Have you taken any annual leave during lockdown?

[elguapo4]

That's very good of you DP, but you weren't lying on a beach,you were seriously ill. You were entitled to leave, and you should have taken it without any guilt.

[S. aureus]

I officially took the last two weeks off, my first leave since the kids started distance learning last March (not counting when the company was shut down over Christmas/New Year), though this was mostly so I had an excuse not to zoom into the meetings with co-workers that I hate, as I still had a few meetings with the co-workers that I like. I also managed to have a couple of meetings with my boss and the company ceo (see office annoyances thread), so all in all not really time off, though considerably more pleasant than the usual working week.

[Uncle Ethan]

Having previously left jobs before qualifying (and once cashing it in to help with a house deposit), I am due next January to get three months' long service leave. I have no idea what to do with it. I am pondering the idea of a four day week.

[sw2borshch]

I started a new job on 1 April which I still haven't been to (WFH) and am now taking a week off for the first time.

Been here over a year now and still haven't been to work. Thinking of going for the world record.

[Toby Gymshorts]

I might take Friday off so I can go and get a haircut. I'm not worried about queues, more the fact that it will take most of the day to get the scaffolding sorted.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Of course you continue to earn leave entitlement when you're off sick, and of course you should take it.

[Balderdasha]

I agree, though I know plenty of people who feel unnecessarily embarrassed about it. When women are off on maternity leave they often come back and find that they've accumulated a lot of leave and end up having to work four day weeks to use it up, and they are all terribly apologetic about it.

[Balderdasha]

The only TV programme I know of that tackles the lack of these sort of rights in the USA is "Superstore". A mum gives birth and ends up having to come in and do her shift straight after the birth when she hasn't slept for 36 hours. Earlier in the series, a teenage mother gives birth in the store because there's no maternity leave before birth, and the kindly manager suspends her on full pay for making a mess of the store because it's the only way he can give her any maternity leave.

[Balderdasha]

I mean, personally, I consider that seven years off work was approximately the appropriate amount of time to birth and raise two children to the point where they're both in school full time, before I was ready to start a full time job, but at least we get six months pay / one year off in the UK.

(I did do other stuff in those seven years, did all the company accounts for the business me and my husband ran, ran all the social media accounts and wrote website articles for another business, chaired a charity, volunteered at youth groups, worked part time at an indoor play area with my son in tow, but those were all things done flexibly around the childcare. I definitely wasn't ready for a full time job. I don't envy people who go back at six months or one year and have to juggle nurseries or childminders).

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Having previously left jobs before qualifying (and once cashing it in to help with a house deposit), I am due next January to get three months' long service leave. I have no idea what to do with it. I am pondering the idea of a four day week.

How long do you need to work to qualify for that ?

We don't have anything like that but in my first job in local government your annual leave entitlement went up by five days leave once you had completed five full calendar years, a subtlety which I only realised after I started there on the 10th of January, so had to work nearly six years to get it (and they rounded down my leave in the first year as well).

My golden age came when we merged into a new local authority and got access to flexi leave, which meant up to 43 days off per year (plus bank holidays) because you could take a flexi day in each four week period (and it was easy enough to bank the time, not least when I was reliant on public transport and staying an extra half hour just meant less time standing in the cold waiting for a bus or train).

[WOM]

I am on a week's vacation right now. First time off since Christmas. It's to coincide with L's delayed March Break, but is pissing down outside and should do all week.

[ad hoc]

Long service leave sounds great. A bloke I worked with in Brisbane kept putting his off until HR basically forced him to take it (that was his first one of some months. No sooner had he got back than he was eligible for the next one which was a year)

Australian unions are fantastic

[Uncle Ethan]

How long do you need to work to qualify for that ?

We don't have anything like that but in my first job in local government your annual leave entitlement went up by five days leave once you had completed five full calendar years, a subtlety which I only realised after I started there on the 10th of January, so had to work nearly six years to get it (and they rounded down my leave in the first year as well).

My golden age came when we merged into a new local authority and got access to flexi leave, which meant up to 43 days off per year (plus bank holidays) because you could take a flexi day in each four week period (and it was easy enough to bank the time, not least when I was reliant on public transport and staying an extra half hour just meant less time standing in the cold waiting for a bus or train).

Sorry, missed this. Seven years where I am now. I've got one staff member who's got about two years annual leave, plus his LSL to use up. Prior to my arrival people didn't take leave because they came back to all the work they would have been doing while on leave. We've since fixed this.

We can opt for one RDO a month for an extra 25 minutes a day.

[DCI Harry Batt]

RDO?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Sorry, missed this. Seven years where I am now. I've got one staff member who's got about two years annual leave, plus his LSL to use up. Prior to my arrival people didn't take leave because they came back to all the work they would have been doing while on leave. We've since fixed this.

And that's a common thing? Christ, that's brilliant. And without resorting to lazy stereotyping, I presume that is how so many Australians get to do lengthy trips to Europe (i.e. when they are old enough to afford it and worked long enough to get the extra time off).

If we had that here I would be approaching my second lot at my current employer, and would have had at least one. and getting on for two, in my previous inter-linked series of jobs.

[Uncle Ethan]

RDO = rostered day off.