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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

What kind of fed job gets 80 hours of bonus leave? We will sometimes get a bonus of 16 hours, but I have never heard of 80. Is that credit hours for working extra hours? Even for that, we are capped at I believe 24 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

What kind of fed job gets 80 hours of bonus leave? We will sometimes get a bonus of 16 hours, but I have never heard of 80. Is that credit hours for working extra hours? Even for that, we are capped at I believe 24 hours.

PP here. It's two separate awards at 40 hours each. One is the yearly performance award (his agency gives very generous performance awards) and the other comes during the year for some other reason (not sure). They're not guaranteed, but he has yet not get them.

My agency isn't nearly as generous.

[Anonymous]

I get four weeks and soon will get five. My plan is:

Weeks or thanksgiving and Christmas (8 days)
One week spring
One week summer

Bank one week for mat leave

[Anonymous]

OP here: seems like there is some variance in how much leave people take but overall most people receive and take pretty good leave! My leave with the state isn't as good as with the federal gov't but it isn't awful. It was MUCH better before I was hired as when the social workers had to work on-call, they provided them with comp time which can be used as annual leave. People were accruing leave hand over foot! They switched it to paid time and now we are also strongly discouraged from accruing any comp time which is very challenging!

I accrue annual leave according to the VDSS system:

first 5 years = 8 hours per month ----This is me at year 4.
5-10 years= 10 hours per month
10-15 years= 12 hours per month
15-20 years=14 hours per month
max is 18 hours per month.

Everyone accrues 10 hours of sick leave per month. That time goes fast when you have a toddler.

I'm still waiting to hear back whether I will be allowed to take 8 days vacation this summer. My supervisor is always annoyed when I ask for any time off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a fed and take all the vacation leave I have available.

Usually 5 days at Christmas, 5 days at Spring Break, 10 days in summer and a few other random days off.

I'm in local government and I do basically the same. I somehow still manage to bank a lot of time (I take two week long vacations where I have to use only 5 days each of leave...one in the summer and one between Christmas and New Years, so slightly less than PP). I like to take some random Fridays off or half days on a Friday in the summer. My boss is cool as long as I'm up to date on all my work and it doesn't become someone else's problem. It's MY time, that I've earned, so I'm going to use it!

[Anonymous]

Almost none. Can't afford to travel.

So a day here or there for a wedding or a school event. A few days over Christmas if I can swing it as that's our busiest time of year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Women have kids FOR men?

That's one of the dumbest things...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Women have kids FOR men?

That's one of the dumbest things...

Lots of nutty man haters here.

[Anonymous]

I once had a business school professor tell us that we should never take more than 5 days off at a time. Five days is just enough for someone else to cover for you, but not too long for them to learn your job and outperform you or for your boss to realize your position isn't really needed.

I've always followed this advice and twice I've seen people who took off 10-15 days straight get let go upon returning. In one case, the employee took all 15 days of her vacation to visit her parents in India. The boss realized that her job duties were easily broken between the three people who were covering for her and her position and $75k salary could be eliminated. Another guy took 10 days off and the lower level employee who covered for him was faster and more efficient, so he was let go and she was promoted. Again, a $100k salary was eliminated and they bumped her pay up to make her happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Women have kids FOR men?

That's one of the dumbest things...

Not dumb at all. If a man wants children he has to find a woman to have them for him. Men can't have babies.

[Anonymous]

I get 4 weeks and usually take all of it (kids are in middle school) -- 1 week at Spring Break, 2 weeks over summer (not all at once - usually a week trip and plus some long weekends), work 1/2 time during the week between xmas and new years. Add a couple random days to chaperone a school trip or spend time with visiting relatives.

[Anonymous]

20 paid days, plus federal holidays. I take a couple sick days as needed. No comp time though if I travel through weekends, late nights, etc as I usually do but then I have flexibility to come in late or leave early, and I will do so if I've been traveling a lot. this year took 4 days at xmas; 4 days in spring, will take 7 or so at the end of summer , a couple long weekends and a few days around tday.

[Anonymous]

I couldn't survive on the time off many of you describe. I get 4 weeks. Can buy a fifth. Plus federal holidays. And sick time is not part of all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I once had a business school professor tell us that we should never take more than 5 days off at a time. Five days is just enough for someone else to cover for you, but not too long for them to learn your job and outperform you or for your boss to realize your position isn't really needed.

I've always followed this advice and twice I've seen people who took off 10-15 days straight get let go upon returning. In one case, the employee took all 15 days of her vacation to visit her parents in India. The boss realized that her job duties were easily broken between the three people who were covering for her and her position and $75k salary could be eliminated. Another guy took 10 days off and the lower level employee who covered for him was faster and more efficient, so he was let go and she was promoted. Again, a $100k salary was eliminated and they bumped her pay up to make her happy.

What a miserable way to live though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I once had a business school professor tell us that we should never take more than 5 days off at a time. Five days is just enough for someone else to cover for you, but not too long for them to learn your job and outperform you or for your boss to realize your position isn't really needed.

I've always followed this advice and twice I've seen people who took off 10-15 days straight get let go upon returning. In one case, the employee took all 15 days of her vacation to visit her parents in India. The boss realized that her job duties were easily broken between the three people who were covering for her and her position and $75k salary could be eliminated. Another guy took 10 days off and the lower level employee who covered for him was faster and more efficient, so he was let go and she was promoted. Again, a $100k salary was eliminated and they bumped her pay up to make her happy.

You seem to work in crappy places. Most of our workplace is international, long term employees and everyone takes 3-4 weeks off at a stretch to visit their home countries.