June 27, 2025 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Well Deserved Break
June 27, 2025 at 6:08 am
Steve is right. It is important to take breaks from work.
I never had a sabattical, mostly the jobs I had did not allow for one. But I (almost) always took all my vacation allowance. One early employer insisted that one vacation each year must be at least two weeks, and I tried to keep to that wherever I went.
I did a lot of contract work (self employed) and always took vacation mid-contract. I always gave plenty of notice and none of the people I worked for objected. It also helped in getting a smooth transition between contracts.
Later in my career I sometimes did a stint overseas for a charity and got additional unpaid time off, sometimes being away for 5 or 6 weeks. My experience was that employers are happy to support staff in this way, and it counts towards Corporate Social Responsibility targets.
I am retired now, but seem largely to have swapped well paid very technical work for unpaid low/no tech ad-hoc help for local charities. I still need vacations! I am writing this at the start of a long weekend away in Hereford, UK, exploring the picturesque town and visiting a relative. In September my wife and I have 2 weeks cruising around the Mediterranean, and in January the same around the Carribean.
Vacations are important - take one regularly!
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June 27, 2025 at 7:58 am
Definitely agree!
When your energy levels get below a certain point, getting that energy back feels impossible.
June 27, 2025 at 12:53 pm
I imagine my story is similar to a lot of folks in our profession. When I was younger and just starting my career, I let my vacation time pile up and carry over, never taking more than a week at a time. I wasn't capable of disconnecting - my life, my friends, everything revolved around work.
That finally changed after I married and had kids - and found a job that took a hard line on vacations: you earn them, you take them. If you must carry over time, you still have to schedule it for January or February. And if you want extra vacation time, you can pay into an extra week or two so that an unpaid leave is paid.
And now in the twilight of my career, I find it easy to step away and disconnect for a week or two at a time, coming back refreshed and ready.
June 30, 2025 at 11:43 am
Enjoy the time Steve!
My employer is fairly generous with leave time, we can carry over up to 240hrs of leave a year and how much you accrue per pay period depends on how long you've worked here. I'm currently accruing 6hrs every 2 weeks, the last pay period accrues a bit more (10hrs) for some reason. I don't HAVE the 240hrs accrued though, I wasn't told the trick of taking the option of a time off award at annual appraisal time rather than a cash award, in the early days of my start here.
So I do a little schedule juggling for vacations for the wife and I, I try to get them to coincide with holiday weekends so I can get a 5 or 6 day holiday while only using 2 or 3 days worth of leave. So my leave balance has been creeping up, slowly.
One thing I don't do, though, is not take time off. There's only so much unbroken work time I can handle before my motivation slips, my attitude slips, and I start contemplating a career change to something like ditch digging...
Which is why I'm glad I've got a long trip planned for next week, camping in the northern part of the state with some friends, no real plans to do anything in particular, taking our bikes along so if I need to get away from people I can hit one of the rail-to-trail paths near the campground and see how far I can get before either I run out of steam and need to turn back, or the wife gets worried and calls me (LOL)
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