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>During Christmas, for example, most people use their PTO. Therefore, the flow of work is be slow, and it can feel like a holiday anyway.

I wish. The last two weeks are always a scramble because jackasses take the last two weeks off leaving year end to those who are working

good idea but will work for those who can carry over their pto to next yr. Most cannot carry over more than 40 hrs to next yr. U hv to take it or lose it

This is one that can be very dependent on work. I work at a library and we're dead on most holidays when kids don't have school and families are getting together.

My best friend is an accountant at a casino. They're forbidden from even asking for time off around holidays like New Years, normally they have mandatory overtime.

Still good advice if it applies to you.

What a ridiculous system you have over there. In Australia you can carry over your PTO virtually unlimited. If your balance gets too high your employer will usually encourage you to take some tho.

I've only got 1 week PTO at the moment, but I also have 4 weeks paid sick leave saved up too.

This has nothing to do with office jobs, it pertains to any job.

The last week of work at my work is great - we knocked off about 3 hrs early for the Monday Tuesday Wednesday, and literally for the last day on Thursday we came in, had a BBQ breakfast then went home!

been doing this since i started my career i have no kids so i have no problem logging in and making sure there's no alerts during this super down time of year and ill usually grab a pto day or 2 after new years when everyone comes back grumpy

Better tip: Use your time off however you want to use it!

This has also been my experience

True in my case. Thanks!

I save mine for my birthday and tattoo appointments!

I use some PTO for my birthday. I usually take the whole week.

Since it's a religious holiday, they can't say no. Non-negotiable. I'm still considerate about it and tell my employer what days I want so they can anticipate.

This LPT is all dependent on the job. At my old job, no one could take any PTO during the blackout dates from mid november to early January. My current job, 80% of my office is out of vacation, it's only a few of us here and it's really slow. I don't mind this at all compared to my last job which was retail.

These slow days do feel like a holiday for me. I get paid to just keep the office open and answer the phones, i'm cool with that.

Not just that, but airfare is dirt cheap too!

Agree with this! So many of our vendors and my co-workers are off this week, I'm getting caught up on so many little things I kept putting off. Plus its super quiet around here and I can just listen to a podcast and not worry about all the chit chat lol

This affects all work regardless of office work.

Where do you get the (incorrect) idea that “most” people use PTO during Christmas ?

I mean, Sure I'm working this week. But I'm in a large publicly traded company with an end of year target to hit.

But many of our customers are closed, and all of my friends who have office jobs have this week off. And I am very jealous. Though it may not be PTO, but rather company closures/holidays.

Out of curiosity, what religion deems birthdays as religious days?

LaVeyan!

This has been go to since I got my corporate job. I always work the week of Xmas and New Years. My co workers are all out, no meetings, and can't get a ton done. Even better since I started working from home. Bonus is that on the off chance something breaks, you look good for being around to take care of it (I work in IT)

That's exactly my strategy.

The "system" is just whatever policy the company has in place, obviously most companies want the employees to use up their leave every year as otherwise it could mean many staff looking for months or more off together. My own company will only allow 35 hours to be carried over but that policy only came in in 2000 and I member of staff who started on the old policy currently has 1600 hours carried over

Paperworks is full no matter what date of the year

Unless you're married to a teacher.

I usually save it to pepper between mid december and after new years to get a full 21 days off, airbnb my apartment, and fuck off to a tropical island with my buddies.

Hasn't failed me in the slightest thus far.

Also take your holiday when the colleague you hate is at work. This way you get twice as much time away from them.

Been doing this years. For medical reasons. And it works like that.

I have way too much vacation: no need to save it lol.

Nooooo donor do this!!! If you take time off when everyone else is working your inbox will be filled making your return even worse. If you’re off when everyone else is your back to work will be much easier

Use your PTO when you need it or want to.

Regardless of the season.

If you planned and saved it for the Holidays, good for you.

You learned this too late in your career?????? Every year our office is slow af

Yeah. It always messed up my work in clinical drug manufacturing. We shut down for the week between xmas and new years, because everyone always wanted to take it off anyways (usually 23 Dec to 02 Jan we didn't work). But the week before and after we were always super busy to make sure we had enough stuff in stock, or catch up on stock because drug shipments still went out. We always had people take off the week before or after so they could have 2 weeks off straight. Even though it was only 3 people at a time, it would fuck us over pretty bad.

