Well that's a relief

[johnridley]

Yesterday I spent an hour spelunking on our HR website, trying to figure out A) how much vacation I had accrued, and B) how much vacation I get per month.

You'd think I'd know the latter, but honestly, I've never run my vacation down low enough that I couldn't take a week if I wanted it (I want a buffer in case of emergencies/sickness), so I never paid much attention. It's just this box that has days dropped in it by someone else, and there's always enough in there, so I didn't bother finding out.

A few years back they converted us from vacation days + sick days (separated) to a unified "Paid Time Off" - this was to unify all Thomson operations and blah blah blah, whatever.

Well, as of Jan 1, they moved us from Paid Time Off to vacation days + sick days (separated). This is to unify all Thomson operations and whatever whatever, babble babble. Yeah, sometimes they really Dilbert things around here.

Anyway, around xmas I had about 100 hours in the bank. I looked yesterday and I had 42 hours of sick time and 13 hours of vacation time. Shit! I said. WTF? I said. Then "ah, whatever. They're always screwing with stuff."

Then a while later I remembered that the payroll people have not been terribly capable of keeping track of vacation hours for several months now; there have been notices seemingly every payday for about 2 months saying "Oops, we screwed up a bunch of people's vacation hours, we'll fix it shortly."

Today my boss confirmed that yes, they bungled it, and it should be fixed soon.

I think I have something on the order of 5 to 7 weeks of vacation to fry up this year, before October. We need to plan; I can't take it all at once.

I'll probably eat a week or more just taking days off to catch up on springtime stuff; I want a bigger pond, and I want to do a bunch of the landscaping I've been thinking about, and as I proved a couple of years ago, if you're going to dig a pond, dig it during spring thaw when the ground is muddy, before it sets into concrete.

Comments

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

I'd say "If you're going to dig a pond, rent a big toy".

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Well, not THAT big. I'm thinking maybe 10x10 feet, 4 feet deep at most. I want something big and deep enough to keep year-round fish and for frogs to be able to winter in. Also I'm thinking of excavating a piece of bank to create a secluded area.

The current one is about 6x8 feet, 2 feet deep, and I dug the whole thing in about 4 hours; if you catch it right when the ground is a mucky mess, it's really easy to dig (and would be impossible to get an excavator out there without totally wrecking the yard).

A lot of what I'll be digging will be river between the two ponds. I'll also be using the fill I get out for various things around the place, and in all I'll be moving dirt around all summer, so I won't be able to rent anything that long.

Also, you're talking to the guy that hand-dug the foundation for his garage, and would RATHER shovel snow than use a power implement to do it, so doing the "sensible" thing is not guaranteed.

Besides, I plan to design the pond partially while I'm digging it. If I have an excavator for an afternoon, I won't have time to think before I'm done. The only real limitation is that I'd like to get the digging all done in at most 3 or 4 days, when the ground is the muddiest.

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, don't rent anything.

Use black powder. I think 350lbs would be enough.

[scs-11.livejournal.com]

Ah the joys of getting a reasonable amount of vacation. I was building up too much, so arbitrarily decided to take off the Friday before and Monday/Tuesday after every con this year. That will use up most of my yearly allocation, so the actual vacations we're taking in June and November will get me down to a reasonable number.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Since we're pretty much not allowed to take vacation from about late October until at least end of March due to tax season, people are trying to burn vacation like mad all summer. Some people work 3 day weeks for the entire summer, taking Monday and Friday off.

However, I don't really want to just throw it all away this year.

I'm thinking more along the lines of going to see the family members down in Florida (if it could coincide with a shuttle launch, well then double-plus bonus; the aunts live right on Cocoa Beach) and hitting Mammoth Cave NP on the way down, and maybe some other stuff. And perhaps a trip west, to Yellowstone and/or maybe some of the other parks out that way.

The only real issue is that we'll have to board the dog for these trips. She does OK on 10 or so day boardings that we've done in the past, but I'd hate to do it to her 3 times in one summer.

[scs-11.livejournal.com]

We basicly can't take vacations at the end of any quarter - Ruth is a tax accountant at a local company, and they have major retail and resale tax statements due. One one hand that's a pain, but it's better than the six-month lock they put on you folks.