursday 12 hours and use less time off, or sometimes go in and work on a wednesday (not often though...I like my midweek reset day. H works crazy hours and I do all the chores so it's good to have time)

MommyLiberty5013 · February 2016

I sah. Dh gets three paid vacation weeks per year. That will increase to five paid weeks once he's been there for 10 years. Caveat: for all his vacation he has to bid it based on seniority. So it's pretty randomly placed in the year. He can drop trips whenever without pay with no penalties. He also earns per diem on all trips with a higher percentage of it on international ones. For sick time he gets 40 hours paid, I believe, but it could be more, he rarely uses it so I'm not totally sure. and in mn that can be used due to a spouse bring ill and him needing to stay home. He works roughly 16 days of every month. Although it's different schedules every week and month. And some schedules mean he's gone for five or more day stretches. As all schedules are based on seniority, all holidays are fair game for having to work. There are no company wide observed holidays when you're a pilot. One day is the same as the next. There's a ton of other work rules and caveats to pay, which quite frankly, I don't even understand. How he can keep track amazes me.

KatieCutie05 · February 2016

I was just bumped up from 3 weeks of PTO to 4 weeks since I've been here for 5 years now. (its a combined vacation/sick time). We earn 6.6 hours twice a month and we stop earning if we reach our "max" 160 hours. I never have to worry about "tracking my vacation days" because I always have some- if not I will. Oh and we are also allowed to "borrow" up to 40 hours of PTO time.

We also get 8 flexible holidays. However I am forced to take off on all federal holidays (not allowed to charge the gov't on those days) So since theres 10 federal holidays, 8 of them are holiday and the other 2 we have to use vacation time. I'm also allowed to WAH when needed so I don't need to worry about burning PTO days on that. I used to have a hard time using my hours cus we didn't go on long vacations.

jtmh2012 · February 2016

Our time off is kinda weird. When I started we had standard holiday, vacation, and sick time. Starting last year, they went to a holiday + PTO + sick thing.

Holidays are the 10 major holidays. When I started, it was 10 vacation days and 10 sick days, but last January they took 5 of the sick days added them to our vacation and call it PTO. So now I have 10 holidays, 15 PTO days, and 5 sick days. Bereavement if it comes up. I also have the ability to work from home, so unless I'm essentially dead, I just login from home instead of taking time off.

We're capped at 160 hours of PTO and it's use or lose and we can borrow I think it's up to 4 days, but if you borrow, you can't use time off again until you're positive, so I just don't go there.

Starting this July, I should be getting an extra week and then 3 years from that, I'd get another week of PTO.

My wife works retail part-time so as of right now she doesn't get any paid time off, but she's trying to get switched to part-time with benefits, so she'd get vacation time based on hours worked. However, being retail, she's expected to be there for pretty much every major holiday except Christmas and I think Easter.

bmo88 · February 2016

@jtmh2012: Totally random, and I hope appropriate, but are you a man? I noticed you said "my wife" and by looking at your picture. I feel like most participant are females on these boards, so I am always excited to see if we have male participants!

jtmh2012 · February 2016

bmo88 said:

@jtmh2012: Totally random, and I hope appropriate, but are you a man? I noticed you said "my wife" and by looking at your picture. I feel like most participant are females on these boards, so I am always excited to see if we have male participants!

Yes, I am.....I just usually try not to draw attention to it.

jessica490 · February 2016

I was working yesterday unfortunately. We get the 7 of the major holidays off, not these little ones. Time off depends on how long you you've worked for the company, but for being there for 5 years, I get 23 days plus 3 floaters which is awesome! You can use it for anything you want, sick, vacation and bereavement is separate. Time doesn't roll over so you use it or lose it and you can't cash it out.

jessica490 · February 2016

jtmh2012 said:

bmo88 said:

@jtmh2012: Totally random, and I hope appropriate, but are you a man? I noticed you said "my wife" and by looking at your picture. I feel like most participant are females on these boards, so I am always excited to see if we have male participants!

Yes, I am.....I just usually try not to draw attention to it.

I think there was 1 other male on here but I haven' seen him on here in a looooong time! I think he had a pic of him hiking or something

vlagrl29 · February 2016

jessica490 said:

jtmh2012 said:

bmo88 said:

@jtmh2012: Totally random, and I hope appropriate, but are you a man? I noticed you said "my wife" and by looking at your picture. I feel like most participant are females on these boards, so I am always excited to see if we have male participants!

Yes, I am.....I just usually try not to draw attention to it.

I think there was 1 other male on here but I haven' seen him on here in a looooong time! I think he had a pic of him hiking or something

Yes. I remember him too. He hasn't been here in awhile.

abrewer5 · February 2016

We get all the major Federal holidays. I also get 6 hours of vacation and 4 of sick every pay check. We do not get maternity pay thou, you have to use sick leave or FMLA.

