Happy new Year to all VJs!!!



i was just wondering how you deal with the little or no vacation time given here in the US? I mean, in the US you only get 5 or 10 days max paid vacation.
In my country, you usually have about 30 days vacation per year .

Did you negotiate the vacation time? Is it better to negotiate in bigger corporations or smaller firms?

If you take unpaid vacation - do you get strange looks from everybody else , or even worse, did it prevent you from a promotion?


How do you visit your family with only that little vacation time?

I'm American, and I agree that there's too little vacation time. I currently have 10 days paid, and that won't go up until 15 until I've been with the company for 5 years. My company does offer an extra 5 days unpaid for those who wish to take part. I chose to do that this year, since we are planning to travel to Morocco this summer. A lot of people in my company take advantage of this, so it's not frowned upon as far as I know.

But, as you know, all of this varies from company to company. There was no possibility for negotiation of my vacation benefit, as it is company-wide based on the time you've been with the company. I also work for a *very* large company. Maybe negotiation is possible in smaller firms.

Good luck to you!

It's awful, isn't it? I have always negotiated vacation time up front. At a certain "level", people become accustomed to more vacation time and it's a bit easier to negotiate it. If you've been in the workforce for 15 years or worked at one company for a long time and are used to more vacation, for example, you may have a little more bargaining power. Also, you can explain that you already have xx number of days planned in xxx month, making sure they aware of this BEFORE you accept a job offer. I always offer to take any extra time unpaid, but I make a point that I want more than the basic 10 days or whatever they are offering, up front. It has never affected promotion potential - I think they appreciate the honesty upfront and if they want you, they'll try to meet you half way, at least!

Yes, there are not as many days for vacation as we would like to have specially when we need to travel overseas. I already told Pieter to be prepared for having a lot less days than he's used to have there in Europe...

Since I have been with my job more than 5 years, now I have 20 paid vacation days. But I started with 10...

I told my SO the same thing - be prepared for 2 weeks! I get 4 weeks, but that's because I've been with my company for over 10 years.

It was unpleasant fact for my wife. She had 15 paid vacation days when we worked back in Indonesia (she worked there for 1 year only) & 38 paid vacation days when she worked in the Netherlands (26 vacation days + 12 accumulated overtime - she was on 38 hrs/week).

Not msny here in the states get that type of vacation time unless you are in high management. I am self employed so I can take as much as I want but then it is not paid by anyone other than myself

I get 10 days paid vacation here in the US plus the regular public holidays. I also get 5 sick days which can convert into vacation days if they are unused.

Back in the UK I had 25 paid vacation days and 10 sick days but my shift pattern meant that I only actually worked 15 days out of every 30. Part of the shift pattern was a block of 8 days off before the rotation started again. That basically equated to 8 unpaid days off every 28 days in addition to the 25 paid vacation days.

So... in total I had 121 days off per year compared to about 15 now.

I was actually pretty lucky this year as I was able to carry over 5 days of vacation to next year plus convert 3 remaining sick days into another 1.5 days vacation. That works out great because we plan to visit the UK next summer and this will allow us to visit for 3 full weeks.

It blows my mind that it takes so long to accrue vacation days here in the US. Back in the UK I was given an extra day every 12 months. Why make someone wait 5 years for an extra day ??

Mark

Ya, i was spoiled in Canada. I had 25 annual days off a year, BUT that didnt include weekends and holidays, so 25 days was a fair bit. Need to win the lottery, lol

US vacation SUCKS I work in retail and am classed as part time though that can mean up to 39 hours lol with unpaid hour lunches i can be in store for 45 hrs a week and still be part-time lol) even after one year I qualify for no vacation and as we only shut on Christmas Day I have managed in the last year to work every public holiday as well (OT but no time off in lieu). Oh for the days of 20 days pa plus public hols in the UK this old body needs respite!

It depends on the company. There are companies that will give you 24 vacation days after the 1st year (Stanford Hospital comes to mind), but otherwise, it's a joke - 2 weeks is the best you can get, most likely you will get one. In the country I come from, you get 28 paid vacation days each year.

I don't even want to mention maternity leave I sure don't want to get pregnant for a while - we only get 12 weeks to bond with a newborn baby here

Oh well, that's just something we need to deal with