Conference 7.286::digital

    Well, here's my $.02 worth...	
    
    We've had approximately 2 years to get our vacation hours down and for
    those of you that waited until now to do it, shame on you and your
    manager.  If the business suffers, is it Digital's fault? NO!  It's the
    individuals.  If your desk piles up while your relieving yourself of
    the exess vacation, OOPPSS!!  If you have to work longer hours because
    you have to take 3 weeks worth of vacation before the end of the
    fiscal, OOPPSS!!!  Why should Digital be punished? which I believe is
    what you are proposing....financially at least.  Some will say Digital
    will be punished by people taking their vacation, the work not getting
    done, having to pay overtime when they get back, and thats correct. 
    So, I suggest we all take a sincere look at how we personally have
    handled our excess vacation over the last two years and ask ourselves,
    who have I punished by not doing this expeditiously (sp);  you've
    punished Digital, but it's not Digital's fault...
    
    Just mine....
    
    Toodles....jps

          That'd make too much sense so it's highly unlikely it'd ever
    happen. I've got 362 hours of vacation available. With the accrual
    rate of 4 wks/yr I'll be hard pressed to put much of a dent in it.
    I'd even consider selling it back to dec for 1/2 of what it's worth.
    Heck by years end I'll still end up losing hours anyhow.
    
         Bob

    
    I'm currently maxed out at 10 weeks. I have to take a day every two
    weeks or so or lose it.
    
    I've always tried to keep a good balance of vacation time for
    contingencies. I've also been very conscientious about timing my
    vacation whenever possible to have minimal impact on my projects.
    When the vacation accrual change was proposed, I fought hard against
    it; when it was implemented, I made another conscientious decision to
    bleed down my vacation over the time alloted.
    
    Then I almost lost my job. One of the many people who happened to just
    be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I did everything in my power
    to continue my career at DEC and protect my future in general. I found
    a useful long-term job, and fought hard to transfer into it rather than
    being forced into another group that folded only months later. In that
    job, I concentrated on skill and knowledge that are marketable outside
    a VMS environment. And I saved my vacation, a small hedge against ever
    more capricious downsizing and ever more miniscule TFSO packages.
    
    I see nothing in the current state of this company that leads me to
    change the decisions I've made in the past two years or so. I'll
    continue to concentrate on opportunities to increase my marketability,
    perhaps even occasionally when using my current skills would be more
    beneficial to the company. I'll continue to look for the hot groups,
    because the days of doing a damned good job and letting your manager
    worry about what comes next are long dead. And I'll hold onto my
    vacation until the bitter end, because I know that even this hot group
    could disappear tomorrow at the blink of some clueless person's eye.
    
    If the company wants to buy back a few weeks vacation in return for some
    more damneed good work, I'm open to discussion. Otherwise, I'll continue
    to take a week when it's mutually convenient, an day when I have to use
    it or lose it, and I'll be out of the office from mid-to-late October
    until the new year.
    

RE: .0

>     Since Digital will be forcing us to carry 200 vacation hours by

Nit: My understanding of the policy is *not* that Digital will max us out
at 200 hours (5 weeks), but that the new point for all employees *at which
time overflow occurs* is 5 weeks.  If you have over 200 hours you won't 
lose anything, but you can't accumulate more than 200 hours.  Example:

    Today's policy:
	You have 320 hours accumulated today (max'ed out)
	You take 8 hours of vacation, you now have 312 hours, and begin
		accumulating time to get back to the max of 320

    New policy:
	You have 320 hours accumulated today (max'ed out)
	You take 8 hours of vacation, you now have 312 hours, and are
		stuck there: you are overflowing at 312 hours
	You take 120 hours of vacation, you now have 192 hours, and begin
		accumulating time to get back to the max of 200

>     I propose digital start paying off employees vacation time by
>    cutting addtional paychecks. This serves many purposes.

I recommend you read note 167 for some historical context.  I made this exact
proposal back in 1985, and was shot down by Corporate Finance, and stated so
back in August 1986, as follows (in 167.15):

>RE: .13
>
>	I originally proposed trading vacation time for cash.  The response
>	I got was that it would mess up salary forecasting, because CC managers
>	could not predict how much salary a given person would need to be paid
>	for a given year.  For example, if I earn $10k/year, this is (roughly,
>	for illustration purposes) $200/week.  If I take my normal vacation
>	time, I get paid $10k.  If I trade in 4 weeks of vacation time for
>	cash and continue to work for those 4 weeks, I get paid $10.8K.  

-- Ken Moreau

If you think you will lose your job, by taking a week here and there, you are
paranoid. If you think you can take all that excess in one block without any
consequences, just before the time's up, you are kidding yourself. Might as well
use those weeks to interview ..

If you have too much accrued vacation: spend it. You need vacation to stay
healthy. Treat yourself to some time off. Spring is soon here and there are
plenty of nice things to do. Spend more time on your hobby. I can assure you
that you will come back much more relaxed and more capable of performing well
in your job. 

I used to have excess vacation that I lost each year. But that was before I
moved to the US and got it cut back to only four weeks per year. 

>Per

>    manager.  If the business suffers, is it Digital's fault? NO!

I believe it is.  The vacation cap is an artifical limit placed by the
company.  In addition, it is the company's problem to provide adequate
resources to get the job done.  If the person was going on <whatever>term
disability, what would the company be doing?  Would it be the employee's
fault for getting sick/ill/disabled?  

>    individuals.  If your desk piles up while your relieving yourself of
>   the exess vacation, OOPPSS!!  If you have to work longer hours because
>   you have to take 3 weeks worth of vacation before the end of the
>    fiscal, OOPPSS!!!  

Again, if the company wants to have the work get done, they should be 
providing the replacement resources to do it.

>Why should Digital be punished? 

Why should the employee NOT get what is supposedly a benefit provided to
them?  In these cases, it really is the employee that gets punished (by
having to work longer hours etc to make up for the vacation time taken).
Why even have vacation if you have to put the same (or more) time in
recoverying from it?  

>    So, I suggest we all take a sincere look at how we personally have
>    handled our excess vacation over the last two years and ask ourselves,

Of course, you could ask why there is even excess vacation in the first 
place... For some people, it is schedules etc that do not let them take
vacations.

>    who have I punished by not doing this expeditiously (sp);  you've
>    punished Digital, but it's not Digital's fault...

Sorry, but claiming an employee is punishing the company by taking vacation
(as part of the compensation for working for the company) is, at the very
least, ludicrous.

-Joe

    .6 is right on...........
    
    rfb

    
    
    
    	How about a REAL employee discount in trade for vacation time??
                    ***
    
    		/B

    
    	BD -
    
    	Because then Digital would be paying you twice for the same week
    	of work. One check because you are *actually* working, and another
    	for the vacation week.
    
    	A better suggestion would be to use up your individual time, and
    	let our core competencies go to work during your absence. Besides,
    	vacations are very good for the psyche - and your family.
    
    	Enjoy....
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

    RE: last few.
    
    A good friend of mine, a 20 year DECCIE, just came back from 2 weeks
    vacation on Monday. He was well rested, re-energized to perform his
    responsibilities, etc. He was also trying to lower his available
    vacation hours, so that he would be close to the Dec. 31 goal.
    
    He got TFSO'd on Tuesday.
    
    

    
> I believe it is.  The vacation cap is an artifical limit placed by the
> company. 
    
    Studies have shown that workers who take their vacation hours, on
    average, are more productive and less stressed-out than those who hoard
    their vacation time.  The point of providing vacation is to get
    employees away from work for awhile.  Any program paying for the
    relinguishment of vacation time runs counter to the fundamental
    business reason for having vacation time in the first place. 
    
    
    re.  comments on the companies finances
    
    It does make a difference to the company financially if you take your
    vacation or not. 
    
    Person A) Works 50 weeks and takes 2 weeks vacation and accrues no
      vacation.  Digital pays for 52 weeks and incurrs no long term
      liability for unused vacation.
    
    Person B) Works 52 weeks and does not take any vacation and accures 2
      weeks vacation time.  Digital pays for 52 weeks and also accrues 2
      weeks of long term liability for unused vacation.  This costs Digital
      2 weeks of your salary more than Person A during this fiscal year.
      (Digital gets 2 more weeks of work but research indicates you get
      more out of the person who only works 50 weeks but takes time off than
      the person who works all 52 weeks on average).
    
    Given this financial reality it would be, IMO as a stockholder, negligent
    for upper management to not control this liability build-up.
    
    Yours-in-Bschool-trivia,
    Greg
    

    Re .3
    
    Doing it any other way doesn't make much sense.  I'm doing something
    similar, although on a much smaller scale.  (6 weeks rather than 10).
    Good luck and have a good time Oct, Nov and Dec...  Wish I could see
    your holiday decorations...
    Sue
    

    Then of course we could be in the boat with my customers at Martin
    Marietta (ex-GE). You get what you get, and take what you can, because
    on Jan.1, everybody starts over with "0".
    
