I've never used up the PTO I get in my life; if anything, I'm usually scrambling to burn to stay under the point where I lose it at the end of the year.

That's me, too. Every year I say I won't do that, but I always do.

I have been deep in an urgent work thing the last two days, which means I don't really know much about what's been going on in the world, but I am very sure that's a blessing and not a curse.

First world problem: Just finished a round of eBay sales, winning bidder says "I know your listing says you don't ship internationally, but Canada doesn't really count does it?" Then when I quote him the price I'll ship it for, he complains that other people don't charge that much. That's more effort than I care to go to for a $3.75 item.

when I quote him the price I'll ship it for

Ask for citizenship!

Greetings, Buffistae! I have been largely absent, but reading along when I can. A childhood friend got a cancer diagnosis a few weeks ago that doesn't come with a good prognosis (or an easy journey to the end) and I have been using much of my energy to type words to her.

As faculty, I don't report hours or days off to anyone although I do tell my dean when I'll be gone for more than a day or two. We'll be in CA for Spring Break, and I am looking forward to finally getting Miss K to Yosemite and hiking there with her.

Thanks to talk here, I just checked my PTO balance. I've been taking a bunch of time off lately, just a day here and there, but for me that is a bunch. I still have 286 hours in the bank. The concept of taking 7 consecutive weeks off - I can't imagine.

My angel and devil are acting up again. My angel is horrified at the prospect of a government shutdown. My devil is thrilled at the idea of the Republicans getting blamed for a government shutdown.

So long as the Rs really do get blamed. But it would suck for everyone who relies on the smooth functioning of the bureaucracy to get by, and for federal employees who live paycheck to paycheck...

Me, I'll be fine. But not everyone will.

But it would suck for everyone who relies on the smooth functioning of the bureaucracy to get by, and for federal employees who live paycheck to paycheck...

Yeah, that's what my angel says. And of course I'm not going to root for it.

Unlimited time off has gotten to be a pretty common perk in techlandia - the upside is not having to do the obsessive how many hours do I have left thing, and the companies that do it right really are more humane than most. The downside is that some companies abuse it - either by dangling it as a perk when workload is too high to ever take it, or using the fact that there isn't a fixed amount in the compensation package to avoid paying out accrued time when people leave.

We have unlimited at the officer level, basically VPs and above, below that it accrues based on seniority (18/24/30 days depending on years of service). But it doesn't roll over at all. If you don't take it during the calendar year it's gone. So for people below officer level who leave mid-year, there can be some small level of accrual but not the large number of banked hours you see at other places.

I will say, the non-rollover really bothered me at first, and I was definitely one of those who tended to struggle to take time at all and had a large amount banked. But really, use-or-lose forced me to change my perspective and get more serious about carving out time away, even if it was mostly long weekends or half-days here and there instead of true vacations. And it really does make a difference in terms of life balance/mental health.

Now that I'm unlimited I still sort of mentally peg it to the number of days just to make sure I'm taking enough/not too much time.

I get 2 weeks/year vacation + 2 float days and can acquire additional float days in various incentive plans and lotteries. I'll get an additional week next year or the year after, and a 4th week after 10 years, and a 5th week after 15 years which is just unimaginable to me. We can rollover unlimited float days and vacation time up to two years worth (so if I accrue over 4 weeks vacation time without using it I stop accruing, is how I think that's supposed to work), and we can cash out vacation and/or float days back to the company once a year. I know people who do that regularly, but I use up my time just about as quickly as it becomes available to me, really.

I don't know how I'd handle unlimited time off. I'd have to have a lot of discussions with my supervisor, I guess.