people who travel often & for over a week, how do you get so much vacation time at work? or is your job flexible?

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

My husband works in the auto industry gets five weeks of paid vacation a year, plus a certain amount of personal days.

I work part time and made an agreement with my employers, at the time of hire, that I would be able to take unpaid time off as needed during the year for travel (either home to our families, or to Orlando). They are travelers themselves so they were quick to understand/agree.

 

[Pyxie]

My company offers 3 weeks standard paid vacation time that increases to 4 weeks after you've been there so long plus 2 weeks of paid holiday and 2 weeks of sick leave. (which can't be used for travel but it's still part of the paid time off). Some companies just offer better benefits than others.

 

[Rory607]

My H started with two weeks PTO at his job. He has been there for almost 10 years, so he has more than that now. I’m honestly not sure how many weeks at this point. He has never taken a sick day in all that time, so it’s exclusively used for vacations (he obviously would use them as sick days if he needed to, especially with Covid).

I am an hourly employee and I do get some PTO, but if I want to go beyond that, my job is pretty flexible. Those days would be just be unpaid, which I try to avoid. I do take some unpaid days around the holidays to be home during my kids’ school break. But I also only call in sick if one of the kids is sick, so I can usually save my days for vacation/holiday time. Crossing my fingers Covid doesn’t change that this year!

 

[Disneyfan754321]

My DH gets two weeks a year, the hard part is getting them to let us have it. All of the Holidays are blocked out. So we take one full week including both weekends and then take some extended weekends paid and unpaid.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

I get 27 days PTO and my husband has flexibility with his PTO too but no set amount since he works for a small company and the owner doesn’t really care so long as employees get their work done. We used to just do short trips 3/4 days, but over the years, anything less than a full week never feels like much of a vacation. We’ve been doing weeks here and there with weekends too to get the most out of our time away. Last trip to WDW in August we did a full week and it was great. I feel like everyone needs time away from real life. Btw reading these PTO amounts employees in Europe get is crazy! Slightly jealous lol!!

 

[Mrsjvb]

Be in the right Billet in the Navy. We’ve had duty stations where it was years before he could take any Leave. And we’ve had ones where it was no big deal to take off for days at a time. Currently, he’s an instructor on base. He has 2 out of every five weeks where he absolutely has to be there. One where he should be there and two where he could not show up and no one would notice.

 

[BadPinkTink]

Btw reading these PTO amounts employees in Europe get is crazy! Slightly jealous lol!!

from reading all the varied responses from Americans, it seems PTO is a privilege of the the older, well paid, senior / management members of the workforce. In Europe its a right of every employee, no matter the age, or position or how long you have been with a company.

 

[Toolulu22]

I teach, so summer, Christmas, winter and spring breaks and then some. Before this, I worked for the State of NY- I accrued more and more vacation over time so that by the time I left I was earning about 7 weeks a year, plus holidays and sick time. Same thing with Federal jobs- you earn a decent about of sick and personal time the longer you are employed.

Another option is being self employed or a freelancer. My husband owns his company and he plans lots of trips during the slow seasons, but nothing at all during peak business season.

What about a job that requires you to travel to your favorite locations? lol

 

[Toolulu22]

from reading all the varied responses from Americans, it seems PTO is a privilege of the the older, well paid, senior / management members of the workforce. In Europe its a right of every employee, no matter the age, or position or how long you have been with a company.

European countries also have better leave policies for new parents than American businesses in general. But that is a whole other thread.

 

[jenushkask8s]

I work in IT in the furniture manufacturing industry. With my current seniority (7 years), I get 4 weeks of PTO + 2 floating holidays in addition to 12 paid public holidays (New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July x2, Labor Day, Election Day, Thanksgiving x2, X-mas Eve and X-mas Day).

 

[starry_solo]

My current employer - I can accumulate up to 1 year's worth of vacation and sick time (it's combined into one bank). Based on my years of service, I accumulate 1.4 days worth of time off every pay period (2 weeks), so that is almost 30 days off a year, plus 12-14 paid holidays. Those holidays are New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, President's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Christmas. If Christmas and New Year's Day falls on a Tuesday or a Thursday, we also get the preceding Monday or the Friday after off as a paid holiday, which is why it can be up to 14 paid holidays.

My traveling companion can accumulate unlimited sick time, but only a max of 480 hours (so 12 weeks) of vacation time. She has to ask for her time off one year in advance (well, November of the prior year for any vacation time for all of the next year). Once she finds out what she can get off, I ask for the same time off from my employer and get it approved fairly quickly.

When I worked for a different employer, I had 3 weeks of sick time, 3 weeks of vacation time per year. I could carry 1 week of sick time over to the next year, and 1 week of vacation time over to the next year too. I think. It's been 15+ years since I worked for that employer.

Basically, you need to find a good job with benefits. Depending on your skill set, perhaps with the local government...

