The U.S. taken another beating in the other thread re our societal and corporate attitudes re vacation/personal time off.
I feel like a bit of a fraud to join in that pity party.
I didn't get much the first year back to work but after 1 yr I earned approx 2 1/2 weeks/year and then since my 5 year anniversary, I take three 1 week long vacations and several long weekends per year. This on top of a good income and excellent working conditions. Several of my coworkers have taken 2 weeks without any hoopla for their big vacations but being a single mom I can't afford to take my kids on vacation to Europe, one a week at a time works best for us. If I talked to my manager about needing to take a month next year, they would try to make it work.
I had my babies back in the days of nurses not easy to replace and so my maternity time off was only limited to our financial planning, or lack thereof. I had some sick/PTO time plus my 6-8 weeks of SDI, if my then husband and I had planned better ie if he had a work ethic, I could have taken off as much as I wanted and there would have been a job for me. As it was I took those 6-8 weeks off without blinking.
Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.
I am just waiting for my managers to realize it would be better to just keep paying me and let me stay home....
Two six-month paid vacations per year for the rest of my career would be a personal dream come true. Alas, my fantasies are more pleasant than reality.
My previous marriage and current LTR soon to be marriage have been with the self employed. They are successful and happy despite hard work. And I have more vacation time than either. Paid. And health benefits.
I guess living that self employed life style with them makes other countries seem like another planet, I'm not complaining but I can't even relate.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
In absolute numbers, the US donated a lot more than my country (stats from 2013). $31.55 billion compared to $5.83 billion. First and sixth place respectively.
I don't know if "donated" is the right word. Much of the US foreign aid comes with strings. Like "Yes we will give you $100 million, BUT you can only use it to hire American company XYZ to build you a new damm and airport." Much of the US's "foreign aid" is in fact gifts to US companies.
Specializes in Management, Med/Surg, Clinical Trainer.
Opinion or not, time off does help build better production, however not all companies are on board with that philosophy. I used to work for a large healthcare system and I accrued PTO at a good rate but there is not much opportunity to use it.
When vacation bidding came around we were allowed to bid for one week off. Next we bid for 5 single days. I could only get 3 off because the rest were taken. So essentially, If I want any other time off I would have to compete for it or if I really needed it, I had to call out.
I accrued for 26 days per year, was only able to get 8 days approved and can only carry over 40 hours. So at the end of the year I would be paid out for the time I was not able to take PTO. Some people think it is nice to get a paycheck from accrued PTO, I personally would have liked to be able to use my benefit so I did not get burned out.
Long story cut short, i did get burned out and left. Once I left the company they spent money to advertise and then hire another nurse, put them through training, orientation and then wait for that person to get up to speed. I think it would be easier to create a system to allow staff to use more of their time off, in that way there is less burn out and the company can keep the seasoned staff, but I digress.
I accrue plenty of time off. However, we have about 70-80 RNs on my unit. Two people are allowed to take a week at a time. Then, there are individual day slots, and only one person can take any particular day. You have to sign up for this in a vacation planner. The planner is released to us by seniority. This is the ONLY way to take PTO. So, with 52 weeks in one year and 2 week slots per week... there are 102 possible week-long slots (the week of Christmas is off limits for everyone). And there are 70 something of us. In other words, only about 2/3rds of us can take two full weeks off per year. Most of us are lucky to grab up even one week long slot. After the vacation planner goes public, people just start signing up for random days/weeks so we can use our PTO, because guess what? If we don't use it, it is taken from us. A lot of people will just take random PTO days and still work three shifts that week to get extra money just to use up the PTO because it's not like you can take a good vacation with only one guaranteed day off. It is the biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my life. Why even give us PTO when it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to get time off?
Guess I'm lucky with my PTO. I get plenty of time. Never have a problem using it either. But then I plan my long vacations well ahead. I had Christmas, 4th of July and Memorial Day vacation time approved in January. With my current schedule of a week on/week off taking a week off gives me 3 weeks off. The week off does use PTO time equal to 2 weeks though since I work a full time schedule in that one week. So I will only work 1 week in May, July and December. Plus I take a long weekend several other months, taking 3 days [Mon-Tu-Wed] gives me 11 days off when I piggyback it off my week off. I am doing that for sure in March and June as it's been approved already, I will put in for a few more later in the year.
This is one of the few perks of staying with a company for 20 years and the only reason I don't look for another job. I would hate starting all over accruing benefits.
I take every hour of PTO I'm given. I've taken 4 international vacations in the last year. And I'm plenty productive at work, I've grown the program I manage to double the size it was when I took it over in the past 2 1/2 years.
How long have these international vacations been? Just curious.
Off the top of my head, I had a week off in July, four-day weekend in August, a week off in November, aday off in December, approved for the 4 day Christmas weekend but I volunteered to work on Friday because we were having a staffing crunch, and then a week off in January and a three-day weekend this week. There might of been a long weekend in September or October don't recall right now. (my week off equals nine days including the flanking weekends).
I posted this on the other topic, so in case it was missed by anyone, NHS annual leave entitlement is
[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD]On appointment[/TD]
[TD]27 days + 8 days[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]After 5 years' service[/TD]
[TD]29 days + 8 days[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]After 10 years' service[/TD]
[TD]33 days + 8 days[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The 8 days are public holidays e.g. Christmas, new year etc. The leave days are working days and do not include your weekends so divide by 5 to get the number of weeks allowed off. Working hours - RCN
In my pre-nursing life I spent 8-1/2 years in a job that offered no PTO. As in none at all. Now that I have it, I use it. Why shouldn't I? Over the years I've seen enough co-workers get sick or hurt, then get fired, to know that no job is worth my well-being. Martyrdom just leaves you dead.
Red Kryptonite
2,212 Posts
Aren't we all....