Your annual vacation/holidays

Two months to our first ever family holiday and I’m counting down the seconds.

 

Those seconds will seem like hours the closer the holiday gets.

 

Are you going there by train or by car? How about a short stopover at DEG? We have a Danube festival on Sunday July 8th, with dragon boat regatta, rubber duck race and beach party. Might be fun =)

If possible at all I'll go to the UK for a few weeks in fall. 1 week to London to meet friends and about 2 weeks to Lundy: an island with no computers, cell phones, TV, cars etc. It used to be inhabited but is now a nature reserve with interesting bird colonies but also with not-so-common insects. The old buildings are for rent to a handfull of tourists. Some have no electricity =) Just the thing for a biologist who likes peace and quiet. And the best thing is: if there's a storm neither the ferry nor the helicopter go so that unfortunately there is no way for me to return home to my boss *whistles innocently while calling up weather data from the last 200 years in search for the maximum of the local storm season*

 

How much vacation time does everyone get from work? I'm in the US, I have 2 weeks vacation and 1 week sick/personal.

 

I almost daren't answer this. I’m in the UK and get 6 weeks paid leave plus 8 bank holidays. Sick leave is also fully paid.

The worst holiday entitlement I had was four weeks plus bank holidays. The average is five weeks I think,

 

Well, I get 25 working days (and don't work weekends) along with all the bank holidays.(UK too)

I'd have to calculate how much sick leave I could take before going to statutory pay only, but that's probably a not-inconsiderable amount given length of service.

As for holiday, I've used ten days so far on a spring holiday in Cyprus. I enjoyed it and the weather was just warm enough.

 

wow that's a lot! I bet you get paid matternity leave too

 

Most of my annual leave is consumed by covering shortfalls in child care, and most of the salary goes on childcare too.

 

Yes, Paid Maternity and Paternity pay is standard (also adoption pay I believe, but I haven't had to look at that.)

 

And paternity. It’s changed now, but back when the first was born I got two weeks officially, but four or five weeks by working from home.

Karma bit me in the bum though for the next one. Complications with the pregnancy meant I spent a lot of time at the hospital, which was also where I worked.

 

That's awesome. The US is terrible in that area.

 

That’s an eye opener for me. I always thought of the US as being home of the Duvet Day.

 

I have 5 weeks vacation time and 2 weeks sick time.

 

I'm not sure what Duvet Day means, but we are lucky to get 4 to 6 weeks, but that's not at full pay. I think it's a little more if you have a c-section.

 

That's a lot! My mom has about that much but that's after working in the same place for 20 year.

 

Duvet Day is like a sick day but you're not really sick. Like you just want tomorrow off. My boss gives me like 4 or 5 of those a year for free, she's very kind, often on Thurdsays she'll message me and say I can just take tomorrow off if I'd like.

 

A duvet day is where you phone your boss and tell them that you’re not ill, but that you’d rather stay in bed. It comes from your annual entitlement.

One of my employers here implemented the idea but called it a friends and family day. Basically a day of leave at short notice, guaranteed to be honoured. It only mattered i jobs where you needed a couple of weeks notice to book leave.

 

Oh ok, that would just fall under a personal day I guess.

 

If memory serves, for the UK, it's a mandatory minimum of 6 weeks at 90% of salary, then 33 weeks at about £145 per week (or 90% of Average weekly earnings - whichever is lower)

 

I got it, that would be a personal day for us