I Can Haz Time Off?
So, my $employer is desperately looking to unload some payroll before the fiscal year is over.
They've already let a whole bunch of managers go, and were supposed to eliminate the executive director layer of management (which didn't actually happen - they just retitled those positions), and there are pay freezes in place for non-unionized staff... But it apparently wasn't enough.
Enter the unionized staff.
They already have a (heavily-managed and limited in scope) program letting us buy days off. However, they've put so many limits on the program that most departments only allow five days off a year. (Which is still great!) You apply in October or so, and then they start deducting the days off you were approved for from your paycheck in January. So, if you get approved for five days off, they divide your pay for five days across all the pay periods for the upcoming year, and deduct it from your paycheck.
It's not a bad deal if you can afford it. It doesn't count against your pensionable earnings, and the days off you buy still count as "in service" days for your seniority. But, like I said, they limit it a lot. The last few years, they basically said that you can only buy days if you have a "once-in-a-lifetime trip or some other life event like a wedding" coming up. So, poop on that.
However, our managers intervened for this year. We're a support department, so we don't really need a specific number of staff members on hand at any given day. We were allowed to buy five days off this year if we wanted. So I did.
That gave me five weeks of time off this year: four vacation plus one purchased. That's allowed us to do things like make it down for Takaza's memorial, and go to Arizona for spring training. We still have three more weeks allocated this year: one coming up in August for Furry Migration, and two weeks we're taking in October to go to Ohio.
But last week we got a memo saying that for a Very Limited Time Only (tm) they were extended the time off purchase. We could buy unlimited days off, for deduction from our payroll between next pay period (late August) and the end of February. Then, whatever days we purchased could be used any time between now and the end of 2018. Act now!
Plonq and I mathed it out. We could afford it to be a bit short for six months, so I applied for fifteen days.
I was immediately approved.
So! Three weeks, plus my four weeks of vacation for 2018, gives me seven weeks off next year... Plus an additional week if the same rules for the time off buy apply next year the same as they did this year. (Not a given.)
We were tossing around the idea of joining some friends on a cruise after Plonq retires in September. Having some extra time to play with might make sense.
This entry was originally posted at http://atara.dreamwidth.org/622715.html. Please leave any comments there.
They've already let a whole bunch of managers go, and were supposed to eliminate the executive director layer of management (which didn't actually happen - they just retitled those positions), and there are pay freezes in place for non-unionized staff... But it apparently wasn't enough.
Enter the unionized staff.
They already have a (heavily-managed and limited in scope) program letting us buy days off. However, they've put so many limits on the program that most departments only allow five days off a year. (Which is still great!) You apply in October or so, and then they start deducting the days off you were approved for from your paycheck in January. So, if you get approved for five days off, they divide your pay for five days across all the pay periods for the upcoming year, and deduct it from your paycheck.
It's not a bad deal if you can afford it. It doesn't count against your pensionable earnings, and the days off you buy still count as "in service" days for your seniority. But, like I said, they limit it a lot. The last few years, they basically said that you can only buy days if you have a "once-in-a-lifetime trip or some other life event like a wedding" coming up. So, poop on that.
However, our managers intervened for this year. We're a support department, so we don't really need a specific number of staff members on hand at any given day. We were allowed to buy five days off this year if we wanted. So I did.
That gave me five weeks of time off this year: four vacation plus one purchased. That's allowed us to do things like make it down for Takaza's memorial, and go to Arizona for spring training. We still have three more weeks allocated this year: one coming up in August for Furry Migration, and two weeks we're taking in October to go to Ohio.
But last week we got a memo saying that for a Very Limited Time Only (tm) they were extended the time off purchase. We could buy unlimited days off, for deduction from our payroll between next pay period (late August) and the end of February. Then, whatever days we purchased could be used any time between now and the end of 2018. Act now!
Plonq and I mathed it out. We could afford it to be a bit short for six months, so I applied for fifteen days.
I was immediately approved.
So! Three weeks, plus my four weeks of vacation for 2018, gives me seven weeks off next year... Plus an additional week if the same rules for the time off buy apply next year the same as they did this year. (Not a given.)
We were tossing around the idea of joining some friends on a cruise after Plonq retires in September. Having some extra time to play with might make sense.
This entry was originally posted at http://atara.dreamwidth.org/622715.html. Please leave any comments there.