ok. So it looks like we need 3 rooms. One for Twila and her husband, one for Tracy, and one for me and Magda and Nicky. Does that sound about right? Start looking. And as an added note, Hershey is so chocolate.

Skiffle - here in the US starting a new job you get 2 weeks vacation(10 days). Most companies have on average 7-9 national holidays. Thanksgiving, and the day after Christmas, etc.

The more years you are with a company, the more time off you get. However, in most cases it takes 3 - 5 years before you get another 5 days of vacation. Some places even tell you when you have to take that time off and that you have to take an entire week, not a day here and there.

We do work a lot more than Europeans do.

I work for a government agency. For the 1st 7 years we get 1 day of vacation for each month we worked the previous year. I started in July last year, hence 7 days. We do get all the national holidays, but not the days after Thanksgiving or Christmas. After 7 years, you get an extra 6 days.

I work for a university, and don't get most of the bank holidays, but do (having been here 12 years) get more vacation days than most. The pay sucks, but the benefits aren't bad.

I get Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and the Friday after, Christmas, and New Year's Day. I also get 4 days of additional "Holiday Time" which can technically be taken any time between Thanksgiving and mid January, but which almost everyone takes between Christmas and New Years, since most labs and offices simply close or run on a skeleton staff during that time (just someone to maintain animals and cell lines).

My hubby's vacation time is accrued by then number of hours he works. He's also payed hourly, which is great, considering most people in his field (computer database management services - he's a techno-geek) are payed via salary, which means they work as many hours as their employer wants them to - TONS of hours! - at the same rate they would have been paid if they 'd worked the standard 40.

So he can work all sorts of overtime and still get paid for those hours at his normal hourly rate (no time and a half, but I can't complain, at least he's getting paid for it!) And since his vacation hours are based on how many he works, the more he works, the more vacation he gets. Although, they put a cap on it so you can't work too many. Generally, he gets about 3 to 3.5 weeks a year. But they just switched to a new system that adds the sick hours and vacation together and they can be used whenever. It actually cuts a few days. But it all works.

The other nice thing is that if he wants to take a day off so we can have a 3 day weekend, he has no problem doing that. He just makes up those missed hours at some other point during that pay period. Then he doesn't even have to take a vacation day. We do a lot of our traveling and playtime that way. It's nice to have a hubby with a flexible job where there really aren't too many set hours. He's also one of the bosses (quasi-upper level) so he pretty much comes and goes as he pleases. It's cool :)

I get 25 days plus statutory public/bank holidays. And we can carry over 5 days from one holiday year to the next, but these have to be used in the first 3 months or we lose them.

Plus a pens and pencil set after 5 years - we're laughing!! :-)

Let's see. I get 2 personal days, a bunch of sick days that roll over from year to year, veteren's day, labor day, the day after thanksgiving, two weeks at christmas, a week in the spring, and two and a half months in the summer.

All this talk of chocolate and holidays - I think I need both.

Chocolate, readily available. Holiday, not until September. :-(

My companys pretty nice. Full time people get 2 weeks vacation, 3 after 5 years, 6 sick days, and 2 personal days. We also have 6 paid holidays. The down side is I work retail so the only 2 days the store is closed is Thanksgiving and Christmas and all vacation has to be used by mid Sept.

I work as the laboratory technician in a boarding school's Chemistry department. I have to work 5 1/2 days per week (including Saturdays up to somewhere between 12.30 & 1.00 pm) during term-time, and a varying number of days at the beginnings & ends of the three main academic holidays, but that leaves me with about twelve to fourteen weeks off (dates fixed by the college, includes those bank holidays that fall within school holidays [which most do...] but not the others) per year... On the down side, this was taken into account when my annual salary (which normally comes as twelve monthly payments of equal sizes, regardless of the work-to-holiday ratio within any particular months) was calculated. Oh, and of course I can take a few days off sick if that's necessary but (unlike the situation in some jobs that I've heard about) am expected to only do so if it really is necessary rather than being able to also use any "spare" ones if & when I feel like taking an unscheduled holiday.

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"God rot Botchkamos Istochnik!"

Since I am a teacher, i try to limit my days out of schhol. I generally try to make vacations or trips coincide with three day holidays. It is more trouble than it is worth to try to leave sub plans and then come back with a pile of new work to grade as well as the stuff I am already behind on. :)

Wow, I didn't realise Americans had so little holiday - so if you take a two week summer break (which is what most Brits do, I think) you can't take any other holiday all year?

I've got great holidays. They're a bit confusing, mind you, cos they're worked out in hours... On a 30 hour week, which I am, with varying shifts, I have about 150 hours to take per year. I don't automatically get bank holidays, so I get double holiday time for them, I think, but I can ask for them off the same as any other day. The amount of hours I have to use to get time off varies because of my shifts - to get 8 days off in a row a couple of weeks ago, when I went to Leeds, I only had to use 24 hours, because I had two days off, then 4 6hour shifts, then another two days off.

We constantly get emails harassing us to take our leave, so that everyone doesn't realise in November that they have tons left!

I've just realised that's 5 weeks holiday. That can't be right...but it is! Hooray!

ps SLIGHTCAP: It's chocolate, Jim, but not as we know it...



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Do something pretty while you can...

Here is Aus full-time workers get four weeks annual leave each year, plus the ten or so paid public holidays (sorta like bank holidays). So All up that gives us 6 weeks off work. No wonder we're known as the Land of the Long Weekend.

<stomps foot!> NO FAIR!!!

Kaz: I've called Australia many things before, but that's not on eof them....



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

Aaaargh, don't talk about holidays! Pleeeeeease! I can't stand it any more!

I had a day. In April.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

Sarah: I keep telling you to ask Dave to let you have time off - he would you know (especially since I've told the rest of the fforum)


I've just checked the leave I had working for the Employment Service: 22 days leave in the first year, rising to 25 days in the second year. In addition, I had 10.5 days of public and privilage holidays (civil servants get Maundy Thursday off, and half a day for the Queen's birthday - or the other way around). As Head Office works on flexi-time, it was quite easy to build up enough time for an afternoon or day off by putting in an extra 20 mins on a fairly regular basis.

Sarah: I keep telling you to ask Dave to let you have time off - he would you know (especially since I've told the rest of the fforum)


I've just checked the leave I had working for the Employment Service: 22 days leave in the first year, rising to 25 days in the second year. In addition, I had 10.5 days of public and privilage holidays (civil servants get Maundy Thursday off, and half a day for the Queen's birthday - or the other way around). As Head Office works on flexi-time, it was quite easy to build up enough time for an afternoon or day off by putting in an extra 20 mins on a fairly regular basis.

Sarah: I keep telling you to ask Dave to let you have time off - he would you know (especially since I've told the rest of the fforum)


I've just checked the leave I had working for the Employment Service: 22 days leave in the first year, rising to 25 days in the second year. In addition, I had 10.5 days of public and privilage holidays (civil servants get Maundy Thursday off, and half a day for the Queen's birthday - or the other way around). As Head Office works on flexi-time, it was quite easy to build up enough time for an afternoon or day off by putting in an extra 20 mins on a fairly regular basis.

Not only does she remind me, she reminds me in triplicate! :-)

Seriously, though, I have just asked him, and it looks as if I'll be getting a week at my parents' fairly shortly. Good grief, I need it.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah