Time off work to go on cruises

[springfire]

After 15 years with my company, I now get about 6 weeks off a year, this includes sick time and vacation. Since my youngest starts college this fall, My wife and I decided to take an October vacation and fly to Europe. We will take a trans atlantic cruise home. It has taken some time to build up for this long vacation but it is time for us to enjoy some traveling to new places. My boss doesn't like me taking so much time off at once but he still approved it.

[worldtrekker]

I moved from the U.S. To New Zealand due to work. I work in healthcare and would say 2 weeks off annually is fairly typical for the first few years of employment in the U.S. As many here have stated, their holiday time increased after 10-15 years at the same company. Since I started in NZ, I get 6 weeks a year paid holiday and 2 weeks a year of paid educational time.

 

Everyone's circumstances are different, but I have much greater job satisfaction since leaving.

 

Just one opinion

 

Cheers

[GottaKnowWhen]

... Anyway, there are many American cruisers on here so seems the best place to ask. Is this just an old wives tail or is it very difficult to take time off work in the States?

 

 

Now retired after 40 years. In my organization, 13 days of paid sick leave allowed annually, did accumulate with no limit. When I retired I had about 14 months of accumulated sick leave I could have used if the need had arisen. 13 days of paid leave per year, first three years. Then 20 days per yr. after 3 years, 26 days per year after 15 years. We could carry unused leave from year to year up to 240 hours = 6 weeks total accumulation. In real life, many of us could not take our 26 days off, had already accumulated the max, and so just forfeited the unused days. But in 2005 or so was introduced a program that allowed us to transfer unused sick days and vacation days to seriously ill workers whose own sick leave resources had been exhausted. Or maybe it was a parent of a seriously ill child.

[CruisingSince2012]

Some folks also feel they "can't" take time off. They have the "live to work" mentality instead of the "work to live" way of life.

 

My mom keeps saying she can't take much time off her job because it's actually babysitting 3-year old twins and their 9-year old brother (my sister's kids). Why she thinks that, I have no idea, because there is a babysitter who used to come every day to help out. So I think Mom is sort of in this category, thinking she is unable to take off work when she really can. It is not exactly the same thing as the "live to work" attitude, but very similar.

 

To answer the original question: If you work part time you may not get PTO, so many people think they have to work to get enough money because that is true for them. But if you work full time, there is a pretty good chance you can take 2 weeks off (sometimes more depending on the position and employer).

Edited July 8, 2015 by CruisingSince2012

[Laughing Angel]

I've been employed at my company for a little over 20 years, and currently have 200 hours (5 weeks paid) of vacation time, plus 3 personal days and 7 sick days (we also get our birthday off). It's all use it or lose it. Some employees under contract are able to negotiate more vacation time.

 

My only problem is that we are not allowed to take any time off (short of an emergency or illness) four months out of the year. It's a bummer, but what are ya gonna do?

:rolleyes:

 

To the OP: There may be instances depending on the company, size of the business, number of employees, etc. where you would be able to negotiate a better deal regarding any paid time off.

Edited July 8, 2015 by Laughing Angel
Adding more info

[biker@sea]

A while back I bought a new Harley .

I had two weeks for vacation. :)

D.W. And I packed up the bike ,she jumped on the back .

We rode from Boston To Sturgis South Dakota and back.

6,700 miles we were gone for 17 day's .

I found a new job when we returned .

 

I did buy a new t-shirt that read " Work suck's I'm going to Sturgis "

 

P.S. The new job paid $4 an hour more and I found it the first day of looking for one. :cool

[chengkp75]

My problem is the opposite. While I get 180 days vacation per year, being on ships for 180 days doesn't make me want to take that many cruises. I space them out.

[Floridiana]

Anyway, there are many American cruisers on here so seems the best place to ask. Is this just an old wives tail or is it very difficult to take time off work in the States?

 

I think nobody mentioned this: In the European countries I know, vacation time carries over from one employer to the next. If you switch employers, you do not lose vacation time. In the US, however, you do. You start from the beginning again when you start in a new company.

[AmazedByCruising]

Can you take time off and forfeit the pay for it?

 

In the UK it's normal to get 5 weeks of paid holiday a year plus the 10 national holidays. Usually you would have 2 weeks in summer, 1 at christmas and a couple of floating weeks in between.

 

I don't think I could physically work 50 weeks a year, but would be happy to forfeit a few weeks of pay to have time off.

 

Employees: "job A has 2 weeks off, job B has 6! 200% extra!"

Employers:"employee A is willing to work 50 weeks, B 46. 8% less."

 

Strange enough, switching between 40-hour (standard), 36-hour or 20-hour weeks (unpaid) is quite common here (Holland). Asking for or allowing more holidays is very rare. As an employer, there are only a few employees where taking 2 months off in a row would really cause problems.

[AmazedByCruising]

I think nobody mentioned this: In the European countries I know, vacation time carries over from one employer to the next. If you switch employers, you do not lose vacation time. In the US, however, you do. You start from the beginning again when you start in a new company.

 

I've never heard about that. Definitely not in The Netherlands, but I wonder what European countries have such a thing. It sounds like yet another major burden (usually called "protection") for older employees to find a new job.