    I've (only) got 131.06 hours on the book right now, and that makes for
    a whole bunch of 4 and 5 day weekends.
    
    .mike.

How about working 4 day weeks for awhile? It's slow but could
use up some vacation if you can't leave completely. I took a 
chance and did mine in a 6 week chunk. I knew I might come back
to no job but 6 weeks in Hawaii was a gas. liesl

          Over the years I'd tried to pare down my hours. Like re: 3
    oftentimes I'd be ready to take off for 2 weeks and something would
    come up forcing me to take only one week. Then in order to avoid TSFO 
    I spent a year on 3rd shift working a 4 day workweek. During that time
    I didn't use any vacation time. Now a year after a very messy divorce I
    typically take vacation time to coincide with my children's vacation
    time. I'm not the custodial parent but do have very liberal visitation
    and thus far we've split school vacations right down the middle. Other
    than spending time with my kids I'd have no reason or want to take time
    off. It costs too much and in this state Mass. when 39.9% of my gross
    goes to my ex and her livein boyfriend I can't afford time off because
    I might spend money I don't have :-) Everyone has their own story and
    I'm sure very few of them are ,as I wasn't, able to easily consume 
    100-150 hours of vacation time.
    
    Bob 

I'd like to see Digital come up with a policy where vacation hours could
be pooled for those who really need it.  For example, if you have a very
ill child/spouse/parent, or some other type  of family crisis.

Just my two pennies.

Liz

uh...so if I use this logic, I could put my money into a non-interest 
earning savings account and I won't be losing anything???  Or better yet, 
just stick it under my mattress and inflation won't cause a loss?????

		Susan S.

>    <<< Note 3722.4 by ODIXIE::MOREAU "Ken Moreau;Sales Support;South FL" >>>                    -< Set the wayback machine, Sherman..
>
>RE: .0
>
>>     Since Digital will be forcing us to carry 200 vacation hours by
>
>Nit: My understanding of the policy is *not* that Digital will max us out
>at 200 hours (5 weeks), but that the new point for all employees *at which
>time overflow occurs* is 5 weeks.  If you have over 200 hours you won't 
>lose anything, but you can't accumulate more than 200 hours.  Example:

    Re: .12
    
    your logic is very faulty and applies only in situations where an
    employee works just for one year.
    
    in second year employee takes 4 weeks (2 current and 2 from last year)
    vacation and works 48 weeks. Total paid 48+4=52 weeks. In two years
    employee got paid 52 weeks first year and 52 second year. same holds
    true for subsequent years.

    Yes, I agree. I can make the decision for myself on whether or not I
    need time off. I'm taking a 4 day weekend starting tonight through
    Tuesday. I need it. At other times, I go a year or more with only a day
    here and there. What I would like would be the option of selling back 3
    weeks to the company. I would then be able to take a week for a "real
    vacation" and go somewhere. Even if it's only to the ocean or the
    mountains for a week. I would still have a week left for "emergency" or
    mental health days. Other compnaies do and others don't and I never saw
    the wisdom of not doing it. So I get a little extra pay each year. So
    what? I'm healthier for taking the time and actually relaxing. As it
    stands now, I'm always over 200 hours and at times, close to 300 hours.
    I'll not take a whole week off as I can't do much more then hang around
    the house or take day trips to the beach or the mountains. I'd like to
    go somewhere and be able to afford it. With the way morale is and with
    lots of benefits and perks being cut or done away with, this would be a
    nice morale booster and would cost the company all that much. Less as
    head count continues to reduce.
    
    Bright Blessings,
    
    PJ

    
    
      My recommendation is that you forward your proposal to Palmer.  This is
      a company wide problem.  
    
      I was at a meeting recently, where several people proposed almost exactly
      what you proposed.  Buy the vacation time back by issuing extra ckecks.
      Stock was also mentioned.
    
      Grapevine feedback is that they won't buy it.  The price tag is too
      high.  
     
      Have a nice extended vacation this summer/fall.  I'll be right with
      you.
    
      Nice try.
    
      Regards,
    
      bt  

    
    The last company I worked for allowed you to sell back all but one 
    week of your vacation time at the begining of each calendar year.
    This was their way of saying, "yes, you must take some vacation--
    it's good for you and the company."  
    
    
    Dave
    

     GAUD SAKES !!!  Glad I don't work for the author of .1
    
    

Boy this topic is hopping!

RE: .12

>    Studies have shown that workers who take their vacation hours, 
>    on average, are more productive and less stressed-out than those who 
     ^^^^^^^^^^

I have never failed to be amazed at people who take some study or other
which shows that 50.000000001% of the group studied showed some trait to a
greater or lesser extent, and immediately state that 100% of the group all 
show this trait in its strongest possible form.

I agree that many (perhaps most) people enjoy vacations from their job.  I 
would even go further and state that many (perhaps most) people *need* their
vacations in order to be productive and healthy people at their job.

*BUT*, this does ***NOT*** mean that *EVERY* person in the world absolutely
*MUST* take 2 weeks of vacation *EVERY YEAR* or they will go stark raving
mad, and either commit suicide due to depression or pick up an Uzi and see
how many of their fellow workers they can force to take their vacations in
the intensive care ward of the local hospital.

Notice the words in your sentence: "on average".  The bell curve states that
most people fit your model, but there are those of us on the ends who do
*not* fit your model.  Some people need dramatically more vacation time than
the norm, and some people need dramatically less...

>    hoard their vacation time.  The point of providing vacation is to get
>    employees away from work for awhile.  Any program paying for the
>    relinguishment of vacation time runs counter to the fundamental
>    business reason for having vacation time in the first place. 
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The *only* business reason that companies provide vacation benefits is 
because they would be unable to attract and hold good people if they did 
not.  For most people (and notice I did not say all), extra vacation time 
is a benefit and something desirable.  Therefore, companies which do not 
offer a vacation plan would find it difficult to hire those people, and 
would then be non-competitive with other companies who utilize those people's 
skills (at least, during the brief time they are not on vacation :^)).
    
>      (Digital gets 2 more weeks of work but research indicates you get
>      more out of the person who only works 50 weeks but takes time off than
>      the person who works all 52 weeks on average).

Again you are grossly generalizing, and stating that what is true (to a 
greater or lesser extent) for some must is completely true for all.  There 
are exceptions to every rule, and there are a few people who do not fit your
model.  Healthy, happy people with healthy and happy families, who simply
don't fit your narrow restrictive idea about what people should be.
    
I can hear the comments now: "Boy, if he feels like that then this guy really 
needs a vacation".  Sorry, I don't buy it.  I am extremely fortunate in the
fact that I *like* my job.  Sure, some days are better than other days (and
the last few weeks and the next couple of weeks promise to be killers), but
I enjoy what I do.  I further enjoy my family and my hobbies, and I will be
im-modest enough to state that I have a very good relationship with my wife
and 2 kids.  I am fortunate enough to live in an area of the country which
we really enjoy, and lets us do things together in the evenings and weekends.

In short, what I am doing works, and has worked for many (20+) years.  I have 
no interest in forcing other people to change their way of living (ie, I don't
insist that other people skip their vacations) and I get really ticked off 
with people who demand that I change my way of living (ie, to take what they
call "vacations" from what they insist is my drab and wretched life at work).

-- Ken Moreau
   who has 310+ hours of vacation at last count, and has no plans to take it

    
    	Living in Chicago (it's like 12 degrees F out) and,
     if I lived where Ken does (read -1), I would give a ditz if I ever
    had a vacation. I'd be living one. 
    
    	Still, all-in-all, good points nonetheless.
    
    
    		the Greyhawk ;-))))
    
    	

RE: .18

>uh...so if I use this logic, I could put my money into a non-interest 
>earning savings account and I won't be losing anything???  Or better yet, 
>just stick it under my mattress and inflation won't cause a loss?????

No, what I meant to counter was the rumor that as of 1-Jan-1996 we would
lose all vacation time over 200 hours.  That is, I would have 320 hours
accumulated on 31-Dec-1995 and 200 hours on 1-Jan-1996.

Thankfully, this rumor is false, and it will work the way I stated.

-- Ken Moreau

One thing the company might consider doing is (within reason) allowing
employees to "buy" additional vacation (maybe up to 2x) in addition
to "selling" it.  It might well effectively balance out between different
people, and people at different points in their lives.

    did I misunderstand the rule?
    
    I thought that, as of Jan 1, '96, employees would not be able to carry
    any more vacation time than 1 times their annual accrual.  So if you
    got 2 weeks per year, you would lose any accrued vacation over 80 hours
    after Jan 1.  If you got 4 weeks per year, you could go into '96 with
    160 hours, etc.  
    
    Question... if a fella (or gal :) retires, does the fella or gal get
    paid for unused vacation?
    
    tony

    Not quite. Quoting from the mail I received on the subject a little
    over a year ago:
    
    
The pertinent section from the Orange Book is as follows:

| Effective January 1996, the Vacation Policy will be revised to
| establish a 5 week maximum on unused vacation for all employees,
| regardless of their years of service.

| As with the current policy, accrual vacation hours will stop when
| the maximum is reached.  It will resume when vacation hours are
| taken and unused hours drop below the maximum.
    

