I tried, really I did

[aryanhwy]

Last year, I failed to take all of my vacation hours, and so 60.60 were carried over to this year. And this year, I was scrupulous: Nearly every time I went somewhere for a conference, I stuck a day or two on either end for vacation/sight-seeing, and I declared all of those days. I declared days when friends were visiting and I didn't go into the office. I tried my best to use up as much vacation as possible (vacation hours that are used, the university pays for. vacation hours that are not used, the dept. pays for. the dept. likes it when we take our vacation). I tried, I really did.

And how many hours do I currently have left for the rest of the year? (This is including the fact that I've already declared time off from tomorrow till the end of the week, and the week between Christmas and New Year's is mandatory time off, so those days off don't come out of my personal vacation). 139.40! That's slightly more than 18 days of vacation left.

How do people do it? How on earth can they use up as much vacation time as you get here in Europe??

I'm not sure how many of these 139.40 hours will carry over to next year (there is a cap on vacation hours that can be brought forward, but I don't remember what it is). But if I can bring it all, then somehow or other I've got to find a way to take 371.4 hours (=almost 49 days) of vacation next year. Must start conniving! :)

Comments

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

How do they do it? Simple. Take most of August off and go to either the mountains or the seashore.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

True. The stories I've been told of France and Italy shutting down for August are legion. But summer is generally the most conference-heavy season, since it's the time that academics don't have teaching obligations. That makes taking off for a month harder in summer than other times.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Teaching obligations make it harder. Otherwise I'd suggest taking every holiday you can think of:

Epiphany/Twelfth Night
Martin Luther King Day
Imboloc/Candlemas
Presidents Day -- aw, heck! Take Lincoln's Birthday and Washingston's Birthday separately!
Valentine's Day
St. David's Day
Easter Monday (a fine Italian tradition - great day for picnics)
Anzac Day
....


:)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Easter Monday is a holiday for the university, which means I get vacation but don't use up vacation hours! It's usually the first of slew in late spring -- Easter Monday, Queen's Day, May Day, Liberation Day, Whitsunday, Whitmonday, Ascension Day.... And usually somewhere in the middle is another mandatory vacation day (placed so that we end up with a 5-day weekend in early May).

[etfb.livejournal.com]

I could give my suggestion in a comment, but I think the Scared Weird Little Guys put it far better than I ever could: Come To Australia!

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, time =/= money. I owe folks in New Zealand a visit; if only I could trade in half of my vacation days for money for the plane ticket!

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it!

[fosveny.livejournal.com]

While it's an awesome idea, and y'all are my kind of crazy, there's this little trick of having the cash to do so.

[katerinfg.livejournal.com]

I was going to say Pennsic, but it sounds like that's your busy season. Estrella or Gulf, maybe?

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Actually, right now my calendar is fill through mid-July, and absolutely blank after that. Except for the whole "money for flying back to the US" thing, Pennsic is awfully tempting!

[silme.livejournal.com]

SCA events in Drachenwald alone would do it for me, but I only get to take time off outside of term time. I get lots of days off, but they're when the college dictates. It would be lovely to be able to take off a Friday or Monday for an event that's not during the summer holidays. :)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Teaching only one day a week (or not at all, like this semester!) really helps with the ability to travel A LOT. But even so, most of the travel that I do is for work, so it's not vacation!

[silme.livejournal.com]

Five days a week here, alas. College versus university, I suppose! Btw, on another post, good luck with the Heidelberg post. My sister studied there for a year (her "junior year abroad") back in 1971 and loved it. Her German was good enough that all of her classes were in German, but she had American friends in the English-language classes there. Two summers ago was the 50th anniversary of the exchange programme between her US uni and Heidelberg, and she managed to attend the reunion in Germany. She has very positive memories of the city and the uni.

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

All of the ways I can think of involve not having a job with such an externally defined schedule as you do :-)

For example, take one day off a week, or even every other week. But that doesn't work when you have a defined class schedule and work to grade in a timely fashion. And papers to write in preparation for all those conferences you get in lieu of having the time to take vacation :-D

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

If I took one day off every week and didn't do anything related to academic work (narrowly defined, e.g., heraldry and stuff wouldn't count as related to academic work), I would be SO BORED on those days!

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

That's the other problem, yes :-)

Although, if you made it a Friday or a Monday, that would give you more opportunities to hop a train and crawl around Europe...

[frausensei.livejournal.com]

What a problem to have!

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I know! I did feel vaguely bad at thinking this was worth a complaint post, but I went ahead and posted it anyway because, heck, it's my journal, I can complain about whatever I want, including how good my life is. :)

[adelais.livejournal.com]

Reading backwards, so: your suggestion from your next post will help a lot with this, too, eventually.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. There would no be room for boredom, that's for sure.

[armillary.livejournal.com]

I have a simple answer: SCA. I can easily spend all my allotted time, plus whatever else I can wheedle away from my employer.

(Then again, it didn't help switching jobs twice in a year last year ... lost quite a bit of vacation time that way, although my bank account prospered)