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

[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.