    
    Re various threads here....
    
    1) So, if you *don't* take an extended break, then you are less likely
    to get TSFOd ? Come on..... Take the break - at least you'll be in a
    better state of mind.
    
    2) In the UK, we are allowed to carry forward a max of 5 days unused
    vacation into the following year. Max entitlement at any one time is
    this years total, plus 5 from last year. The rest is 'use it or lose
    it'. [please, no rathole about differences in UK / US vacation...]
    
    3) Do the SLT take vacation ? Does the company stop when they are away
    ? [again, please no rathole about stock/options..]. 
    
    At a previous employer, who had a *crazy* work centred culture, I made
    sure that my guys took vacation - on the basis that if they couldn't
    get their *real* priorites in order (..family ?.. physical wellbeing
    ?), then they were probably too dumb to be on my projects. Regardless
    of how technically good they were. We always hit deadlines. And,
    amazingly, the world carried on turning when people went away.
    
    Rgds,
    
    AW
     

    
     Well, you all have some interesting points. I have been most amused
    and delightedd with the feedback generated so far. If you don't object
    I will be collecting some more input and forwarding it up the food
    chain. I would like to try and make something happen with this since
    "this is not just one persons idea". For whatever reasons we have, it
    seems that a bunch of us can use this option.
    
     A thread earlier had stated "too costly". Well figures can always
    be examined in a favorable way. It is the presentation of those
    figures.
    
     Other threads mention the need for "balance" in the time off schedule.
    Well balance is a personal thing. So is this idea, it is a personal
    option.
    
     A big factor in my asking this of my company is that I feel I have
    something to offer my company. I am an employee who is working, when
    I work you make cash. Keep me working. Again, to some of us the
    value of this statement might not apply. So perhaps the company needs
    to have some conditonal qualifications or models. Personally I'll start
    with the KISS method. But we know, when we talk cash, we talk empires
    at work!
    
    -Mike Z.

    re. various comments on cost to company
    
    I'm no expert in HR or accounting but I'm a little confused about the
    implicit assumption throughout this thread that buying vacation costs
    the company more money than me taking holiday. Surely the company will 
    save money:
    
    I'm employed, say, for 10 days for $100 and get 1 day of this in
    holiday. Therefore, the comany values my time at $11.11 per day worked.
    
    Now, I don't take my holiday and so the company gives me the cash
    (100/10) =$10 and I work the day. The company has now received an extra
    day, worth $11.11, for only $10. Or, another way, they get 10 days for
    $110 = $11 per day. Either way they benefit.
    
    Obviously, if I work my holiday for nothing they get more. But, then I
    could achieve the same effect by putting some of my salary directly into
    Digital's bank account.
    
    Mike.
                                         

Read this note and replies last night and when I woke up this morning I
felt compelled to reply myself.

First off I would like to reply to .4 & .31. Then I have another comment
as well.

re .4 & .31

> Nit: My understanding of the policy is *not* that Digital will max us out
> at 200 hours (5 weeks), but that the new point for all employees *at which
> time overflow occurs* is 5 weeks.  If you have over 200 hours you won't 
> lose anything, but you can't accumulate more than 200 hours.  Example:

>    Today's policy:
>	You have 320 hours accumulated today (max'ed out)
>	You take 8 hours of vacation, you now have 312 hours, and begin
>		accumulating time to get back to the max of 320

>    New policy:
>	You have 320 hours accumulated today (max'ed out)
>	You take 8 hours of vacation, you now have 312 hours, and are
>		stuck there: you are overflowing at 312 hours
>	You take 120 hours of vacation, you now have 192 hours, and begin
>		accumulating time to get back to the max of 200
    
    
> The pertinent section from the Orange Book is as follows:

> | Effective January 1996, the Vacation Policy will be revised to
> | establish a 5 week maximum on unused vacation for all employees,
> | regardless of their years of service.

> | As with the current policy, accrual vacation hours will stop when
> | the maximum is reached.  It will resume when vacation hours are
> | taken and unused hours drop below the maximum.
    
Does this mean if you have over 200 hours JAN 1, 1996 you won't
accrue any new hours?  Or am I not interpreting this correctly?  If so,
then you may not lose the hours over 200 but you surely won't be gaining
any either.

The second point is to consider a person like myself who is a consultant
for the company and is billing hours (i.e., revenue).  I have been
under the impression from my bosses over the years that quarterly and
then yearly revenue is good.  If I took two or more weeks vacation in
a given quarter that might not be good for the budget as well as for
my customer who likes me on-site as much as possible.  Note, I have
been trying to use up my vacation time in a reasonable fashion since
last year.  I would appreciate some comments.


                      

    
    I for one would like to have this option of selling back vacation time
    that I have accumulated.  On a cash flow standpoint, I can see why the
    company would not want to do it though.  If 20,000 employees decided to
    cash in their vacation (say 4 weeks each) and the average weekly wage
    is $650.00, the company would take a cash flow hit of $52,000,000. 
    Since you would be working, cashing in vacation would result in an
    extra paycheck.
    
    I may be amiss in my thinking however if they are required to keep the
    cash on hand to pay for vacation time accumulated.  This seems probable
    since they set the new policy to try to get employees to take vacation
    time throughout the year.  Supposedly this happened because many of us 
    accumulated vacation at one salary rate but saved it and begin taking 
    it at a higher salary rate.  Thus the accumulated vacation is shown as
    a liability on our books. 
    
    My remedy is to limit each employee to selling one week of vacation
    each quarter.  If they would do it this way some people might decide
    that selling one week is just not enough cash to forfeit the week of
    vacation and take the vacation instead.  If the same 20,000 employees
    did sell their vacation under this method the same $52,000,000 hit
    would be reduced to $13,000,000 per quarter; $52,000.000 could still be
    realized over the course of a year. 
    
     Please bear in mind that I just pulled these numbers out of thin air
    and they may or may not have any basis in reality. 
    
    
    Ken 

    I have submitted suggestions to the Corp Bennies group thru formal
    channels and never got anywhere.  One thing was clear and that is the
    company wants all employees to take at least two weeks off.  So I have
    suggested that for those employees who earn more than two weeks
    vacation per year have the flexibilty to cash in by taking cash or
    having that extra time turned into cash which would be dumped into the
    stock purchase plan.  I liked the stock plan since one would be trading
    one benefit for another. 
    
    Dave

    re: .-1
    
    That's the type of option I've seen other places;
    
    For example, as I recall GE allows "cashing in" vacation in excess of 
    three weeks with the proceeds deposited into their equivalent of SAVE.
    
    Of course they had a yearly use it or loose it vacation plan, too.
    
    Dave

    
>    your logic is very faulty and applies only in situations where an
>    employee works just for one year.
 
    I was not providing logic in .12 ... it was basic accounting and it was
    correct.  From an accounting perspective carrying over vacation costs
    Digital more in that fiscal year than taking vacation.
     
      
    
>    in second year employee takes 4 weeks (2 current and 2 from last year)
>    vacation and works 48 weeks. Total paid 48+4=52 weeks. In two years
>    employee got paid 52 weeks first year and 52 second year. same holds
>    true for subsequent years.
    
    We're showing the same example in slightly different form here ... you just
    lengthened the time frame out to two years.  If after two years the
    vacation bucket is zeroed out it is essentially a wash.  
    
    However that is not the cases we're talking about.  We're talking about
    people who have worked their balances up to 200 or 300 hours ... they
    are not zeroing out their vacation balances .. over time this increases
    Digital's liability for vacation ... a liability that grows until they
    retire, quit, or get kicked out. 
    
    I am not judging this to be good or bad just stating that it is what is
    occuring because of our policy.
    

        It strikes  me that a fundamental changing in thought regarding
        vacation time is called for.
        
        Background:  I'm  A  Scot  who  has  worked  for  European  and
        American companies in the US and in Europe/Middle East.
        
        In the UK, for example, mobility is encouraged - "Silicon Glen"
        in  Scotland  had  around 7 high-tech companies and people were
        encouraged  to  move  on  (if  they  wanted  to)  to  the other
        high-techs to  gain experience and were always welcomed back to
        the original company  bringing  value  with them.  It was never
        detrimental to leave to gain experience.
        
        Now, in the US,  it  feels  to  me  that  "company loyalty" was
        paramount, in that the longer  you  stayed  the  better it got.
        You start at minimal vacation,  and  over  the  years gradually
        build up to some  useful hours encouraging the employee to stay
        with  the "parent" company.  You also start  with  no  vacation
        time when entering employment and accumulate time over the year
        in  small  increments usually based on an hourly rate per  week
        worked.  This model was OK (and only just OK) when the prospect
        of long-term  employment  with  the  same company was the norm.
        That norm is severely broken today.
        