 

[iheartglaciers]

I work at a NY finance company and have 27 days of PTO and unlimited sick days. New hires start with 17 PTO days and you get more over the years (although when I started there was no set vacation policy so I took around 20 days per year).

 

[prgal0715]

I work for a hospital and we get a bank of ET (earned time) each year that can be used however you'd like. It also rolls over from year to year, so at any given time, I have 2 or 3 weeks off at the ready. You can max out at some point, but I used to travel enough that very little rolled over. We can also cash out ET at the end of the year if you haven't used enough. (Like this year!) It's also helpful that my employer is very flexible and allows us to travel whenever we'd like.

 

[soniam]

My husband and I are in high tech. We both get at least 4 or 5+ weeks, partly due to length of employment and years in the industry. Plus, I can borrow but it would taken out of my pay if I left. Our biggest issue is son’s school schedule. My husband will work some on vacation. One trip, when he had just started at his current company, he worked some half days, since he didn’t have enough vacation accrued yet. No one has ever said anything about being gone 2+ weeks at a time, but there are a lot of foreign-born employees that will go home for a month or more at a time.

 

[Princess2R]

I work in registration at a Children's hospital urgent care on weekends only. They offer a program called "Weekend Only" where you work 2 twelve hour shifts, every Saturday and Sunday, and you are paid for 36 hours and given benefits. The downside is that you work every weekend all year, and only have 4 days off per year. So I only work 2 days/week for basically full-time money. I think this type of schedule is often offered in hospitals. We normally travel Monday-Thursday, so I can have Friday off to do laundry and grocery shop before going back to work on Saturday. Hope that helps! Best of luck!

That is such a neat schedule!!

 

[AquaDame]

from reading all the varied responses from Americans, it seems PTO is a privilege of the the older, well paid, senior / management members of the workforce. In Europe its a right of every employee, no matter the age, or position or how long you have been with a company.

Yep. Typically at companies things get better the more years you have there. Some jobs do not give ANY PTO at all, though you can take unpaid time, it just depends.

My company has "unlimited" vacation & sick time (in the hope you wont come in sick and spread it but people still do anyway to look good) and they say a good starting point is one week a quarter. If you want to take more than two weeks at a time you need to ask your manager and run it by HR but they have yet to say no to me at least. We also still have sabbaticals which is more rare in companies here. I got my first one after seven years which was an additional 6 weeks off that had to be taken all at once, so last year I had ten (!!) weeks off. I'll get further ones after 5 more years of service but it will be four weeks off at once. We also shut down between Christmas and New Years. Out vacation policy is probably the main reason I've stayed here so long..! I *really* wanted that first sabbatical!

 

[Snowysmom]

I get 4 weeks a year because of being in my job for over 10 years. That is the Iimit no matter how long I stay there. I accrue 13.34 hours a month. If I get 160 hours in my bank I stop accruing so I have to keep tabs on my total and take time off when needed. I also get 5 sick days and 2 personal days. They may grudgingly allow me to take 2 weeks at a time but they would prefer 5-6 days at a time. If I took off 2 weeks I would come back to utter chaos. Not worth it to me. We also get 7 holidays a year. DH gets 24 days a year which is all inclusive PTO. He could easily take off 2 weeks and his boss would never care. He also gets the week off between Christmas and New Year's as a freebie.

 

[KristaZ]

I'm a teacher - so I get my 2 months over the summer, plus 1-2 weeks at Christmas (depending on how it falls that year), 1 week in February, and 1 week in April. We typically travel over my February break and for 3 weeks each summer (not just Disney - typically internationally).

My husband works for USPS and he gets around 4 weeks of base vacation time, plus he can get an extra day of vacation time for each holiday he works - which adds up to about 10 additional days per year.

 

[soniam]

Yep. Typically at companies things get better the more years you have there. Some jobs do not give ANY PTO at all, though you can take unpaid time, it just depends.

My company has "unlimited" vacation & sick time (in the hope you wont come in sick and spread it but people still do anyway to look good) and they say a good starting point is one week a quarter. If you want to take more than two weeks at a time you need to ask your manager and run it by HR but they have yet to say no to me at least. We also still have sabbaticals which is more rare in companies here. I got my first one after seven years which was an additional 6 weeks off that had to be taken all at once, so last year I had ten (!!) weeks off. I'll get further ones after 5 more years of service but it will be four weeks off at once. We also shut down between Christmas and New Years. Out vacation policy is probably the main reason I've stayed here so long..! I *really* wanted that first sabbatical!

I miss sabbaticals. At one point, my husband and I worked at the same company that gave us sabbaticals. It was great. His first one was 8 weeks!

 

[monkeydawn]

Negotiating a better vacation package has always been part of a new job for us. Usually HR will say yes to that pretty quickly and while it may not completely fill a desired verses offered wage gape, it can help bring those numbers closer.