I started out getting 4 hours of vacation a pay, but it increased to 6 after 3 years of working, and once you're here for 15 years (I believe) you get 8 hours of vacation a paycheck.

NicA617 · February 2016

We get 7 holidays + 1 floater -- I use it for Patriot’s Day / Marathon Monday EVERY year! I think my company is stingy on holidays, I work in a big downtown office building & we seem to be the only ones here on President’s, MLK, Columbus Day etc.. Boo.

I get 25 PTO days a year. My boss is flexible about me working from home, he's in another state & doesn’t care where I am, so long as i'm working. So I don’t have to waste PTO when i'm not sick enough to NOT work, but don't want to infect my co-workers. I tend to hoard my days off & panic when my hours dip below 40.

bmo88 · February 2016

jtmh2012: Sorry for outing you, but happy you join us for the convos!

short+sassy · February 2016

For those of you interested, I have (below) the states that do not allow "use it or lose it" vacation policies. However, each state might have its own caveats. A common one is a "use it or lose it" policy is allowed, but only if it is a written policy distributed to employees. I know in Louisiana, it is also capped at 400 hours/year. In addition, if an employee is terminated or quits, these states usually require their vacation time be paid out to them. I am horrible at knowing state abbreviations, so I did my best or just didn't try, lol:

CA
IL
Indiana
LA
Maryland
Mass.
Michigan
Montana
Nebraska
NY
NC
ND
Ohio
OR
RI
WV
WY

blondie42107 · February 2016

I'm still getting used to my new job (last one had limited holidays, and sick and vacation time were separate). I believe we have 15 paid holidays. I also get 20 days of PTO (combined sick/vacation). We can carry over quite a bit and can cash out up to I have short and long term disability coverage and FMLA (after I've been here a year). We occasionally have snow days and my employer pays us for them. I don't have our bereavement leave memorized.

short+sassy · February 2016

blondie42107 said:

I'm still getting used to my new job (last one had limited holidays, and sick and vacation time were separate). I believe we have 15 paid holidays. I also get 20 days of PTO (combined sick/vacation). We can carry over quite a bit and can cash out up to I have short and long term disability coverage and FMLA (after I've been here a year). We occasionally have snow days and my employer pays us for them. I don't have our bereavement leave memorized.

Thanks for the reminder! My worksite also allows for up to one week per year for weather issues...more for hurricanes with a city wide evacuation...but they are the Stingiest McStingersons about it.

Two years ago, it was a crazy cold winter and the temperature stayed below freezing for three days straight. The freeway was closed. All bridges into the city were closed. The buses stopped running after 3PM each day. The city and weather stations announced for people stay inside and not leave their homes. But did we get even one hour of time off for any of that? NOPE! Apparently they'd rather have their employees driving into work on roads coated with ice. I know most of you know I'm from NOLA. Needless to say, not a cold weather city. Neither our roads or our vehicles/tires are designed for ice or snow.

Sorry! Had to rant there for a second. I really like this company, but they lost a lot of respect from me during the Ice Time.

brij2006 · February 2016

vlagrl29 said:

jessica490 said:

jtmh2012 said:

bmo88 said:

@jtmh2012: Totally random, and I hope appropriate, but are you a man? I noticed you said "my wife" and by looking at your picture. I feel like most participant are females on these boards, so I am always excited to see if we have male participants!

Yes, I am.....I just usually try not to draw attention to it.

I think there was 1 other male on here but I haven' seen him on here in a looooong time! I think he had a pic of him hiking or something

Yes. I remember him too. He hasn't been here in awhile.

I believe his username was wulfgr. He should come back.

brij2006 · February 2016

I get 3 weeks of vacation time and we only get major holidays off (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, Memorial Day, 4th, and Labor Day). My vacation days are maxed out, unfortunately. So no matter how much longer I work here, that's all I'll get. It has to be used for both sick days and vacation. They only allow us to carry over 1 week unless you're banking it for maternity leave (I carried over 3 weeks to help offset my maternity leave).

They also give you an additional 2 weeks of pay for maternity leave, so that was a big plus.

We can also take as much unpaid time off as we want, as long as we don't abuse it. So I will be out of vacation time before our annual family trip in July, but I can continue to take days off here and there until Dec 31st, unpaid, and not worry about losing my job for it.

jtmh2012 · February 2016

bmo88 said:

jtmh2012: Sorry for outing you, but happy you join us for the convos!

Don't be sorry. No harm done

Now if the masses start circling with pitchforks.... :P

GTKY: Holidays, vacation, PTO and sick days.

Re: GTKY: Holidays, vacation, PTO and sick days.

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