Soo. Thing is, this might work for you but not everyone else in your family. As you said, most take holiday season off. It’s when family coordinate to be off at the same time. If you’re plan is to relax then sure. But if your plan is to visit family and actually hang out with them use your PTO on holidays

I’m in south Florida so I usually schedule mine in the heart of summer where it’s brutal to work outside

This is great advice because when you take a travel vacation not associated with a major holiday, it'll be cheaper and there will be fewer people traveling. Far less agony altogether

my boss just gives everyone still in the office during christmas times unnecessary work and projects just cause „nobody will be here anyways and better than sitting around not doing much“ while he is off work, goddamn they always come up with random shit at the year-end and stress you out to finish it that same year

god forbid that people take it a bit slow and chilled during christmas days

Sounds like a usa problem.

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Addendum: this only counts if you work non-customer service jobs. Customer service jobs are sssoooo much worse during the holidays.

Ah that makes so much sense, cheers thanks for response!

I’m in my first year at a office job and am learning this. We have a good amount of leave that must be used by the end of the year every year. So most of the office has been out these last couple of weeks trying to use it before they lose it. I did the same, but I still glance at my inbox. It’s been mostly empty- the complete opposite of how it usually is. If I had just worked instead, I could likely get by doing next to nothing since almost everyone else is out of the office. Next year I’m planning better.

True, but perhaps more importantly, companies don’t want to pay out months of saved leave to employees who resign.

Done this my whole office career. The vast majority of years it is glacially slow the week between Xmas and NYE. Did have a year that was a bit busy for the half of the department that was at work.

I haven’t worked since December 16th because my entire department took PTO. We’re all back on the 3rd. It was basically 7 free PTO days (4 were holidays).

Laughing and crying at the same time being in HR

“Jackasses” for using their time when they want? Waaahhhhhh

For me it's the opposite. The amount of incoming work doesn't decrease so the people who don't take vacation during that time are stuck having to cover for the people who do.

Lucky in Australia our laws aren't written by companies. It's by law ya get minimum 4 weeks PTO plus 2 weeks sick PTO (for permanent full time employees) - every year. And it carries over every year.

That's very sad someone had 1600hrs leave accumulated, that means they didn't take much leave during the years!

I dunno, I enjoy taking time off when many others are, so I know I won’t have to come back to a pile of crap that I missed and then work to catch up.

My company is closed between Christmas and New Years. This year we closed at 1 pm on the 23rd and we don’t go back until the 3rd. That way we have full use of our PTO days when we want them.

Same boat here in IT. No one is around to have problems anyway, just hang out and monitor what small thing might need attending to. It's much easier to ask for time off over the spring and fall when everyone is back after all their winter/summer vacations.

It's still the best time to see my family as the one out of state son. I wouldn't change it for anything. Mom, dad, and brothers are free for anything. Christmas movies and music are playing. It's the reason I take time off right now.

Shhhhhhhh dont share the secret! 😅

I do this every year in my office job and now that I work from home full-time, it means getting work done in 1/2 the time (no distractions), and getting paid to watch YouTube, do laundry, and meal prep for the rest of my day.

Highly recommend if you don't have social events/travel between 25-31

Plus travel tends to be cheaper after the holidays too!

And use your sick time for those mental health days when you need it.

This is a nice idea but everyone wants to get hardcore cranking with projects in January after December slacking, so getting time off can become impractical to impossible.

As a business owner. I can confirm this is a good plan for holidays. Plus during off seasons, prices for hotels and travels are much cheaper.

I have a job where I am the only one who does it. If I take off when things are slow it’s fine. If I take off the rest of the year I have mountain of work pile up while I’m gone and it is stressful before and after I take off.

I use PTO during xmas/Thanks Giving so I can have 1-1.5 months off to go back home. ~ 8-10 business days off Thanksgiving & Xmas & New Year give is really huge when flying alone take 24-30 hrs one way.

I do this too! It’s working out for me very well so far — in fact both of my bosses are out this week, so they told me to just “take it easy and watch your emails.” I’ve still got little things to finish up here and there but for the most part, I can take my time and relax. I worked about 2 total hours on the 23rd and called it a day.

Before I had kids, I enjoyed taking off the first or second full week of January (depending on the how the holidays fall. It was easy going when everybody was gone over Christmas and not everyone is back until the first full week. Then it got crazy busy because everyone wanted to start projects in the new year. So I took that week off, and after a week or so everything was back to the a normal pace.

Ironically if everyone who can follows the LPT then the time in the office around the holidays would no longer be slow.

That, or take it the week BEFORE the actual holiday.

In the army, and from I've seen the people that try to take leave right after the holidays usually get shut down

Same

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This does not apply to healthcare. Again, this does NOT apply to healthcare.

