Vacation Deprived?
 

By DIANE E. LEWIS Boston Globe

Many American workers are vacation-deprived.
That is a key finding in a study released recently by Expedia.com, the online travel service. It maintains that U.S. workers will forgo millions of vacation hours this year, choosing to linger at the office rather than lounge on the beach or beside a pool.
The survey, the fourth annual vacation poll released by Expedia.com, was conducted by Harris Interactive, the national polling company. In all, 2,019 U.S. workers responded to questions about the amount of time they plan to take off in 2004.
Of those polled, 30% said they would not use the vacation time they've earned this year. That means they will return the paid time off to their employers. "On average," said the report, "every employed American misses out on three days of vacation, up 50% from the two days they each forfeited in 2003."
The survey results "also revealed that employees in the Northeast tend to secure more vacation time than their peers in other regions. On average, they receive 13.6 days of vacation time compared with 12.4 days for the rest of the country.
Northeast workers take more time off: 12.5 days on average vs. 11.6 days nationally. At the same time, such workers' are more likely to say that their employers are not as supportive about taking time off as they would like, 18% said they are discouraged from taking time off vs. 17% nationally.
When researchers looked at the Western part of the country, they found that 43% of the respondents there said too much work which means they plan to take less vacation. 27% said they tend to give up more than a week of their vacation each year. Additionally, 56% of the respondents said they routinely work more than 40 hours per week.
The survey results showed that working while on a vacation has become standard for many U.S. employees. In all, 32% of the respondents said they routinely check their voice mail or e-mail while away on vacation and they also do some work.
The exception: workers in the Midwest. Midwesterners are the least likely to forgo vacation, cancel or postpone vacation, or check voice mail or e-mail while they are away, the survey said.

Fat, lazy, capitalist running dogs, huh? Guess not. :)

I sacrificed about a day and a half of vacation last year. It was more poor planning on my part than anything else.

When I used to actually get paid vacation, I was really hesitant to take it. While relaxing on the beach, I knew the voicemails and e-mails were piling up and would be waiting for me when I got back. The anxiety that would build up made the leave not really worth it because getting back was always a disaster and catching up proved near impossible.

Of course, now that they've taken paid vacation from us, not taking one doesn't seem so difficult, anymore: all you have to do is think about all the money you won't be getting while you are out and suddenly staying in a hotel, paying for a plane ticket, etc seems very out of reach.

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that reminds me of a popular saying in the car business...

i gotta sell more cars to get more money, i gott get more money to buy more drugs, i gotta buy more drugs to sell more cars, i gotta sell more cars to get more money... :D

well that explains LJ.

:D nah, from what i hear the car business gets more mellow the further east you go.

That may be true. I've been... helped... by about seven or eight car salesmen, and only one tried the hard sell. I got out of there real fast.

I started my job in mid-November of 2003. Thus, according to Masco policies, I am granted...wait for it...exactly *one* vacation day in the year of 2004. I also accrue sick days at the rate of four hours per month, so I need to wait until October to get really sick.

There are no personal days available.

Fortunately, my boss has been rather impressed with my performance of late (I've been doing two jobs, and sometimes three, for the past month) and announced to me last Thursday that he wanted me to take a couple of days off in August. Good timing, as I'm going to the highland games again this year.

Look for more bird pictures and a much more relaxed me in them.

My company gives a pretty decent number of vacation days (vacation, personal, and sick days all come from the same pool), but there are huge swaths of the year that are blacked out due to deadlines. Recently they have even decided that you must put in your vacation requests at the beginning of a project, which means you have to plan things a year or more in advance.

well hell i get 17 days vacation , 6 sick and 13 days off for hollidays . they will pay us for up to a week of vacation and 1/2 time for sick days not taken.
Company policy says that all vacation will be turned in the first 3 months , Jan 2 when my boss gets back from newyears( we get 2 days for xmas and newyears ) there is my vacation request for the year in the fax machene , i can be flexable as most of these vacation days i am just takeing off becauce i have to ( we have to take 2 weeks befor Aug , and not more than 2 techs off over xmas and newyears ) .
And yes we do take big vacations about every 2 years , mostly to Fla . Next year FLA for me BABY !!!!! chillin on the beach with an icy cold Carona for a week !!!
I can't wait !!!!!!

If I start risking forfeiting vacation days, I take the time off. Doesn't matter if I've got nowhere to go, I just won't go in.

my company has shitty policies for time off. If I take a day off, I lose all my income from that day, plus the whole office shuts down, leaving me to do all the work when I get back from vacation, I'm forced to pay for the overhead that day (rent, utilities, salaries) out of my own pocket, and, on top of that, my company refuses to pay for my health insurance or my retirement benefits.

On the plus side, I can take as many days off as I want.

-sm

um, where do you work? from the sounds of it you own your own business.

yup. i run my own production company.

I have to laugh whenever i hear people bitch about poor benefits, or lack of vacation days at their office. Come do my job!

-sm