        In UK.  you generally have in  the order of 4 weeks of vacation
        available  to  you on day 1 of your  employment  (or  at  least
        shortly  thereafter)  or  pro-rated if the company runs on  the
        calendar year vacation timetable with mostly no carry-over from
        vacation year  end which means that when you move on to another
        company, you don't "lose" vacation time - you simply start with
        the new company with ~4 weeks  of vacation time per year as the
        accepted  baseline.  Seniority does add vacation  time  to  the
        basic vacation allotment.
        
        Given the patent  loss  of  long-term/life employment prospects
        with American companies, doesn't the UK model make more sense?
        (At least to the employee! :^)
        
        Andy
        

    
>>    Studies have shown that workers who take their vacation hours, 
>>    on average, are more productive and less stressed-out than those who 
>     ^^^^^^^^^^
>
> I have never failed to be amazed at people who take some study or other
> which shows that 50.000000001% of the group studied showed some trait to a
> greater or lesser extent, and immediately state that 100% of the group all 
> show this trait in its strongest possible form.
>
>                   ....
>
> Notice the words in your sentence: "on average".  The bell curve states that
> most people fit your model, but there are those of us on the ends who do
> *not* fit your model.  Some people need dramatically more vacation time than
> the norm, and some people need dramatically less...
    
    my model?  I have not said what I would do if I was the head honcho.  I
    just shared what I read about research into vacation.
    
    Do I believe that needs vary from person to person?  Absolutely (BTW I
    was sure to use the words on average and not to speak in absolutes).  Do
    I believe that a standard policy must be implemented even given the
    individual differences?  Sure do.  Any policy about personel has the
    same issue ... should Digital have rules about training, reviews,
    training requirements, salary planning?  absolutely even though every
    employees needs vary on each of those issues.            
    
    If I were boss I would try to generate rules that had some flexibilty
    but that were grounded in facts about what are the general rules for
    that issue.  I have worked for 5 different companies and Digital had
    (and still has) the most liberal rules about vacation accrual.  I used
    the work "liberal" because it gave the employee the most flexibility
    and that flexibility comes at a financial cost to Digital (assuming
    our budeting isn't fancy enough to included expected vacation accurual
    into the salary plan for each employee ... a assumption that I would
    guess is quite safe).  If I were the big cheese I would do something
    like ... the first two weeks of vacation each year are use them or
    lose them (ensure everyone has a big incentive to take some time) ... 
    after that I'd do something like pay 50% value for all time left over
    after those 2 weeks.  This way there would be no liability  building up
    over time, vitually everyone would take some vacation, and folks could
    decide for themselves what do with that extra time without just losing
    it (no bucks) or incenting them to skip taking that extra time (full
    pay-off).
    
    Greg
      
                           

    When I originally saw this policy of capping vacation time, one of the
    the problems I was curious about was a situation where an employee is
    over the maximum and their management refuses to allow them to take
    vacation.   It seems like it would be rather shaky legal ground to cap
    the hours, tell people they cannot accumulate additional hours, AND
    refuse to allow them to use the hours they have as the employee deems
    appropriate to reduce their hours below the threshhold.  Seems like it
    would fall under some provision of unfair labor practices...
    
    Didn't the original foolishness cause a whole bunch of people to
    determine they'd need to be gone several months at a crack, which
    caused schedules on several products to be severely impacted, in turn
    causing a change to this "5-weeks on 1/1/96" setup?  Why wouldn't there
    be a bunch that would get to September or October and need to take the
    rest of the year off this time?  
    
    Dave-who-ABSOLUTELY-will-be-below-200-hours...

    re. 38 GE buying vacation
    
    At GE you are allowed to "bank" vacation weeks in excess of three
    weeks.  If you have 5 weeks coming, you can assign the extra 2 weeks to
    your portion (the contributory part) of your retirement.  It does not
    go into any SAVE or similar plan.  You simply invest it in your
    retirement plan.
    
    Since Digital has no contributory plan, I don't see a comparable
    approach.
    
    You are also correct about "use it or lose it" by December 31 each
    year.  I find Digital's plan a lot better; even at 200 hours maximum
    and losing the excess if you haven't taken it by the end of 1995.
                                                        

    It would be wise for all those who will have OVER 200 hours
    on 1 Jan 1996 to realize that those OVER hours will be GONE!
    We have all be told over and over again on our paycheck stubs
    to use it or lose it by 1 Jan 1996.  It is in effect saying
    that we all with close to or over 200 hours will stop accumulating
    vacation hours that we should have been earning by rights when
    any accrual will bring us over 200 hours starting 1 Jan 1996. 
    We will then be giving our company free work time, something 
    that in the past we would have been able to have been paid for
    by taking time off.  Any weekly accrual that happens after 
    1 Jan 1996 that would have happened before if you have 200 
    hours on the books will go into the company's pocket or into
    never-never land.  You will be gifting the company, giving the
    company a bennie, deleting money from YOUR OWN POCKET, or 
    making the company richer.  

    Of course, one could always find one's self another job to start
    1 Jan 1996 and cash out on 31 Dec 1995 with a wad of warm green
    stuff.

    I think France has also started a general system allowing you to 
    transfer excess vacation into a ''retirement savings acount'', which
    actually makes a lot of sense. I don't remember what the ''exchange''
    rate is or how interest is accumulated.

    >Per

Re: .45

No, those "over hours" will not be gone.  You'll just be unable to resume
accumulating more hours until you drop below 200.

				Steve

    Steve,

    BUT, in effect, you have lost them since you cannot accrue any
    more hours until you hit below 200 again!

    justme....jacqui


    p.s.  Explain how one does not LOSE them if one has 350 hours
    	  on 31 Dec 1995 and on 1 Jan 1996 starts with 200 and 
    	  cannot accrue more hours until the rate drops below 200.
    	  Where did the 150 hours go???  Where do the n.nn hours
    	  weekly accrual go???

    re: Note 3722.48 by BIGQ::GARDNER
    
    You won't lose what you've ALREADY accrued, you'll just stop
    accruing more until you're below the 5 week maximum.
    
    Ken....
    

    RE: .48
    
    As I understand it, if you have 350 AVAILABLE hours as of 12/31/95, you
    will still have 350 AVAILABLE hours on 01/01/96. You will still be able
    to take ALL 350 hours during 1996, you just won't accrue additional
    hours until you have reached below 200 hours.
    
    BTW, the last company that my wife worked for had a 'take it or loose
    it' policy regarding vacation. She got 2 weeks a year. She resigned in
    October, having taken 6 out out the 10 possible vacation days at the
    time. When she inquired about the 4 'earned but not used' vacation
    days, she was told that they were pro-rated, and that she would only
    receive 2 days vacation pay. One of her former co-workers resigned
    around the same time, and already taken all 10 days. 
    
    kjg

    I would have LOVED when I first started working for Digital, to be able
    to buy some extra vacation days.  After you take off for all the
    various Jewish holidays, there was never enough time left to go
    anyplace or do anything.  I used to find myself trying to finish
    painting my house in the evenings after work, doing plumbing on Sunday
    afternoons when the hardware store is closed, and generally scrambling
    around trying to fit everything in.  I get more vacation time now, and
    I like to spend some of it traveling.  If you get a long ways from the
    US, you find that most of the foreign travelers are not Americans. 
    They are Germans, Italians, etc. - because anyplace that takes three
    days travel time to get to/from isn't practical for most Americans who
    only get 10 days of vacation time a year!  Sometimes I would definitely
    prefer less in my paycheck, and more leisure time.  It wouldn't even
    cost me that much real money, since I end up paying people to do stuff
    like home maintenance work that I could easily do myself, if I had
    enough time off from work to do it - for what painters and plumbers
    make per hour, I could have a lot of fun!  Don't get me wrong, I like
    my job, love it sometimes, tolerate it nearly always.  But I have a
    life too, and I have a life outside of uninteresting but necessary
    obligations like sitting in the synagogue on Yom Kippur.
    
    /Charlotte

    
>>    As I understand it, if you have 350 AVAILABLE hours as of 12/31/95, you
    will still have 350 AVAILABLE hours on 01/01/96. You will still be able
    to take ALL 350 hours during 1996, you just won't accrue additional
    hours until you have reached below 200 hours.
    
  

    This, then in effect,  tells me that I AM TOO losing those 150 hours
    I should have been accruing in 1996 which means that I am giving the
    company what should be mine.  

    Tell me how I am not.

    justme....jacqui

    
    You aren't losing anything on Jan. 1.  You lose those 150 'potential'
    accrued hours as the year passes and you don't get below the new cap.
    True, if at the end of the year you haven't gotten below the new cap,
    you will have 'lost' all potential accrued hours for the year.  But,
    that is no different that it works today if you are over the cap!
    The only difference is that the cap is much lower (for those with
    significant years of service).
    
    Rich

It is true that if, say, you have been with the company for 5 years, so you
get three weeks (120 hours) per year vacation, that if you're over the
200-hour limit as of Jan 1, 1996, that you'll not earn those three weeks
during 1996 (assuming you don't take any vacation).  This is only a difference
in degree from the current situation where if you had accumulated 240 hours,
you'd not be able to accumulate more.

