I am looking through a career change to Nursing which i read online is all perfect for me, except when it comes to time off. I understand that vacation times differ from person to person and place to place, but in Ontario if you have a union your entitled to i believe 4 weeks paid vacation after 3 years of experience as a RN.
My question is first, are u allowed to take that 4 weeks at once throughout the year, or are u more likely to be forced to take 1 week maximum off until it accumulates to 4 weeks? please be free to tell your own personal experiences, doesn't have to be in Canada, can be anywhere in the world, US, Australia, Uk and so on.
I also notice that Ontario has 12 Holidays throughout the year, if a nurses volunteers to work in any of the holidays i believe they are entitled to a day off anytime else in the year. Are nurses allowed to combined these holidays to their vacation time to make it an extended vacation? For example if a nurse is entitled to 4 weeks vacation + 5 holidays = they are off work for 5 weeks?
One of my greatest motivation in life is to travel, usually 1 month off a year so i can cool down and explore far places of the world. I cant travel for example to Asia from Canada for a week and back, it would be disastrous and all that jet lag! the whole point of a vacation is to go somewhere far and different not somewhere close 500 km away. I am a type of person that doesn't mind working hard and long hours in a week 45hrs-56 hrs for 11 months, as long as i am able to get a chuck of vacation at one time so i can enjoy.
Please share your experiences of how likely are u to get long vacations at one go, also if thats not the case can u always get approved for unpaid leave of absent?
