How much vacation time do you take - government employees (local, state, federal)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fed here. I use all of annual leave each year (26 days) but none of sick leave.

Same here, more or less--I usually take a couple of sick days per year and the rest just piles up...

Same here. Generally, I take the following every year:

1 2 week
2 1 week (but usually a day or two is holiday)
6 long weekends

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you not taking all or most of your leave??

-non fed here.

-Someone has to be in the office at all times, so I can't take leave when I want to (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving).
-Saving for maternity leave
-We're understaffed.

[Anonymous]

I take every PTO day I get - 5 per year.

[Anonymous]

I am a long time Fed and this is the first year that I will have taken more than 10 days annual leave before November1(I am taking 11).

What usually happens is that I am up against the use or lose deadline and I end up taking the week between X-mas and NYD off and donating 3-4 days to the Leave Bank.

[Anonymous]

2.5 months a year. One of the best parts of being a teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2.5 months a year. One of the best parts of being a teacher

Actually, including things like Christmas and Spring Break, I suppose it's actually a little over 3 months. Lots of blessings!

[Anonymous]

16 year fed here and I never use all of my leave (I don't have any use or lose after all is said and done, but I do carry a sizable balance). My husband is also a fed and gets 80 hours of bonus leave each year, which is enough for him to take a good amount of time off with our kids. I save my leave for their sick or snow days, since my job is more flexible with last minutes needs. Plus, my sister had cancer and luckily had a ton of SL saved, so between that and her 8 hrs of AL each pay period, she never had to work without pay. I keep stuff like unexpected medical issues in the back of my mind.

I do take 1 week at Christmas, 1 week in the summer, and 1 week at spring break always. The rest varies, depending on the year and what's going on.

[Anonymous]

I am in the "take all that I am allotted" camp. My quality of life is much higher when I take leave, from sporadic days here and there to one week spans for vacation. I get 20 annual leave days per year and I can carry over - I may carry over 4 or 5 per year but otherwise, I take it.

[Anonymous]

I take all of my leave, usually a week at the holidays, a week in the summer, and several long weekends throughout the year.

[Anonymous]

My fed DH takes all of his annual leave each year.

[Anonymous]

For the past 4 years I've been "trading" my vacation days for production credit at my fed job.

We have the draconian system that ties "points" to each work item and every bi-week we are required to submit enough work product to amount to a minimum number of points.

They have tied a certain number of hours to each work item. For example: response to an appeal brief is allowed 2 hours of work time. (spend more time writing the response means you are behind schedule). Because we have to account for 80 hours each bi-week with "points" we collect for each of those 80 hours if it takes me, for example, 8 hours to respond to a brief then I need to take 6 hours of "vacation" so that I'm only responsible for 74 hours worth of points that bi-week.

We can always "work voluntary overtime" (that's what they call it - ha ha) but often 14 hour days isn't enough so the vacation time fills the gap.

This sounds crazy but its the way it works.

[Anonymous]

Fed with 20 days and I take all of them but bank 240 hrs a year. One week Christmas, spring, summer, 3 days at thanksgiving and it's almost all gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the past 4 years I've been "trading" my vacation days for production credit at my fed job.

We have the draconian system that ties "points" to each work item and every bi-week we are required to submit enough work product to amount to a minimum number of points.

They have tied a certain number of hours to each work item. For example: response to an appeal brief is allowed 2 hours of work time. (spend more time writing the response means you are behind schedule). Because we have to account for 80 hours each bi-week with "points" we collect for each of those 80 hours if it takes me, for example, 8 hours to respond to a brief then I need to take 6 hours of "vacation" so that I'm only responsible for 74 hours worth of points that bi-week.

We can always "work voluntary overtime" (that's what they call it - ha ha) but often 14 hour days isn't enough so the vacation time fills the gap.

This sounds crazy but its the way it works.

That is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you not taking all or most of your leave??

-non fed here.

Most likely they are women who need the leave to have children for men. Sucks, right?

[Anonymous]

I hoarded leave for years when I was a new fed to get to my maximum carry-over. I didn't have kids until I was already maxed out and was getting the maximum amount of leave per year, so,I was able to have all of my maternity leave funded through sick and annual leave. I now take all leave that I accrue that is use or lose each year, although i usually give back a couple of days because you never know when you will need snow days, so I hold some back. I take a couple of random days, a week in the summer, and then I stop work in mid-/late December when I hit my use or lose deadline and don't come back until the end of the leave year in early January. That last week is my favorite, because my kids go back to school and I take the time to do stuff just by myself after a couple of weeks of winter break with the kids.

Don't give back use or lose, but do be smart about having a bank in reserve for the crisis you didn't plan for.