					Steve

    re .52
    
    >Tell me how I am not
    
    1) Take 151 vacation hours before 1996
    2) keep accumulated vacation hours under 200 from there on
    
    To anticipate: How to take 150 vacation hours between 31/12/95 and
    01/01/96? Ask your travel agent.
    
    Al
    
    

I feel vacation policy at my wife and my previous employer is a lot worst then
Digital.

1) Wife Company - 2 Weeks/year, 3 weeks after 7 years, 4 week after 15 years. 
                  (No banking, use it or lose it). 

2) Previous Company - 2 weeks/year, 3 weeks after 5 years, 4 weeks after 15
                      years. (No banking on the 1st 5 years and you can only 
                      bank the 1 week if you have 3 weeks vacation and 2 
                      weeks if you have 4 weeks vacation)

So I feel the Digital vacation policy is pretty good compare to other Fortune
500 companies. There might be better one out there so if you are not happy with
what is at Digital, then start your search for utopia.

Just my 2 cents,

Dave

re .35
    
>Does this mean if you have over 200 hours JAN 1, 1996 you won't
>accrue any new hours?  Or am I not interpreting this correctly?  If so,
>then you may not lose the hours over 200 but you surely won't be gaining
>any either.

	Yes!  And in this case, not gaining = losing  (unlike stocks, 
	and California real estate, where you only lose when you actually 
	sell).

>The second point is to consider a person like myself who is a consultant
>for the company and is billing hours (i.e., revenue).  I have been
>under the impression from my bosses over the years that quarterly and
>then yearly revenue is good.  If I took two or more weeks vacation in
>a given quarter that might not be good for the budget as well as for
>my customer who likes me on-site as much as possible.  Note, I have
>been trying to use up my vacation time in a reasonable fashion since
>last year.  I would appreciate some comments.

	I'm also a consultant (delivery) and billable time is a metric that 
	can't be met by "older" employees who earn lots of vacation time.
	When I was in Ed Services, one of the metrics was "number of course 
	weeks on platform."  It wasn't possible to be rated anything
	higher than a "3" if you had been around a long time and took all
	the vacation time you earned.  Since there were three other metrics,
	you could argue that the other three could balance out the one low
	rating.  However, one of the other metrics was "number of new 
	courses;" again, if you'd been around a long time, you didn't have
	much to pick up.  If you took your vacation time, you were rated
	lower -- lower raise and more likely to be TFSO'd. 

	I guess the folks arguing the benefits of taking vacation time
	aren't goaled on time spent with customers or don't care about
	making metrics for raises and promotions.  (This is reality -- 
	what "should" happen or is "fair" doesn't apply.)

	The only reason I'm not finding it so difficult to burn off the 
	time now is that I'm getting no training; therefore, my billable
	time is staying high.  Of course, the customer would rather have 
	me around, but as someone else already said, I WILL be below 200
	by 1/1/96.
                    
			Susan S.

re
                       <<< Note 3722.56 by STRATA::HUI >>>
                     -< There are worst Vacation Policy  >-

	And better!  Intel, one of those 10 "most admired" companies used
	to offer three months off after five years with the company.  I
	believe it is now after seven years, but the point is, they 
	recognize the value of giving long-term employees time off to 
	ponder career and personal choices.  Until our new policy, I felt
	that someday I could take an extended vacation, not the same benefit,
	but comparable.

	I've always resented being told to quit complaining because someone
	else is worse off.  It ranks right down there with being "lucky to
	have a job." 

		Susan S.

    Intel's extended vacation time is a nice benefit, but what we are
    talking about here is unused vacation.  I don't know, but I'll bet a
    nickle that Intel won't let you "bank" the 3 months if you choose to
    work instead.  Personally, I think carryover of up to 200 hours is
    generous compared to my experience of zero carryover.

>    Intel's extended vacation time is a nice benefit, but what we are
>    talking about here is unused vacation.  I don't know, but I'll bet a
>    nickle that Intel won't let you "bank" the 3 months if you choose to
>    work instead.  Personally, I think carryover of up to 200 hours is
>    generous compared to my experience of zero carryover.

	It's been awhile since I knew anyone at Intel eligible for the 
	benefit, but at the time, it wasn't a "choice."  You had to take
	the sabbatical.  Take a class, travel around the world, write a 
	book, whatever.  And, no, it wasn't "bankable."  The point is, we
	at Digital no longer have a way to take extended time off.  I 
	wouldn't care how we got the time -- sabbatical or accrual.

	Other companies in Silicon Valley even buy back unused sick time/
	personal time at the end of the year.

	Sorry your experiences have been so bad.  I haven't been treated 
	like that since my youth when I worked in a bank.  Talk about 
	sweat shops!

		Susan S. (been here long enough to remember the good times)

    I think I can solve the problem  of this unused vacation time.  Let me
    take it.  I could use it up and the company does not loose any money by
    any carry-overs from year to year and those of you who do not want to
    take all of your vacation yourselves will not have on the books to be
    concerned about.
    
    	I will probably have to clear this with my manager.  Since it will
    be good for the company and employees how could he turn it down.
    
    Regards,
    
    Kenley

    
    At Intel you must use your sabbatical in the year after your 7th, or
    you lose it. You can not accrue vacation there, either.

    I don't see the problem here. When the exalted leadership committee
    announced the change in vacation policy I asked my manager which
    quarter in 1995 I should take off (I have been here a long time). If
    they can't do without me then let me accumulate vacation as before.
    TFSO is a completely random act now, it doesn't matter what you do or
    don't do, whether you are at work or not. So being a good corporate
    citizen, I am doing the balance sheet a favour, working down my
    accumulated vacation hours, cashing in my frequent flyer miles and
    going to Australia for the rest of March.
    
    G'dday, mates!

RE: general

For more historical references, and an expansion of this discussion, check
out note 1468.*.

RE: .61 -< ??Can I take your unused vacation?? >-

Yes.

If you can figure out a way to get Digital to transfer vacation time from
one employee to another, then as payment for your effort I will *give* you
2 weeks of my vacation time.  Of course, scheduling your vacation time is
still between you and your manager, but you will have the time on the books.

You may have been joking: I am not.  If you will check back in 167.*, you
will find that I made this proposal as well.  Allow me to transfer some
of my vacation time to another Digital employee, with any arrangement for
payment done privately between myself and them (ie, Digital is not involved 
in any way).

I have had multiple occassions where good friends at Digital *needed* to 
take some time: sick parents/children, spouse going somewhere really cool 
on a business trip and they wanted to go, etc.  Often they had already used
up their vacation time, and had the choice between missing the event or 
missing lots of money by taking unpaid leave.  If I could have done so, I
would have simply transferred a week or two of my time to them.  I would
never have missed it, since it would merely have put me below the overflow
point, and they would have benefitted greatly.  

When I proposed this, I was turned down because "there would be many people
trying to buy vacation and too few selling it, and so it wouldn't be fair".
Hmm, sounded like the workings of a free economy in a capitalist system to
me: just the way Digital does business in many countries of the world. So
I guess they are right, it wouldn't be fair to do it that way. :^)

-- Ken Moreau

P.S. I am disturbed by how many times people have asked the question about
     what happens to the accumulated hours over 200 on 1-Jan-1996.  Several
     people have answered the question multiple times each, and new people
     keep asking the question.  Doesn't anybody read starting at .0 through
     .LAST before writing a reply?

>    I think I can solve the problem  of this unused vacation time.  Let me
>    take it.  I could use it up and the company does not loose any money by
>    any carry-overs from year to year and those of you who do not want to
>    take all of your vacation yourselves will not have on the books to be
>    concerned about.
>    
>        I will probably have to clear this with my manager.  Since it will
>    be good for the company and employees how could he turn it down.

Since you're taking on so much new responsibility, make sure they
promote you.   How does "VP of Vacations" sound to you?

    re:64 Yes I was kidding.  This string has been serious to long I
    thought I would add something different.  But I do think transfering
    vacation to another employee for compassionate reasons is a socially
    responsible thing to do.
    
    re:65 With the way VP rankings are handed out in this company I am sure
    it would be easy to get a "VP of Vacations" 8^)
    
    have a good weekend,
    
    Kenley

    What's with all this talk about trading/transferring/pooling
    vacation time from one employee to another? I don't get it? I
    don't mean to sound cold and uncaring, but my vacation time is a
    company benefit that I worked for and earned, just like my
    paycheck, the employee stock purchase program, the save plan, etc.
    I mean, would someone like to transfer some excess Digital stock,
    I could use some more. ;-)

    If we're talking about buying and selling vacation time between
    employees, I don't get that either. 

    Using the example giving earlier about an employee needing extra
    time for that special vacation, If an employee could afford to buy
    extra vacation time from another employee, then they could afford
    to take an unpaid leave of absence. 