But yeah everyone else enjoy that holidays :)

This is my first year of my life accruing PTO, and now have a decent amount saved. The company I work for follows a federal calendar which means that only holidays observed by the government we get off. This means that after the holiday in mid january, we have a six month long holiday from holidays. Everyone in my company is taking PTO days right now, but I'm not, I'm going to use some to ensure I have at least a few 3 day weekends during that break.

What’s in a Bbq breakfast? Never heard of this before.

Bacon + eggs + hash brown on a burger lol.

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The ole company man eh

Not sure I'd call em jackasses ass this is just sorta how things go. Not minizing that it's a PITA for those still working

Do companies find ways to cheat the system? Like avoiding permanent full time designations? For sure that’s what companies in the US would do, and they would pay politicians to keep that legal.

Nah. I take 3 days of PTO, and get twelve days off for Christmas, without losing any pay.

Counterpoint: taking time off when your peers do not leads to tons of pressure upon return, and you’ll be generating crap for them to do during the holiday season.

Sync up your time off (if it works for you) and it’ll be a more stress-free experience for everyone.

Keeping in mind I am talking generally here, and am not a lawyer etc.

You can employ someone as "casual" which means you basically work shift to shift - and generally they only have to give 1 day/shift notice for termination. You don't earn PTO on casual. Usually these employees are paid a better rate. But they have less perks. Casual work is pretty good in certain scenarios, I've done it before.

But to attract good workers, workplaces are usually permanent. There's usually a 6 month probation period - in which the first 6 months they can fire you if they're not happy with your performance etc. After being made permanent, they need a really good reason to fire someone (wilful negligence etc).

TLDR: Labour laws/unions are great.

If a company does the dodgy, they're opening their selves up to litigation.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen in Australia, but I would imagine it happens a lot less than the US etc.

Or better suggestion. Use your PTO for its intended purpose. Need an extended weekend to re-energize? Got a trip planned in a few months? Friend coming back to visit for a month and needs a pickup at the airport? PTO is there to help you in maintaining that work life balance, so use it when you need it. Don't sit on it until the end of the year and then schedule it.

Honestly it's the opposite for me. Nobody else does my job so when I'm out of office work piles up, emails come in, stressful crap happens and I end up having to deal with it anyway or when I get back and I'm buried.

However, if I take my vacation days during the holiday season (like right now when globally my industry more or less shuts down) then I'm more likely to get uninterrupted restful time off and not come back to the office walking into a dumpster fire.

Same. Vacation days are garbage if you know coming back to the office means you're walking into a dumpster fire.

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This depends on your job. I like to take vacation during this holiday time because I won’t come back to a thousand emails and be behind since most clients are out of the office as well. If I take vacation during a regular time in the year it’s super stressful when I get back because I’ve fallen behind.

This doesn't apply to all industries but can appreciate the LPT. I am in manufacturing and the holidays are far more complicated, crazy and often busier.

I’m an executive assistant and live by this rule. Never take vacation when the boss does. Take it a week before or after and it’s like getting double the time off

Lol, mandatory overtime.

Plus, flights and hotels are cheaper off season. And most national parks and scenic or tourist areas are far less crowded.

ya i very much wanted all 4 days off this week. however, it is slow at work. lots of people are out. so i opted for just this friday off. why burn 3 days when i’m at work basically being left alone. although i’m a single dude so i don’t have much else to do lol while other people are probably traveling or spending time w the kids

That is quite the insight man, that's a good point :).

Surprisingly clever idea perhaps hehe :).

Thank you for mentioning that and props.

It is true it can like add 1.5x to one's holiday days perhaps hehe :), clever.

I envy those of you that can do this. Those of us with kids who are home on their 2- or 3-week break from school are stuck catering to those bums.

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Underrated. If you take time off with everyone else, you’re less behind than the otherwise.

Hello fellow library employee! It has been so slow for us during December as well. That will all change during the Summer Reading Program though.

LPT : take PTO for non-holiday seasons so you don't have to see your family on holidays.

I'm a software engineer in a manufacturing company, and the holiday season is insane for us, so everyone takes the week after off. Which means there's no work to be done, so it's best not to take that time off because I ain't got to do shit

I love America. “LPT. Don’t spend time with your family during the holidays because you only get a little PTO so you need to min max it.”

Exactly. I managed two people with younger kids, so by me covering the holidays they could take family time off. I use the week between Xmas & New Year's to clean out my inbox and hopefully start out the year with it empty. Currently rewriting some code onto a new system, and having full days with no interruptions are priceless!

Travelling at the holidays is a mugs game. And even after this Christmas travel chaos people still wont figure it out.

Taking 3 PTO days got me 10 days in a row off. So no thatnks.

