Our personal, sick, and vacation days are all separate but it doesn't matter what order you take them in. Personal days don't roll over so I try to use them early in the year (and then if I need a "personal day" later on I can call it a sick day if I want. They're pretty flexible about that sort of thing.)

We've just got sick days and vacation days. Sick days accumulate up to two weeks and vacation up to eight weeks. Pretty simple system.

I have no idea about how HR deals with personal vs sick days. All I know is that if I call in and say I'm not coming in for XYZ reason, no one says "boo!" But I do try to schedule my own personal days around the days I'm not teaching.

Having been the guy who tracked personal days, sick leave and vacation I can vouch that rolling it all together into PTO and allowing the employees discretion in how to use it is by far the most fair and easiest system to manage.

But a lot of firms and companies think they get an advantage by having sick leave separate that doesn't roll over. That way it's there if a employee needs it, but they don't owe it as a form of compensation on their books.

I worked at one firm that had unlimited accrual of sick leave and vacation until they figured out that it was a financial liability to carry all that on the books. I remember one guy getting a $20,000 cashout (before taxes) of his leave. But that was largely because he was a lobbyist off-site and his "manager" didn't note any of his actual sick days or personal days or whatever. Sweet deal, but that kind of shit happens all the time.

It's best to have straight PTO that caps out at a certain point. Then you can use it to extend maternity leave if needed, or a surgery recovery.

Also, be very clear on your firm's policies about maternity leave because if you don't take the right leave in the right order you can be right screwed.

I don't get paid for my sick leave upon separation. I do for my vacation.

Someone remind me that I should be doing work.

You should be doing work.

I don't get paid for my sick leave upon separation. I do for my vacation.

Ditto. (And both roll over.)

My company had separate sick and vacation days until about 14 years ago, a few years after I started. It was a pain because they gave us ten sick days, but if we used six days before the end of the third quarter or so, they'd send us a nasty letter telling us not to do that just in case we had an emergency before the end of the year and had to take five days before short-term disability kicked in. So, as a result of not wanting that letter, most people would just take five days and end up not taking the other five because that emergency never happened. The company cleaned up there.

After they went to paid time off (sick and vacation time combined), they let us roll over up to five days until 2000, when they eliminated the rollover. I complained to the CFO (who happens to be my cousin-in-law), and he explained that doing so saved them $6 million on the books.

I know a lot of people who don't use all their days and end up losing them. I've still got four days to take in the next three weeks, and have to arrange with my boss when to take them ASAP.

Our sick and vacation days are now the same. Good in theory but they didn't give us any extra days! And I'm not going to use my vacation days on being sick. I'll work from home if i have to.

Tribune Co. Files for Bankruptcy

Tribune owns eight major daily newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun, plus a string of local TV stations.

It looks like the Cubs and Wrigley Stadium aren't included in the filing, though.

We have two floating holidays that don't roll over -- so we use this first. Vacation rolls over-- but there is a limit. Sick rolls over -- and I don't think there is an end. Sick time can also be given to other people once you have a certain amount. And then there is IN-Lieu time. If we have a monday off -- but I don't work on monday I get 7.5 in=lieu hours. If it is a day like christmas I get 3.8 holiday hours and I have to used 3.7 in-lieu hours. If I don't use my in-lieu by a certain time -- I get the dollars.

Add the fact that I have to split the time between two locations-- and I have a really fun time card.

Let's not add in all the complications of extra hours.

Schedules and time cards for libraries are complex. We usually work for the government -- that lives on a 5 day schedule -- we usually have to schedule 7 days a week. The other departments that do 7 days have over time -- we can't.