    Using the example of an employee who needs some time for some
    humanitarian/hardship reason and you feel so strongly about them
    and their cause or situation, then give them one of your other
    benefits that is more liquid, like a portion of your pay check.

    I too would like to sell back some extra vacation time TO DIGITAL,
    but I dout that this is going to happen. And BTW... I have plenty
    to sell given the opportunity.

    And people... this change in the vacation accrual policy was
    announced quite awhile back so that we would have time to "plan"
    to use the excess time wisely, before the 11th hour rolled around
    and everybody "has" to take off most of Q2 FY'96. Now that should
    be a SPECTACULAR quarter :-(

    Charly

    well, just to avoid the risk and confusion of it all... I've already
    put in for vacation.. the entire month of July and first week of
    August.  Gonna spend the first four weeks in my log home in Vt...
    fixing up and enjoying life,, and the August week a a Barbershop
    Harmony College in Missouri.  Then I've also put in for a week in
    November, a week in December, and a few days here and there.  All in
    all, I've arranged to take a total of nine weeks vacation between now
    and the end of the year.
    
    I deserve it and I'm gonna enjoy it!  
    
    tony

> 
>    Using the example giving earlier about an employee needing extra
>    time for that special vacation, If an employee could afford to buy
>    extra vacation time from another employee, then they could afford
>    to take an unpaid leave of absence. 

Yes, except that I don't think DEC lets you take unpaid leave-of-absence
just when you feel like it -- you have to give a reason, surely?  Maybe
"once" for "that special vacation", but surely not on a recurring basis.

Whereas, assuming you followed whatever guidelines would be in place for 
dealing on the vacation market, once you'd acquired the vacation you
could presumably use it just like vacation time.

--

(Actually, I'm not sure how the exchange rate for vacation would
 work.  Suppose I earn $2N per week, and I buy some vacation time
 from someone who earns $N per week.  In giving him his vacation week,
 DEC is 'forgoing' $N worth of work by their terms.  If I buy a week
 at $N, he breaks even.  I gain $N (the week would have cost me $2N
 as unpaid leave).  DEC loses $N, since it's getting an extra week
 worth $N but losing a week worth $2N.   If I pay him $2N, he gains,
 I break even, and DEC still loses.  For everyone to break even, I'd
 have to give him $N and give DEC $N.)

RE: .69 (dealing with different levels of pay for the same week of vacation)

Several points:

1) What you say is of course true, in that the salary range among different
   people in this company can be many times 2n.

2) People in the same group tend to have very similar salaries.  There are
   very few Sales Support I and II people in my group, and even fewer VPs.
   Therefore, the differences between the high and low salaries among my
   peers is probably less than $25K/year, or $500/week.  I am guessing
   here, because I have no more information about exact salaries among my
   peers than you do, but since we have all approximately the same title(s),
   and all have approximately the same time-in-grade, I am assuming that
   the salary differential is not more than this.  We certainly do not 
   have anyone in our group earning less than $25K or more than $200K.  I
   am not counting secretaries (who tend to have very poor salaries relative
   to their importance and contribution) since we have TFSO'd most of them.

3) The only people I would tend to give my vacation to would be people I
   know, who tend to be people in my current or past groups.  That is, all
   people whom I would tend to give my vacation to would match point 2 above.

4) This is not going to be a high volume situation.  A week here, a week
   there, I think the actual amount of trading will be small.

5) It could as easily *benefit* Digital as hurt Digital.  If a Consultant II
   gives a week to a Consultant I, it will cost Digital *less* than if the
   Consultant II took that week.  In a homogenous group like most of those
   in this company, it will tend to balance out.

Therefore, given the above, the financial impact of this plan is miniscule.


RE: .67

>    I don't mean to sound cold and uncaring, but my vacation time is a
>    company benefit that I worked for and earned, just like my
>    paycheck, the employee stock purchase program, the save plan, etc.

and

>    Using the example of an employee who needs some time for some
>    humanitarian/hardship reason and you feel so strongly about them
>    and their cause or situation, then give them one of your other
>    benefits that is more liquid, like a portion of your pay check.

So you are saying (in the first paragraph) that my vacation time is something
which I cannot give away, while in the second you are advocating that I do
give away another of my company benefits (my paycheck).  Fascinating logic.

By the way, in the case I mentioned and you referenced, I *did* give them
one of my other benefits that is more liquid: a portion of my paycheck.
In one case there was a clearly defined way for that to occur.  All I am
saying is that I want a clearly defined way for the other to occur.  It
is strictly my decision in both cases as to whether to transfer an asset
from myself to another person.

>    Using the example giving earlier about an employee needing extra
>    time for that special vacation, If an employee could afford to buy
>    extra vacation time from another employee, then they could afford
>    to take an unpaid leave of absence. 

Sure they could have, but the combination of the extra expenses for the
vacation *plus* the loss of salary was just too much.  It was an (incorrect)
assumption on your part that they would have paid me for the transfer.  As I 
said in my original note on this subject: "Any financial arrangement between 
me and the other party is strictly between us, Digital is not involved".  In
the case I am thinking of, my "payment" would have been a kilo of very fine 
dark chocolate, which I got anyway from the one person who did go...

-- Ken Moreau

    I'm amazed that you only get ten days holiday in the USA. Here in
    England we get 25 days !!! I was talking to a colleague in France last
    year and he was taking FIVE WEEKS holiday all at once to go to the
    south of France <envy>.
    
    Of course Americans are paid much better than anyone else (ducks to
    avoid shower of missiles).             :-)
    
    Dave
    

>                      <<< Note 3722.1 by MSDOA::SCRIVEN >>>
>                        -< And whose fault is that???? >-

>    but it's not Digital's fault...
    
Doesn't matter...

The reality is that not everyone has used their time, a large portion 
of our population receives four weeks vacation a year, and management 
has never been good at making people take time off--especially while 
we we've been downsizing.  I've been trying to get upper management in 
my org. to deal w this for quite some time. Reality is that this 
*will* hurt projects and our business. A buy-back program seems like 
a win-win solution.

    Managing vacation time is not the sole responsibility of the manager.
    
    This change has been out for a long time. With the exception of the
    most extreme exception, it's simply a matter of being responsible
    for your own vacation time. You get to look at your accrual weekly.
    
    The alternatives (selling) would fly in the face of the current
    economical strategy (especially this quarter).
    
    Chip

    Think they'd let me trade two or three weeks of vacation for a PC?
    I'd go for that!

    
     re -.1
    
    >>> Think they'd let me trade two or three weeks of vacation for a PC?
    
    
    Hmmmmmmmm, have to use this one! We will incorporate "equipment" into
    the wish list. PeeCees, MACs, Vaxen, Alphaens, and Rainbows for those
    of you who still cannot get over it.
       
    -Mike Z.
    
    Vaction time *still* for sale, interested?

  RE: .74 & .75 - Suggested to SLT on 3/17/94, last response 3/24/94 ...

    Keep the equipment. I don't have a computer at home and have no use for
    one at home. I would still like to be able to sell my vacation time
    back to the company. I would still like to take a "real" vacation
    somewhere and I'll never be able to afford it at current salary. I
    don't see it increasing substantially anytime in the near future
    either. If the company wants me to rest and relax and come back
    refreshed, then giving me time to hang around the house ain't gonna do
    it. A week crosscountry skiing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire
    and staying at a condo or lodge or B&B would do it. 3 or 4 weeks extra
    pay would just about cover the cost with a companion sharing
    incidentals like food and such. This would be a real benefit. 
    
    How about proposing it as a one time thing, so that those of us who
    want to get under 200 hours stand a good chance of doing so. Only don't
    limit it to just bringing us down to 200, to be affective and enticing
    to people, it needs to be at least 3 or 4 weeks. It could be held open
    for a year or so, that way not everyone would take it at once and it
    would have minimal impact upon both the corporation (Lost time-wise
    anyway) and the employees. (Those who choose not to take adavantage of
    such a program)
    
    Bright Blessings,
    
    PJ

    
    
    What prevents good ideas like this one from becoming a reality
    is the fact that implementation is outside the normal processes[1]
    of this company.
    
    What is needed is a plausible plan, a knight[2] on a white horse to
    promote and hobnob with the PTB[3] to move to implementation.
    
    I for one, do not know how vacation dollars are treated, on what 
    ledger line they live and how they get 'spent'. If someone is 
    knowledgeable about all this and can retrofit a new process of
    Dollars for Hours (DFH)[4] then it has a chance of becoming a reality.
    
    Further, we need to show the PTB that by doing so (DFH) we have 
    helped the company.  
    
    So, any takers? 
    jc
    p.s. How can I help?  
    -------------------------------------------------------------------
    [1] - Hold those thoughts on 'normal processes' :-)
    [2] - Digital Expression #23 ( includes Lancelots and Joans )
    [3] - Powers That Be
    [4] - Simple, easy to say, easy to reference acronym provided
          but subject to change. Eg. "So Bob[5], what do you think
          of the DFH?"
    [5] - Generic 'Bob' used here. Any resemblance to persons named
          Bob is unintentional. 
    