Eh. I took like 4 days of PTO and have been off since the 23rd and will be going back on the 3rd. It’s like back in the old days of school when I had 2 weeks of for winter break. Chilling around Christmas and new years is great. My job is the kind that’s randomly slow throughout the year though. So holiday slow is like whatever.

Take time off whenever tf you want instead of setting some arbitrary rule and calling it advice.

It’s sad that you haven’t learned that so late in your career.

Office jobs

This is good advice. If you go on a travel vacation that doesn't involve a big vacation, it will be cheaper and fewer people will travel. Less pain overall

The flow of work is absolute hell this week because lots of people have time off, but clients still want shit done yesterday.

counterpoint, when you take vacation days around holidays off you reap the benefit of longer time away from work.

Completely disagree.

I always take off around holidays to maximize connective days off. For instance, every company I've worked at gives Thanksgiving and Black Friday off. I always take the Mon, Tue, and Wed off that week. It only costs me 3 days from my bank, but I get 9 days off in a row.

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... So sit in an empty office by yourself during the holidays doing nothing, why?

If someone’s presence at work is literally dictating when you take vacation time then maybe you should look deeper into this lol

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accountants have offices and some librarians do as well

Lucky my job is up to u (not office related but more on the field)…. You can choose to work between chrissy and ny or not….. there are plenty of work to go around…

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Same. There’s so much stuff piled up it’s not worth it

Why not both? I have 25 payed days off a year, gotta spend then somewhere

Hey, you know that week of the year when everybody wants to enjoy time with their loved ones? Don't take week off. Sit around an empty office doing nothing instead.

I normally perfer to work holidays for 2x monies and take my time off around important family events like my Wedding anniversary and people's birthdays (Mine, My wife's, my son's etc)

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Ours carry for 6 months for contract employees and a year for permanent staff. So all 2022 leave days have to be used by 31 Dec 2023 for me.

My job gives us the entire week leading up to Christmas off, and then we work from home on call the week leading up to new years. They also give us Thursday through Friday off the week of Thanksgiving. And we get the rest of the standard holidays off. All paid of course.

This frees up our vacation time to use during the rest of the year.

I'm absolutely loving the holiday moratorium at work. This week I sat around and did pretty much nothing and it was GLORIOUS! I'm usually rather busy day to day in my field of work.

exactly! my holiday leave is not until the end of jan, because why the hell would i want to be here when everybody gets back and is all gung ho for work in the new year!

fuck that, "work" christmas and new years, take vacation when shit actually hits the fan.

I have always followed this since the early days of my career, avoiding taking PTO during the peak holiday season or long weekends.

You save yourselves from many other issues like overpriced flights and hotel charges. If planning a road trip, you can avoid holiday traffic while on the road

LOL! This presumes they don't ding you with mandatory PTO when you already turned down a family vacation because you would have to work that week! Now, I missed seeing family AND I won't have the PTO to see them for the reschedule next month!

Ain't life a bitch?

My ceo just closes the office over the holidays because she’s aware that everyone who doesn’t use PTO over the holidays has this attitude anyways.

I do this also. Not as easy once you have kids though as the holidays are at the same time.

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This really depends on you. If you like the quiet, great but I’d rather be off with my kids at Christmas but it’s not worked that way this year. I don’t mind it but I don’t think this is really a LPT. More of a ‘if you like quiet times at work, go in over the holidays’ tip.

My collegues told me not to do that because it is considered a dick move

Yeah, try being the IT support for a retailer during holiday season when 40% of all yearly transactions take place. The entire holiday season was crunch time.

Sometimes this isn’t possible. At least in Australia, it’s legal for a business to “force shutdown” over Christmas which requires employees to use some of their annual leave, about 2-3 days worth out of the 4 weeks we get per year.

As a tradie if I worked over Xmas I'd be absolutely pumped all day long

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The reason many people take time off then is to travel for as long of a time period as they can whilst using the minimum amount of accrued leave.

Truth is that managers are not fools (especially in B2B companies where the clients are also not working) so in my company they ask you to submit a special request if you want to work during the holidays. Not forcing you to take time off but making it more complicated

As long as it is not your own business, I see no issues there. So, the work is going to be done later. It's not your problem, it's your bosses problem for not hiring appropriate number of people to do the job.

Yup, can confirm. I am a librarian who works in an office.

This is easier said than done.

I was the only person in a 5 person team working yesterday. Turned on laptop, logged in and went back to sleep 👌

It takes some mental work if you were raised in hustle culture, but it's worth it. It took me 8 years and I'm proud to say that I can happily leave my work at scheduled time regardless of what's going on there and enjoy rest of my day care free. I'm not yet at the "don't give a shit about anything as long as they pay me" level, but maybe one day I'll get there.

