Could taking a vacation get you fired?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

One-fifth of Americans working at least 35 hours a week think using vacation time makes them look replaceable, therefore putting them at risk of losing their jobs, a new survey found.

The concerns could have a foundation in reality -- after all, there's no federal law guaranteeing people the vacation they've earned, and unless a termination breaches a contract or discrimination laws, employers can fire people for pretty much whatever they want to.

The aforementioned survey includes responses from 1,303 adult Americans working at least 35 hours per week and was conducted June 20 to 30 by GfK Public Affairs and Corporate Communications for the U.S. Travel Association. The sample is weighted and scaled to be nationally representative, and the margin of error is plus or minus 2.71 percentage points. The sample included responses from 235 workers with managerial responsibilities, and the margin of error for their responses is plus or minus 6.39 percentage points.

Taking time off is generally considered beneficial for an employee's health (though you should be careful not to overspend on vacation) and, in turn, beneficial to his or her employer, but that alone doesn't persuade workers to take a paid break from the job. Beyond the desire to work harder and longer hours as a way of proving your worth -- what the study calls a "work martyr complex" -- there seems to be poor communication between management and employees about taking time off: 67 percent of survey respondents said their company says nothing about, sends unclear messages about or discourages use of paid time off, while 19 percent of managers say they never talk to employees about the benefits of taking time off (14 percent said they rarely talk about it).

http://money.msn.com/leadership/article.aspx?post=5adcc258-c933-4cea-9f82-32ca9096067b

[LostInAnomie]

1. Wouldn't get me fired.

But, I'm in a union.

[Populist_Prole]

4. Same here

I don't feel "lucky" as much as normal, but am dismayed that being coerced into NOT taking a vacation is so widespread.

Friends I grew up with and went white collar tell me the coercion is more subtle. It's not so much a matter of "take it and you're fired" as much as "We can't force you to forgo vaction, but we can make you wish you did". They say that whatever "status" or reputation you may have worked your way up till then would be undone, and that could play out negatively and make life there unpleasant.

Shitty situation.

[Lurks Often]

2. If I don't use my vacation time, I lose it

I can't carry over any more then 5 vacation days every year and they don't accumulate. While it isn't discussed very often, I've never been discouraged from taking vacation time in general and the only times we were asked if the vacation was really needed was usually at the end of the year when all the work that was supposed to be completed by 1/1/2014 was coming in at the last minute.

[Xithras]

3. My current employer makes vacation mandatory.

Employees are only permitted to accrue a certain amount of vacation time. Once a quarter, each manager is sent a report pointing out the employees who are exceeding company policy. Those employees are then given seven days to schedule enough vacation time to eliminate the overage. If they fail to do so, the manager will schedule vacation days for them and will simply tell the employee not to come to work on those days.

To keep everyone motivated and paying attention, employees who hit 1.5x their maximum accrual are prohibited from accruing more, and simply receive monthly cash payouts equal to the vacation pay they would have received. At the beginning of each fiscal year, they receive an additional lump payout to reduce their overage to 1x the maximum accrual. Those cash payouts are extracted directly and immediately from each departments budget. The managers have a strong motivation to ensure that everyone takes their vacation days, and that nobody gets payouts.

It's an incredibly effective system. We all take our vacation days!

[starroute]

5. Sometimes they whipsaw you both ways

I had one job where my boss was bugging me to use my vacation days. I said that summer was the busiest time of the year for my position and that I was waiting for things to slow down. She laughed and said, "Oh, you can't wait for that because it'll never happen. You just take vacation days when you want to and put in extra hours before and after to make up the difference."

[bettyellen]

6. I always end up working 60-80 hours the weeks before, and then the week after....and STILL my boss

is always like "this isn't a good time to go" even when she picked the fucking week. It's ridiculous.