Well, apparently 2011 is going to be vacation year

[johnridley]

Policy change at work. We're no longer allowed to carry ANY vacation time past Dec 31. They've cut us back on 3 separate occasions over the last 6 years or so, so this is just the final cutback.

So, 6 weeks of vacation this year. I guess I'd better start saving up for gas money. I put the US map back on the wall so we can start sticking pins into it.

Comments

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

Mark says that he has exactly the same problem with 5 weeks of vacation, and that his solution is to take every other Wednesday off all year. Fortunately for me, he's kidding.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Actually, the way a lot of people at work deal with it is to take Fridays, or sometimes Fridays AND Mondays, off all summer.

[dave-ifversen.livejournal.com]

At the Lab, they allow us to have 3x our annual accrual rate saved up - for me, that's about 18 weeks or so (I've been there a *long* time). I hardly ever take any, so I usually have close to that amount saved at any given time (and, I often get to the point I have to take it or I won't get any more until I do). I sort of treat that as my severance package if they ever close the place. :-)

There was one year, however, where they decided (due to budget problems) that we had to take all vacation accrued that year plus 10% or 20% (I don't remember which) of our saved vacation. I had to take 7 or 8 weeks of vacation - not really that big of a deal for one person, but it starts to get hairy if everyone in the department has to take vacation. Scheduling operators to run the accelerator gets to be 'challenging', to say the least.

I think I took a couple of weeks to help Jeff K. rebuild his Jeep, and a week or so to help out with the cherry harvest, plus misc other time off for various things. I was actually surprised to find out how hard it was to take that much vacation.

[nicegeek.livejournal.com]

At my company, most people have been there long enough to get 5-6 weeks vacation, and unused time evaporates on Oct 1. The place turns into a ghost town in September.

Did they state a justification for the policy change?

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Well, just "cost saving measure" and "to come into line with other branches of Thomson Reuters."

Honestly, they don't HAVE to have a justification. Michigan is an at will employment state, they can pretty much do what they want as long as they announce it sufficiently in advance. I think in Michigan little if any prior announcement is required. In California I think they have to give a year notice for changes like this.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

We used to be able to save 3 years worth. Then a couple of years after we were acquired by Thomson, they decided that our plans were way too much nicer than the average at Thomson, so one year they reduced it to 2, then 1, then 6 months accumulation carryable. Had they done this all at once the place would have been closed all summer.

We also have vacation blackout, we're pretty much not allowed to take more than a day or two vacation from October through April without manager approval (which is difficult to get for more than 1 or 2 days). This is one of the reasons why I have been at few conventions, since that's prime convention season.

I'm planning on eating it with maybe one longer vacation and a few short ones; perhaps going out west at least as far as Yellowstone in a 3 week road trip, then some stuff like going to Niagara Falls. Since I've basically never been outside the midwest, I have a lot of catching up to do.

This is one of the less onerous of the things involved with the acquisition. From a business point of view it's been pretty much all win, but we had this issue, and also our health insurance went UP because we got into a larger risk pool - the one including all the high stress jobs in Manhattan and foreign reporters and such.

The other was moving our 401K from Fidelity to Putnam. Bleh. And outsourcing all our HR to Hewitt. That isn't so bad now that I'm used to it, but it was nice having the HR department about 50 feet away.

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Send it to me. I find my seven weeks to be a bit tight of late.

Or you could drive a bunch of people's stuff out to Burning Man this summer.

Yellowstone, and Niagara are good. You could go on an Isle Royale death march with Guy. Mammoth cave? Get a Nat Geo map of the national parks.