It took me a long time, so I advice each and every one of you - start now. And start small. Scheduled turn off your work phone/email is a good beginning to a journey of letting go :)

Taking time off around the holidays when things are slower is much better for me, because I can actually relax and not stress out about all the piled up work that I’m falling behind on.

I did this for years. The period between Xmas and New Year's especially was always dead, and you could spend your days in the office, coming in late, surfing the web, watching movies, even going out to do a bit of shopping.

With kids though, it's just not worth it. For a start i want to spend some time with them when they're not at school. But even working from home, you have this "thing" hanging over you when you know you're supposed to be working but the kids want to sit and play the Switch instead.

Taking the time off is a psychological break as much as a physical one.

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And those jobs the dude mentioned are office jobs.

Every public servant knows this already

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Would change this to low level office job, if you have any level of responsibility then taking time off when it's less busy is less stressful.

LPT: Take time off when you feel like it.

PTO? Is this some American term again?

what kind of retail, may I ask?

Lol. My girlfriend is a teacher. The only time we can take off together is during the quiet times when everyone else is with their kids.

The idea that you have to save up sick leave is also a ridiculous system to some of us, fyi

Believe it or not, pharmacy retail. And yes, holiday season was their biggest.

So the advice is don't see family at the holiday?

interesting, never thought that people don’t need pharmacy products whole year round.
In grocery, it is maybe +10% of normal month, nothing too exciting

Well, to be fair, it wasn't just pharmaceuticals, but also had health devices and other assortment. A lot of people buy health devices for their near and dear ones I suppose.

terrible advice, like most shit on this sub

Plus if they have FSA funds left they want to use them before the year ends

Same here. I'm a real estate accountant and this week is dead. No one is making deals, buying property, etc., they're just waiting for the new year. I checked my inbox yesterday and only had 10 emails, instead of the usual 80-100 I would have if I took off any other time of the year.

Daycare closed the entire week between Christmas and new years so essentially forced to save PTO to use that week.

Having to save PTO? I've currently saved up to get away for three months...

I don't know anyone who lacks PTO. Is this LPT a regional thing?

Then you use it earlier in the year. Pretty simple really. Also I think you missed a "not" maybe try proofreading.

We have no "system" companies just do whatever the fuck they feel like.

8 what?

International IT industry is great. Other countries shut down anything except emergency work the last two weeks, and clients generally aren't that demanding since no ones in the office. Since we can't put in work orders and were not taking work orders it's pretty great.

Early career, that’s exactly what I did. As I earned more PTO, it became possible to have a summer decompress vacation, then just time to chill (even just 2, maybe 3 days) around holidays.

It can be pretty mind numbing to be at work with no one around. If you depend on other people to get stuff done, even more so.

If you have work you can do on your own, however, it’s a fantastic time to catch up / get ahead without distractions.

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LPT : Just take off whenever you wanna take off.

You're welcome.

Are you projecting out into June/July? Or do you live in one of those strange places that does the weather all backwards

LPT: Take time off when it suits you the most, if that's during the holidays to spend time with your family do that, if it's random Wednesdays just because do that.

Also watch out for official holidays and extended weekends. For example if a thursday is a paid holiday take friday off. Bam 4 days to do what you please!

..... right? What is your system

Have up to 7 sick days in a row off without a doctor's note.

If you're ill before you take annual leave, you can take it as sick leave instead.

If you don't take all your annual leave because of illness, it carries into next year.

There are no limits on how much sick leave you can take, but after 4 consecutive weeks you're considered long-term sick. The employee can dismiss you after this, but only after exhausting all options that might help you get back to work, e.g. offering for you to return part-time etc.

My sister in law had cancer just after having a baby last year - her company allowed her to take the normal 1 year maternity leave, but delay the start until after her cancer treatment had concluded (which was taken as sick leave). They've given her the 6 months of sick leave she needed, and then the year maternity on top. All paid.

Ya I would say mostly this.

My office has this lovely policy that if you work over the holidays you're responsible for covering for EVERYONE who took the time off. Out of 20 assistants only 5 are currently working between Xmas and NY, which means we have to cover EVERYONE's work as needed. Sure it's quieter...but I'm still responsible for my team of 5, my cubicle-mate's team of 5 (I always cover her vacation) AND anything else that anyone in the dept feels like sending my way.

Nope. Did this last year and got all the work because everybody was on leave. It depends on the industry and nature of your work

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Been doing this for 10 years strong. Strongly stand behind this advice if you have a job that enables you too.