[srlafleur]

After 26 years in my position (as a CAD drafter/designer) I get 4 weeks (20 days) vacation. This hasn't increased since I hit 10 years. Started at 2 weeks, increased to 3 weeks at 5 years, then 4 weeks at the decade mark. Fortunately, it's not engraved in stone, so a day or so over isn't usually seen a big deal (we are expected to work hard and put in "whatever it takes" to get a project done - for some people, that translates to many more than 40 hours (uncompensated except by year-end performance bonus). Vacation days do not carry over. (and I work with some people who actually pride themselves in not using all their days! :eek:)

In addition, we get 6 or 7 holidays (depends when they fall). There is no real sick-time limit, but abusing that is, obviously, discouraged.

In some companies and in some positions, more time is negotiable.

[cherylandtk]

Here's a site that discusses the average vacation time in several countries. In the U.S. the average vacation time is 13 days per year; lowest by far of the several countries listed. Italy averages 42.

 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922052.html

[nolatravelgirl]

Accountancy

Accountancy could mean a multitude of things and it also depends on whether or not you have a "hot skill" that is worth the premium. Your two biggest hurdles to joining the big 4 firms in the US are whether you are eligible to work in the US without visa sponsorship and whether you are certified in your home country or eligible to sit for the CPA exam in the US.

 

At my former Big 4 firm you were given 3 weeks (15 days) plus 10 holidays. If you were a manager or more it was more than three weeks. There was also a years of service bump in the number of vacation days. Assuming you know about Big 4 life as they are present in most major European countries and you will work long hours and will require many hours of overtime during busy periods based on your specialty.

 

Your other option is to look into large consulting firms (IBM, Accenture, etc.) and learn some of the accounting software. The vacation benefits are generous for fairly junior members but I can assure you that they work you like a dog. :D

[EGG]

I worked for a very large multinational European owned company in what you would consider an office job (tax accounting). Standard starting was 2 weeks vacation increasing to 3 weeks after 5 years. If you were experienced when you got the job you could negotiate that 3rd week to start. We also had a week between Xmas and New Years and floating holidays or personal days. (They took away some of the standard Federal holidays and religious holidays and let you choose when you wanted to take those days.) So by carefully taking vacations over federal holidays or over the Xmas vacation and maybe using 1 personal day per trip I could squeeze in a few longer vacations a year. DH and I became very good at booking our vacation onto the end of a business trip or visiting our children on the west coast so that we could save travel days and money. Very rarely did you get time off for overtime. In the companies I worked for there were 2 classes of employees, exempt and non-exempt. Exempt means you were at a level that they did not have to give you overtime, you were a salaried employee as opposed to an hourly employee.

[lbjen]

Unless you already work for a company that will transfer you, I think you'll struggle to find a job that will sponsor you for an accounting position, unless it's at a level high enough that you wouldn't be worrying about only getting 2 weeks off (newly minted US citizen speaking here with 2 decades of accounting experience). I'd get started on studying for a CPA stat if I was you.

 

But aside from that - most European immigrants are taken aback at the differences in employment law here. In our prior country we each had 7 weeks as a starting point in our jobs, I was at 39 days when we left. When we first arrived in the US I worked as a contractor and had zero paid vacation. If I didn't work I didn't get paid, end of story. My husband gets 5 weeks as a starting point in his current job and will get a few more as his time of service increases. I work at a school so I get 5 paid vacation days, 5 paid sick days and then I am free whenever school is out (my pay for the hours I work during school time is pro-rated into 24 payments over the whole year).

 

Typically our vacations are in the summer. His team take it in turns to be off over Christmas and New Year. We squeeze in the odd long weekend here and there when the kids have a day off, but that's really it. Frequent cruisers here tend to be either retired or self-employed.

[Warm Breezes]

Accountancy

 

I am an accounting manager for a local branch of a global manufacturing company. This is our policy:

 

Vacation (PPLT) allocations are as follows, based on the amount of service you will complete on your anniversary date each year:

1 year = 40 hours of vacation time

2-5 years = 80 hours of vacation time

6-9 years = 120 hours of vacation time

10-20 years = 160 hours of vacation time

20+ years = 200 hours of vacation time

 

These can be negotiated based on your experience. On top of this we earn an additional 8-12 hours per quarter for attendance, 8 hours per year for our safety record, and get 10 holiday days. I have been here 10 years so when you add everything up I am currently getting 216 hours of vacation and 80 hours of holiday pay. Having said that my job limits when I can go on vacation (actually I limit myself based on when I need to be here to meet deadlines). I don't vacation the first 2 weeks of the month to meet month end closing deadlines (a day here and there ok not more than that) and I don't vacation in January for year end close and February for auditors.

[SPacificbound]

You might want to take a look at this.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country

Edited July 11, 2015 by SPacificbound
add title

[lbjen]

Rather shocking reading.

 

 

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[Robinsoncruiseso]

Accountancy

 

As the controller for a public company, with lots of vacation time, I plan time off during the slow periods. Mid month is good. I always avoid month and quarter end and never gone during annual audit wrap up. As long as everything gets done, professonalls are usually salary and have much more flexibility.

[JABrown104]

Everything depends on the company you work for. I get 20 paid days off a year, and 6 paid holidays.