Open Thread: Vacation Time
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Update: We still love this poll and discussion about how much vacation time people took, but you may want to check out our most recent discussion of how many vacation days people used.
As the close of 2015 is almost upon us, here's a question: did you use your vacation time? If you did (congratulations), please regale us with stories — wheredja go, whadja do, how'd you find the time to plan/schedule it, which app/service would you recommend, etc. — but if you DIDN'T (which historically was me), why not? Did you just have too much work? Did you not feel comfortable scheduling something with your work calendar? Was it a budget/priority thing? For everyone — do you have any big plans for 2016?
For my $.02 — I almost never used all of my vacation time, and looking back it was largely because I worried it would reflect poorly on me at work. I also was worried that I would spend all this time/energy/money researching a vacation only to have it cancelled at the last minute due to work. I felt pretty comfortable in BigLaw scheduling trips to see my parents, both because we had religious reasons (Christmas, Easter) for the trips, as well as because I knew my parents had good Internet service and would understand if I had to turn it into a working vacation. And of course I would tack on a day or two here or there if I was traveling for a friend's weekend wedding or whatnot.
But in terms of fun vacations, particularly in places without reliable Internet access? The stress usually stopped me from going. For example, my now husband took me to Paris a few months after we started dating, and I was terrified the trip would be cancelled, that there would somehow be a disaster ON the 5-day trip (I had nightmares of having to find an “Internet cafe” to work in for hours, paying in 15-minute increments with a dial-up modem). I worried that when I left I would be working without sleep to get all the work done — and I worried that when I returned there would be a mountain of work waiting for me. The trip turned out fine, of course. (Ok, I got food poisoning, which was less than awesome for a romantic vacation, and we totally failed to make it to Reims because I misunderstood the train schedule, but workwise it was fine.)
Another reason I didn't travel much while working in BigLaw: I could never get the timing right to travel with friends, and I never dated anyone seriously enough to even ponder a vacation together (until I met my husband) — and I was hesitant to travel by myself as a single woman. In my non-profit job, I didn't have nearly as much vacation time, I didn't have seniority to choose when to take it, and we didn't have the budget anyway to take vacation without some serious sacrifices.
How do you decide when to take your vacation time and how much to take at once? What are you hoping to do with your vacation time in the near future? Where would you like to go? Do you use up all your vacation hours by the end of the year or do you typically have a bunch of hours roll over?
In the past we've talked about taking vacation time (without losing your mind), how your office handles vacation time, how your office handles the holidays, and vacation horror stories — several years ago we also did a poll on how much vacation time readers actually take.
Further reading:
- How Comfortable Are You Taking Vacation? [Forbes]
- Are You Suffering from Vacation Deprivation? [The Street]
- Are the People Who Take Vacations the Ones Who Get Promoted? [Harvard Business Review]
- How to Stop Worrying About the Consequences and Take a Vacation [Fast Company]
Pictured: Wine Glass 12, originally uploaded to Flickr by David.
I used ALL of my vaca this year :) My husband and I are huge travelers. The first half of the year my Bank converted its core system and being on the loan conversion team, I could not take any trips the first part of the year. I made up for it the 2nd half. We went to Colorado on motorcycle in June, went to Costa Rica in August, visited a friend for a quick trip in Florida, and finished out a fabulous year with our first trip to Europe in October (Rome Italy, train hopping Switzerland, and one night outside of Athens Greece).
My go-tos for travel are:
—Trip Advisor – I ALWAYS consult them before staying at a hotel/resort/etc. I also use them to just book flights as they compare all the sites for me and it’s so quick to do on my phone app.
—Travel.State.Gov to register my location when traveling abroad and to get notifications of any warnings in the areas I’m staying and research any potential trip destination sites.
—FunJet.com to book my Caribbean trips
—EuropeanDestinations.com to book my European trip(s). I booked it all on my own by referencing Trip Advisor for the hotels. It is so fun.