      

re: .78

>    [5] - Generic 'Bob' used here. Any resemblance to persons named
>          Bob is unintentional. 

Whew.  I thought you were talking about me:-)

Bob

    re:   Note 3722.78 by MEMIT::CIUFFINI "God must be a Gemini..." 

)    I for one, do not know how vacation dollars are treated, on what 
)    ledger line they live and how they get 'spent'. If someone is 
)    knowledgeable about all this and can retrofit a new process of
)    Dollars for Hours (DFH)[4] then it has a chance of becoming a reality.
)    
)    Further, we need to show the PTB that by doing so (DFH) we have 
)    helped the company. 


    If Digital did offer to buy vacation time from employees it would
    effect Digital's cash on hand while reducing some vacation time owed 
    liability.  It wouldn't make a difference to profit.  However I don't 
    think Digital has any extra cash that they want to be paying out right 
    now. I don't think you will have any chance of talking the powers that 
    be into buying back vacation time. 

    -Bruce   

    
    
    Why should Digital buy back any vacation time when at the end of the
    
    year you will lose what ever is in excess of what is aloud.
    
                               Nuff said.
    

    
    RE: -1

    	I think you should re-read the vacation time accrual policy
    that goes into effect on 1/1/96.  

    Nuff said

It's been stated MANY times in here that you will NOT lose any time you have 
already accumulated, even if it's over the 200 hour cap. You will only stop 
getting any NEW time until you are below 200 hours. If you are at 300 hours 
on 12/31/95, you will still be at 300 hours on 1/1/96, 2/1/96, 3/1/96, 
12/1/96, 1/1/97, etc., unless you take the time off. 

I and many of my co-workers have not taken off more that a day here or there 
in over 3 years. I've been sitting at 320 hours for over 6 months, and 
probably will continue to be sitting there the rest of this year and well 
into next. I'd love to sell back some time so I can at least get some $$$ 
for all the lost vacation time... 'cause I see no way to actually use any of 
it in the near future....

Arlan

    
    Re: .79  Bob, I was thinking of another 'Bob' but he is no longer 
             with us.
    
        .80  Cash on Hand and what Digital is willing to spend are two
             separate issues. If I had just $1 for each move per person 
             in the last two years, I could probably retire now. 
        
    Look, it is a _good_ idea. Perhaps it is time for Digital (formerly DEC)
    to trade money for vacation time.
    
    What would the plan look like?  ( these are all arbitrary and you are
    welcome to stow thrones or throw stones as desired. ) 
     
    a. Max of three weeks to trade  ?
    
    b. Traded by September 15, 1995 ?  
    
    c. Each week is recorded on a standard time card, marked with a special
      'EXTRA VACATION' marking for A/P. An EXTRA VACATION time card is
       submitted on per week.  
    
    d. Each week trades for 75% or 80% of a normal week's salary ? ( carrot ) 
    
    e. A plan ? 
     
    
    jc  

    but...but...but, isn't NOT accruing NEW time until you have used
    up OLD time the same as losing vacation time!  Figure it out this
    way folks...if you sit at 200 hours 1 Jan 1996 when 31 Dec 1995 
    you had 360, when will you start accruing new vacation time?

    

    If you were siting at 360 hours on 31-Dec-1995, then you'll still have
    360 hours on 01-jan-1996........ DUH!!
    
    Digital won't TAKE ANY AWAY, you just will no longer ACCRUE your 3.54
    (or whatever) hours per week until you get below 200.....		
    
    CLEARER!!!!???
    
    JPs

    No, if you site at 360 on 31-Dec-1995, you'll still be at 360 on
    1-Jan-1996.  What is so hard about this?  You won't start getting
    more vacation until you are below 200, but you'll have to take
    vacation to get below.  Nobody is taking it away from you.
    
    				-John

    
    	In essence Digital is charging you for not being below 200 hours at
    the rate of whatever you accrue per week times you hourly rate.

    Joe

    To me, if I stop acrueing vacation at any point, for any reason, it
    means that I am giving up (read that... LOSING) vacation.  My job
    explicitly entitles me to a certain number of vacation hours per
    period.  If I fail to take them, I accrue them.  If I reach a limit on
    accrued, I stop accrueing... therefor, I LOSE the possibility of ever
    taking those hours.  You can call it what you want... it's still a
    loss. 
    
    therefore, I plan on taking appripriate numbers of hours vacation prior
    to Jan 1 to avoid any possibility of the accrual stopping.
    
    tony

    
    	Which is what many of us have been saying all along, Tony -
    
    	To paraphrase "Just Do It."
    
    		the Greyhawk

    re .83:
    
>I and many of my co-workers have not taken off more that a day here or there 
>in over 3 years. I've been sitting at 320 hours for over 6 months, and 
>probably will continue to be sitting there the rest of this year and well 
>into next. I'd love to sell back some time so I can at least get some $$$ 
>for all the lost vacation time... 'cause I see no way to actually use any of 
>it in the near future....
    
    I'm curious why this would occur...  If you aren't being allowed to
    take your vacation time - and evidently this has been going on for
    "over 3 years", why?  Is it a personal decision, or is the COMPANY
    refusing to let you take the time off?  If personal, I don't have a
    problem with not accruing any additional vacation time - there's been
    plenty of warning to people to use their time.  BUT, if your management
    is refusing to let you or your co-workers use their accrued time, this
    seems a VERY different problem.  And one that should be addressed...
    
    Personally, it sounds to me like all you folks that are over the limit,
    need to take a whole BUNCH of time off between now and the end of the
    year.  AND keep taking everything necessary EVERY YEAR until this
    ludicrous, draconian policy gets changed to something more reasonable. 
    There's a WHOLE lot more to life than working.  Get out and enjoy it.

    re:  .89

    Tony,

    THANKS, you've backed up what I have been trying to get across
    all along!   It is a LOSS!   Wake up folks and smell the ....
    that being passed off as coffee!

    justme

    Hey folks!  When you signed on with Digital you agreed to the vacation
    policy along with all the rest. 
    
    When you accrue to the max. - you stop accrueing until >>YOU<< bring
    your hours back down below the max.  Don't blame anyone but yourself if
    you're not clever enough to work in some vacation time.
    
    Get on with it ..... take Friday off!
    
    Gesh!

    You agreed to that as well when you entered employment with Digital.
    
    				-John

    re: Note 3722.92 by BIGQ::GARDNER 

*    THANKS, you've backed up what I have been trying to get across
*    all along!   It is a LOSS!   Wake up folks and smell the ....
*    that being passed off as coffee!

    Well, you started out by saying you would lose all vacation hours 
    over 200 on 1/1/96.  Then your current argument about losing vacation
    time, which you will lose only if after a two+ year warning you couldn't
    get down to under 200 hrs.  I took 220 hrs last year and will have to 
    take another 200 or so this year so that I will be around 160 hours
    by 1/1/96.  Anyone that looses vacation time should blame themselves 
    not accuse Digital of taking it away from them.  All Digital did was
    reduce the amount of time one could accrue. 

    Just my opinion.

    -Bruce

    ps. If anyone is going to reply with they would let me take the time
        off and won't honor it in some way, all I can say is I feel sorry 
        for you. My manager sent me a message in January telling me to make
        sure I take five weeks of vacation this year.   

Arlan,

I've been at Digital more than 10 years in the US.  As a consequence, I am paid
3.08 hours of vacation that I can bank to use as I choose so long as I do not
exceed 320 hours unused.

In essence, I am paid 43.08 hours per week for every work week.  It happens
that I can use this excess 3.08 hours per week to pay for time I am not
working.  As a consequence, I keep between 300 and 310 hours in the "vacation
bank" at all times.

When the bankable maximum drops to 200 hours, I will cease accumulating 3.08
hours/week of benefits.  This is because I am over the maximum.  I view this as
a 7.7% paycut.  You, too, are giving yourself a pay cut by being maxed-out on
vacation.

I will maintain status quo for as long as possible, shedding about 120 hours of
vacation in the last month of the year.  I do not look forward to spending thre
weeks of my vaction bank, but I'd rather do that and continue accumulating
vacation than be frozen at a higher level and take the pay cut.

To say "you won't lose anything you have in the bank" misses the point of
having to spend down what's in the bank or take a pay cut.

BobW

    For those of us that are billable, it's a Catch-22. We are expected to
    keep our "utilization" (billable hours) up at a certain percentage, and
    every hourly breakdown I've ever seen only has two weeks budgeted for
    vacation. If you are a ten year employee, and you take the entire four
    weeks you are entitled to, and do everything else you are supposed to
    do (like training) then you *will* fall below the mandatory utilization
    goal, and you *will* get a poor performance report.
    
    The new rule change benefits the company exclusively, at the direct
    expense of the employee. Given the current work overload situations,
    and the way performance metrics are set up, many people won't be able
    to take all of the vacation to which they are entitled, and Digital
    gets to keep it.
    
