Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Time off for good behavior

...or perhaps I've been around so long, my workplace can't tolerate me as much as before, so they are willing to pay me to stay away.

16 years is a long time to stay at any one workplace, especially in these days of high turnover rates and few if any incentives to stay long term.  When I reached the 15 year mark almost a year ago, my paid vacation went from three weeks per year to four.  Our department had some issues with staffing and there are two months where taking a vacation is not allowed, so I took one week last September and one in October.  I understood the staffing issue, so in January, I told them I would take the remaining two weeks right before I would lose the time.  (The fact it took more than 2 months, several reminders and a meeting with the my boss' boss' boss to finally approve it is another matter.)

It has been several years since I've taken two weeks in a row, and I must say I enjoy it.  Mostly I take one week at a time and usually add a personal day and/or an unpaid day off plus a weekend to extend my time away to a week and a half.

I can feel a difference the second week makes.  Now that I am in to my second week, I feel my stress level is much lower than it has been in several months and my happiness level is higher.  However, it took a full week plus three days to really feel that way.  I am enjoying this fourth week of vacation since last year.

Now to figure out how to use my next 4 weeks of vacation!   ;-)

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