12 weeks skiving a year!?

Speaking of skiving...
We call it flexi-time.

Mind you, I also put in lots of unpaid hours at the weekend and often work through my lunch so I guess it balances out.

Of course, my other justification for my MR habit is that I need it for my work...

*stop that chuckling in the back row*

Applespider said:

Apparently 8% of UK workers responsing to a survey, admitted to skiving for 12 weeks off the year while sitting at their desks. The average worker takes an additional 1-2 weeks holiday by using the web for personal use each year.

I wonder how many days holiday that is at Macrumors...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/13/desk_skiving/

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Ok had to go to the english to american dictionary to figure out what skiving was.

skive v.,n. Unauthorised absence - this is a slang term equivalent to the American phrase "playing hookie". Skivers are those who mysteriously appear never to be somewhere they're obliged to be and something regarded as time well wasted might be seen as a skive.

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Sick days are a coveted thing in the US. They are often used as personal days. In fact many companies here lump sick/vacation/personal days together and you just use them for what you want when you want them. so you might have 5 sick/10 vacation/5 personal days as 20 days to use as you want, just don't run out and get the flu!

stubeeef said:

...so you might have 5 sick/10 vacation/5 personal days as 20 days to use as you want, just don't run out and get the flu!

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Serious?!

This year I have 33 days of holiday + public (bank holidays) + whatever certified sick days I need... with a 35hr working week.

All of a sudden, I feel incredibly spoilt.

Blue Velvet said:

This year I have 33 days of holiday + public (bank holidays) + whatever certified sick days I need... with a 35hr working week.

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Holy crap! 33 days holiday!?!? I don't know ANYONE who gets 33 days

edesignuk said:

Holy crap! 33 days holiday!?!? I don't know ANYONE who gets 33 days

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Yeah, I know. Life's a bitch.

Hmm, I work in the US, and I get 20 days vacation time, 5 personal days (that are just treated as any other vacation time), plus 7 days public holidays (4th July etc) and unlimited sick days. I don't know anyone outside my workplace who gets so much time off (normally it's 10 days vacation - my wife recently applied for a job that had 10 days in total for vacation/sick time off.)

When I worked in Ireland, people would treat sick days as any other time off - I just couldn't do that. And I've never used any sick days in the six years I've been here in California. Well, I haven't been sick.

Although I do spend an hour or two per day personal websurfing, I counted up how many extra hours I worked last year, and if I were paid overtime, it would have come to $40,000 extra income.

Applespider said:

Apparently 8% of UK workers responsing to a survey, admitted to skiving for 12 weeks off the year while sitting at their desks. The average worker takes an additional 1-2 weeks holiday by using the web for personal use each year.

I wonder how many days holiday that is at Macrumors...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/13/desk_skiving/

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Does checking out MR for hours at my desk at work count as "skiving?"

edesignuk said:

Holy crap! 33 days holiday!?!? I don't know ANYONE who gets 33 days

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Geez, when I left Microsoft back in 2000, I was getting 20 vacation days + 10 sick days + 2 "floating holidays" + 8 holidays (New Years Day, Christmas + Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving + the day after, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and the 4th of July) for a total of 40 days off a year. Since I was rarely sick, those sick days often were used as "mental health" days (i.e., I didn't feel like going in).

12 vacation days(recently up from 10). 6 holidays (New Years, Independence Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas) and unlimited sick leave, I used maybe 2 days of that a year.

I had 12 weeks of chemo and maybe used 2.5 of sick time. (Damn I slacked.)

Well, I am a hog. I am "on tap" to work nearly 24/7 as a corp pilot. That is more in theory than practice. The reality is I work 2.5 days a week.

I have 2 weeks vacation, 5 days sick, 2 personnal, and 7 holiday days.

So because I avg 2.5 days a week, I really get 154 days off a yr plus weekends!

Gee better not complain anymore!

stubeeef said:

Gee better not complain anymore!

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Yeah, you really need to shut up now.

clayjohanson said:

Yeah, you really need to shut up now.

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On the bad side, nasa did a study showing that 1 hour of pilot work was roughly equivalent to 3 hours of desk work. I still have a great deal, but the stress on occasion can get ya some.

Lucky basterds, try owning a weekly newspaper.

The only way I get time off is if I skip a publishing, that means no income for that week while still paying nine full-time employees for sitting around the office doing nothing.

I get 36 days holiday

Blue Velvet said:

Serious?!

This year I have 33 days of holiday + public (bank holidays) + whatever certified sick days I need... with a 35hr working week.

All of a sudden, I feel incredibly spoilt.

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Wow, I thought I was doing good at 20 days of holiday's + public/bank holidays (great working at a bank eh?) + 3 sick days (with out doctors note)... maybe thats by North American standards I think the other side of the pond gets better holidays than us.