Hope you all use ALL of your vaca time and have a blast doing it!
I have used all my holidays this year on: mini break in Edinburgh, girls spa weekend, 10 nights in Cancun, a week in the West Country for an extended family holiday, a wedding, and now I’ve got two and a bit weeks off for Christmas.
I work in technology not law, and everyone is expected to use all their days.
I’m a baby lawyer and have been practicing for over two years. It took me 2 years to take a whole week off. The only reason I took that time off is because I was lucky enough to have a week off between my old job and new job. I had so much vacation time! Never again!
Not a lawyer. Our vacation is use it or lose it after 18 months, and I lost almost half of my time this year. (I was able to donate it to a general fund for people having family emergencies who had exhausted their leave, so at least someone benefited.)
This was due to a combination of major projects going on that made me feel like I had to be on the ground and having to rescind planned vacation days due to work “emergencies”. There was a whole string of Fridays in June where I had to not take the day at all or cut my plans short.
I’m definitely resolving to take it all in 2016!
For one of the first times, I used all of my leave and then some. I am not a lawyer, but did just make VP (in an org where that means something). I went to Florida to watch my daughter play in a field hockey tournament, attended the ACC tournament (big sports fan!), spent two weeks in Italy, and took 2 weeks of medical leave for an elective medical procedure that I’ve been dreaming of for years. All in all, a great use of my leave. And work survived without me.
I am passionate about people taking their vacation and encourage all of my employees to do so as well (American, not a lawyer)! I am also a proponent of taking 4-10 business days at a time. Numerous studies show that vacations, specifically week-long vacations rather than the random day here or there, are good for both the employee’s well-being and their productivity. Anecdotally, I also find that, if I take a long weekend, I’m super stressed. It’s difficult to “unplug” and I come back to such mountains of work that I almost wish I hadn’t taken time off. When you’re gone for a week or more, though, people see your out-of-office and figure they can’t wait that long so they think of alternative solutions–ask someone else, make a decision themselves, etc.–so you come back to about the same amount of work as the long weekend.
When I first started, it was really difficult b/c my boss never took more than a day or two of vacation at a time and always rolled over her full amount (10 days). The boss set the tone for the office, so there really wasn’t a culture of vacation-taking and my initial vacations were approved begrudgingly. The culture has changed but I am still very conscientious to plan vacations during the slowest times to minimize the workload passed off to colleagues, avoid vacationing when my back-ups or boss are, and bring back something edible to the office when I can. Last vacation was Jamaica but I’ve done OBX, India, Iceland, Bahamas, Toronto, and Ireland over the past 5 years. We do one big international vacation every other year or so.
Bottom line: I think it’s healthy to be reminded that there is no essential staff member. It’s both humbling and a relief.
I moved from a mid-size firm to state government earlier this year. I used all of my vacation days on maternity leave. So, no vacation for me until next year, when I’ll take a few days in May and September to go to the beach with my family.
I took a few half days off at my old firm, because we didn’t have any paid leave (sick, vacation, or maternity). I tried to convince my husband to take a three-day weekend trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, but he hemmed and hawed and we took a disastrous trip to Virginia Beach instead. Not the same.
Travel now, with a baby, will be more difficult, but easier because I have a generous paid leave policy. Here’s hoping I take advantage of it.
BigLaw attorney. I find the best time to take vacations is around a firm holiday when other people are going away too. Our firm has no set number of vacation days. This year, I took two (international) weeklong trips plus a few long weekends. Work hard when you’re at the office, but then make time for travel!
Public interest lawyer here. My office was so understaffed that people could only take a few days of vacation every year even though we were allotted a fair amount. I think I took the most vacation time, which ended up being about seven days. I felt like the office asshole, but it didn’t really make sense not to take it. It’s use it or lose it time. Sorry I’m not sorry for taking a week off…not consecutively mind you. A week total.