People who don’t take annual leave and prefer to work?

AskAsk

when i started out working i really liked my job and would quite happily come in 7 days a week if i was allowed and was paid for it!  then when i worked for an employer that allowed you to sell your holiday, i sold all the days i could but we had to have 20 days as a minimum.

then i got older and work was no longer interesting so i started to buy holidays instead!  so much so that i ended up buying 6 months at a time 

justworriedabit

oh_really said:

justworriedabit said:

 The manger called me into her office and I put my foot down and told her that if it was the end of the year and she said to me i needs to take A/L and she was doing to everyone to avoid bottlenecks fair enough but she was not. She wanted to give me a verbal warning and take me to HR. I was ready to go to HR before she was and went with the union guy and guess what, lol, she had to back down.

Never again did she go around telling people they need to take their hols just because she felt they were burnt out.


People need to stand up for their entitlement IMO.

You do realise the employer can dictate when and how A/L is taken? (subject to appropriate notice).

Perhaps you could point to my post where I said that an employer can't? TIA.

My post is very clear, it was about being told to take leave as per my post which I duly challenged on both occasion and won.

No employer is going to tell me to take leave just because they think I need a rest, looked burnt out, etc and as you can see in my post, I challenged the manager and asked them if they were a doctor or otherwise medically qualified to state that. You know what the result was and the impact of me winning my case ie the manger never repeated those words. HTH.

NaughtiusMaximus

Doshwaster said:

Not taking holidays can sometimes be seen as suspicious. The employee may be up to something dodgy and doesn't want to take time off in case their activities are discovered. 

This exactly. My uncle once told me about a company he worked for back in the 80s, pretty much all the admin and the accounts was done by one woman who'd been there over 20 years and never took more than a week off at a time, so all the finances were left for her when she came back.

One day she was involved in a road accident and as a result was in hospital for weeks, at which point the owner found out she'd been defrauding the company for most of time she'd been there and had fiddled close to 100k (bearing in mind all this happened 30-50+ years ago). She'd got away with it for so long without raising suspicion because, fraud aside, she was genuinely good at her job and was a pleasant, likeable person.

NaughtiusMaximus

Simon11 said:

I find this so strange, as I live to enjoy life, not living for work! Happy to work hard on work days, but I want to 'play' hard too!

I take off all the time I can, sacrifice pay to get an extra two weeks off and use volunteering leave to help! In total I get 43 days off a year with bank holidays on top. No one batters an eye lid here!

Much the same for me.

I don't mind my job but I only work because I have to. If enough money suddenly dropped in my lap to allow me to retire at my current standard of living I'd do it without hesitation.

JustAnotherSaver

Yes.

I work for an employer who in the past used to make a deal out of you taking holidays. The managers of some departments still try to be awkward with it - ooooh, don't know if we can let you have that (when nobody else is off!!!)

Have worked with people who don't take holidays (annual leave) as well. I find them oddballs. I know at least one person reading that will take exception to it and comment but hey ho. Each to their own - and my own is not grasping how people could possibly want to not take time away from work. I've never wrapped my head around these workworkworkwork... Die folk.

But if it makes them happy then whatever. It does me no harm. 

Doshwaster

unforeseen said:

It's a personal choice whether to take leave or not. Just because people don't does not make them a wrong 'un or incapable of doing their job and afraid of being found out.
I was exactly the same when I was in the RAF. As a SNCO I would get 42 days leave a year. I was on a 4 on 4 off shift, I didn't need to take leave and regularly lost leave even though 14 days were carried over. I would occasionally take a few days if if we planned to go away for a week or when we re-organised shifts for Xmas/NY. 

The RAF may be usual but typically an employer is perfectly entitled to say to a worker "Don't come in next week. You are on holiday. Have a good time". Whenever if has happened to me I've just said "thanks very much" and booked a last minute holiday (when such things were possible) or taken it as an opportunity to do some work on the house.

elsien

oh_really said:

I see you have deleted your post.

The quote function seems to be more necessary for some posters than for others. 

elsien

justworriedabit said:

elsien said:

I used to insist my staff took holidays so that they didn't burn out. I didn't give them the option not to. Some of them then picked up shifts elsewhere because they wanted the money but if they then came to me telling me they were stressed I had less sympathy than if they'd given themselves a proper break.
As to feeling pressured to do the same, ignore them. Holiday entitlement is there for a reason. As per the above post, I work to live, not live to work. 

Years ago when I was a lot younger and took no prisoners my manger wanted me to take and I asked why. Initially she could not give a reason and stuttered and then said I do it to everyone so there are at their optimum when they return. I said I was and my work was as good as the next. She then went out to say she did not want her workers to "burn out."  

I asked her if she was a doctor or in anyway medical qualified to make a diagnosis on me, by co-workers sniggered and one did burst out laughing. The manger called me into her office and I put my foot down and told her that if it was the end of the year and she said to me i needs to take A/L and she was doing to everyone to avoid bottlenecks fair enough but she was not. She wanted to give me a verbal warning and take me to HR. I was ready to go to HR before she was and went with the union guy and guess what, lol, she had to back down.

Never again did she go around telling people they need to take their hols just because she felt they were burnt out.

I always took most of my hols and flexi in 1 and 2 days and she then picked me up on that. Again we went to HR with my union rep and as I was not causing a problem ie shortfall of staff I could carry on taking the odd 1/2 every subject to usual conditions ie cover in the office.

People need to stand up for their entitlement IMO.

No need to say anything about being burnt out. 

A simple you need to take x leave by y date; if you don’t book it I’ll allocate the dates for you. 

Without all the completely unnecessary responses. 

Sea_Shell

AskAsk said:

when i started out working i really liked my job and would quite happily come in 7 days a week if i was allowed and was paid for it!  then when i worked for an employer that allowed you to sell your holiday, i sold all the days i could but we had to have 20 days as a minimum.

then i got older and work was no longer interesting so i started to buy holidays instead!  so much so that i ended up buying 6 months at a time 

I decided in my last job to buy back 365 days holiday a year....it's working great so far!! 😁

Manxman_in_exile

YBR said:

I work in the railway industry and fatigue is one of the hottest safety topics despite having a 9-5 desk-job. That's because over the last decade more railway staff have been killed or injured on the roads than on the lineside.
If there were an incident or design error, one of the things they will always look at is fatigue - what days off you've had.

For those who manage staff who take no leave, consider the consequences if someone had an accident (at work or commuting) where fatigue was a factor. Perhaps the staff would say they felt under pressure to not take leave, or take sick days - how would you prove otherwise? Perhaps as a consequence your business's insurance would be void and you might be liable for damages.
I admit I don't know how realistic this is but it's not just the staff member themselves who are affected, it's more complex than "personal choice".

I worked in the NHS and similar considerations were applied in our trust regarding the Working Time Directive.  We tried to enforce it quite rigourously and didn't allow staff to have opt-outs.  Not because we were mainly concerned for their health or because we wanted to keep to the "rules", but because we didn't want knackered staff harming patients.