Oh and BTW the standard is 15 days vacation, I get 20 because I've been here now 5 years.

As for "web-skiving" I know people at work that spend more time on coffee and smoke breaks than I do for my mental breaks here at macrumors.

edesignuk said:

Holy crap! 33 days holiday!?!? I don't know ANYONE who gets 33 days

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Would this be a good time to mention that I get 35 days, plus ALL bank-holidays, plus I can work from home at least 2 days a week if I want to and I'm not really required to be present in the office at all for the 6 core weeks of the summer break, provided I'm contactable...

This is known as "scholarly activity"...

It's a hard, dirty job, but someone has to do it.

To quote myself:

Hmm, I work in the US, and I get 20 days vacation time, 5 personal days (that are just treated as any other vacation time), plus 7 days public holidays (4th July etc) and unlimited sick days.

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and WinterMute:

WinterMute said:

Would this be a good time to mention that I get 35 days, plus ALL bank-holidays, plus I can work from home at least 2 days a week if I want to and I'm not really required to be present in the office at all for the 6 core weeks of the summer break, provided I'm contactable...
This is known as "scholarly activity"...

It's a hard, dirty job, but someone has to do it.

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Now that you mention working from home - you beat me on vacation days, but I haven't been in the office for about three weeks now. I can work from home when I want - one of the perks of having a boss in Boston when I'm in the Bay Area.

25 days + public hols + any sick days i take (last year was 4 day's ) and i manage to be on macrumors most of my working day as well !

what a multi tasking git i am lol many a time am i on the phone doing support whilst replying to the latest new apple rumors

my mrs get's 33 day's plus public hols + sick as well , o and she works from home when she wants as well

I'm shocked at the generous vacation time the Americans in this forum are getting. My understanding is that the average U.S. job gets only 10 days paid vacation, and often only 10 days of combined vacation/sick/personal time. I personally get no paid vacation, since I'm a self-employed writer. Fortunately the wife's a professor, and while technically she doesn't get summers off, she can usually arrange to leave her lab for 3 weeks or so every summer, plus a week at Christmas.

wordmunger said:

I'm shocked at the generous vacation time the Americans in this forum are getting. My understanding is that the average U.S. job gets only 10 days paid vacation, and often only 10 days of combined vacation/sick/personal time. I personally get no paid vacation, since I'm a self-employed writer. Fortunately the wife's a professor, and while technically she doesn't get summers off, she can usually arrange to leave her lab for 3 weeks or so every summer, plus a week at Christmas.

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What you call generous is actually par for the course in most European (non-UK) countries... 4-5 weeks of paid vacation per year (and by paid, I mean not only are you paid for the time, but they PAY for your vacation), plus 35-hour work weeks. It's no wonder that countries like Germany and France find themselves hogtied with debt because of all of the subsidized time off that their citizens enjoy. By comparison, folks in the US enjoy less time off than virtually any other first world nation.

WinterMute said:

Would this be a good time to mention that I get 35 days, plus ALL bank-holidays, plus I can work from home at least 2 days a week if I want to and I'm not really required to be present in the office at all for the 6 core weeks of the summer break, provided I'm contactable...

This is known as "scholarly activity"...

It's a hard, dirty job, but someone has to do it.

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And why do all the prof's that I know think they are hard done by.........

Blue Velvet said:

Serious?!
This year I have 33 days of holiday + public (bank holidays) + whatever certified sick days I need... with a 35hr working week.
All of a sudden, I feel incredibly spoilt.

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You obviously don't have the right agent, BV.

Me, I'm self employed, my own business, staff, and I can totally take control and take whatever time I want off. There's nothing like being the boss with nobody else to answer to. It's great. In fact last year I...
wait a sec, I didn't take any vacation last year.

But the year before that was great! I ... er, no.

Well, when you average the past 5 years, I've taken... (counts on fingers) six.
days......
total. Ahem.

Not counting the customer who called me at home on Christmas Day, that was a one-time thing I swear. But weekends, I can take off weekends! Well, I could if I chose to, really. Several weekends per year, at least.... Umm

OK, thanks to you lot... I'm all depressed now. I'm going to find my blankie.

Some of the "generous" time-off allowances being discussed might be because we're a self-selected sample of people who obviously have it good enough to be loafing off on an online forum. You can bet the folks schlepping burgers at MickeyD's or slaving away at retail sentences don't have this kind of time.

This particular forum skiver has 20 days of vacation time, 10 days of sick leave, and 10 public/government holidays per year, on a use-it-or-lose-it basis, with a 40-hour workweek that I typically shave off to more like 35-37 by coming in late or leaving a wee bit early. You get away with stuff when your bosses are in another state.

All I know is that however much more time off I have, it never feels like enough, for I am a LAZY corporate wage-slave.