    Geoff

    I don't think that anyone is saying that it is desirable to be maxed
    out. As previous replies have stated, you are taking a pay cut by being
    at the maximum vacation accrual. The point is that it isn't QUITE as
    bad as some have implied. There will be no negative adjustment made to
    the amount of vacation already on the books.
    
    Personally, I would try to avoid being maxed out like the plague. There
    is indeed much more to life than work. Besides, this job isn't worth
    your sanity.
    
    Just my .02
    Russ

    
    
    
    The guidelines have been set, so take the vacation to get yourself
    below the cap.  If business suffers, it is not the fault of the
    employee who was following corporate guidelines.  If you start now, 
    the impact will be less than if you wait until next October.  It is up
    to management to make sure the holes will be filled.
    
    
    Mike  

    or, for those SEVERELY OVER-MAXED....

    spend the time from now until 31 Dec 1995 getting another job 
    outside the company and then leave 31 Dec 1995, carrying all
    those vacation monies with you.  gee, you might even get a 
    pay raise!  ;*}

    There may be loophole that would let you get paid for unused vacation
    time, if your manager is willing to play a game:
    
    When you take an unpaid leave of absence (LOA), there a box's on the LOA
    form that asks whether you want to get paid for accumulated vacation
    time.  If your manager was willing to sign off on it, you could take a
    say one week personal leave (just requires your CC manager's approval)
    and request payment for accumulated vacation time.
    
    Steve

    Steve,
    
    I would expect individual managers to do the right thing for both the
    employee and for the business.  What's being asked for in this string
    is quite different:  a Digital policy change which every manager would
    have to implement.
    
    Mark

    Maybe i missed something with .-2.  If I take unpaid leave of absence,
    I don't get paid.  If I request vaction pay for that week, I get my
    vacation pay.  It kinda sounds like a one week vacation.  I won't get
    paid twice for the same week.  Because if I really worked that week, my
    pay would be normal and not a leave of absence.
    
    Did I miss a beat?  Or is everyone  still hung up on the pamela
    swimsuit business??
    
    RR

    My understanding of -.3 was that you can request payment for ALL
    unused vacation if you take an unpaid leave of absense.  So if you
    have 4 weeks accumulated and your management approved, you could take 
    a 1 week unpaid leave of absense, get paid for your 4 weeks of accrued
    vacation time and then return to work.  Of couse, if you elect this
    option, you end up with 0 available vacation hours.
    
    Jim

    >My understanding of -.3 was that you can request payment for ALL
    >unused vacation if you take an unpaid leave of absense.  So if you
    >have 4 weeks accumulated and your management approved, you could take 
    >a 1 week unpaid leave of absense, get paid for your 4 weeks of accrued
    >vacation time and then return to work.  Of couse, if you elect this
    >option, you end up with 0 available vacation hours.
    
    Is this true?  Shoot, this solution would solve the problem in one
    swell foop -- people who are maxed out could take a week off, receive
    ALL their vacation pay, and then start accumulating vacation time the
    very next week.  Granted, they may have to wait a while to accumulate
    enough time to take another vacation, but based on past behavior, this
    doesn't seem to be a problem.
    
    Of course, this plan of action would require the cooperation of one's
    manager, agreeing to a one-week unpaid leave, along with the payment of
    all vacation pay.  
    
    Somehow I doubt this is the true situation -- it's *much* too
    reasonable.
    					andrew

>    
>    Get on with it ..... take Friday off!
>    
At the moment, I'd be happy just getting Saturday or Sunday off... seems 
like many people in our office are working 7 days/week, often 60+ hours per 
week. Not because management refuses to let them take vacation, but because 
if you don't, then you don't make the goals that have been "given" you, 
customers don't get the information you promised them, expenses don't get 
completed, benchmarks don't get run, etc.... 

re:               <<< Note 3722.97 by SPECXN::WITHERS "Bob Withers" >>>
                      -< 7.7% pay cut for 10yr employee >-

>When the bankable maximum drops to 200 hours, I will cease accumulating 3.08
>hours/week of benefits.  This is because I am over the maximum.  I view this as
>a 7.7% paycut.  You, too, are giving yourself a pay cut by being maxed-out on
>vacation.

Based on all this "hourly" logic, you're losing money anytime you work over 
40 hours per week. I don't know about you, but most people I know rarely 
work a 40 hour week anymore, most work 60+.... so, I'm taking a severe pay 
cut every week for those extra hours....  maybe when 5 pm rolls around, we 
should just tell everyone "sorry, quitin' time".

I get paid the same every week whether I'm working, on vacation, in the
office, etc... I don't lose any money for lost vacation time, all I lose is
some personal time with my family and my sanity ..... :^) 

BTW - a benchmark I was supposed to start next monday just got postponed, so 
I don't have to work this weekend getting ready for it... yahoo !!! 2 days 
off !!!

Arlan

Re: .102  - Possible loophole in LOA.
            Not *TRUE* period. Read on.
    
Vacation portion of Leave of Absence policy:

Leave of Absence                                     Effective: 10-JAN-94  
                                                      Section: 4.23                                                                
 | BENEFITS: Cont'd

   |     o  Vacation -

   |        An employee may receive compensation for earned vacation
   |        hours at the beginning of the leave, provided the
   |        vacation hours do not exceed the length of the leave, or
   |        vacation hours may be taken upon returning to active
   |        employment.
              
Vacation time can not exceed time of leave...

>I get paid the same every week whether I'm working, on vacation, in the
>office, etc... I don't lose any money for lost vacation time, all I lose is
>some personal time with my family and my sanity ..... :^) 

    	So I assume the loss you describe is _acceptable_? I think not. If you
    set no bounds on your availability you are not enjoying the benefits of
    your tenure at Digital. Just MHO.
     
>BTW - a benchmark I was supposed to start next monday just got postponed, so 
>I don't have to work this weekend getting ready for it... yahoo !!! 2 days 
>off !!!

    You lucky person. Take a weekend. Don't feel guilt. Get my drift?

    Phil

    
    
    
    Sorry, folks, but I personally don't think we Americans get *enough*
    vacation time.  Below is the introduction to an article just published
    in ESCAPE magazine, the following note is the entire article.
    
    ---Mar()
    
    
    
		      OVERWORKED AND UNDERPLAYED
       reprinted w/o persmission, ESCAPE magazine, Summer 1995

		 Introdution by Editor, Joe Robinson

It's a workplace disorder that affects millions of Americans.  But you 
won't hear about it on "Nightline" or at the doctor's office.  
Vacation Deficit Disorder is invisible - and rampant - a threat to 
nervous systems, quality of life and the holiday plans of all 
workhorse Americans.  In our high-speed, high-stress, no-break world, 
time off is dwindling, weekend outings are masquerading as vacations, 
and we're falling farther and farther behind our global peers.

In the current holiday standings among EEC and G-7 nations, 19 
European countries and Australia rank ahead of us, with their citizens 
averaging four to six weeks off.  We're 22nd at a thumping two weeks, 
barely ahead of the Japanese who, forced by productivity losses due to 
zombie overload, have institued more time off, and are gaining on us.  
But there are no outraged cries over this poor showing, no 
embarrassment at this affront to national pride.

As we find out in "A World Beyond Work" [in the next note], one-fifth 
of Americans don't even take the vacation time allotted them.  They're 
too busy working and guzzling Mylanta.  They can't stop, because if 
they did, they'd have to think of something else to do.  And that's 
not easy in a culture where identities are based solely on jobs.  More 
than any other excuses for our micro-vacations - time, money, weak 
labor unions, global economic pressures - it's a lack of a leisure 
identity, a world outside work, that keeps us at the bottom of the 
holiday index.

We don't know how to take our time.  Or why.  So it never becomes a 
labor or political issue.  According to John Ricks, an entrepreneur 
who's formed a company to help people develop leisure skills, most 
Americans think vacations are the opposite of work - mere idleness.  
In the land of the work ethic, that's not a strong rallying point to 
change the system, unlike, say, a trek in Nepal or a bike trip in 
Utah's Moab.

To make vacations a viable issue for debate, we need to develop a 
concept of self outside the office, explore non-work interests on 
trips that enrich and involve, as adventurous travelers have been 
doing for years.  Counting days off needs to become as important as 
counting cholesterol.  Taking vacations should score peer approval 
points and not taking them shouldn't.

A Swiss friend of mine once complained that Americans always asked her 
what she did for a living.  "I don't want to know what you do," she 
said.  "I want to know who you are."  A lot of people, at least for 
now, might not have an answer for that one.

			 A WORLD BEYOND WORK
	reprinted w/o permission, ESCAPE magazine, Summer 1995



Like a lot of us these days, John Ricks often lost track of time in 
the netherworld of the career grindstone, where days of flat 
flourescent lights and droning hard drives blended one into another.  
The Milwaukee adman worked late into the night, on weekends if he had 
to.  He was doing what Americans are supposed to do, work hard without 
letup, plowing ahead with the multi-dimensionality of musk oxen.  He 
was efficient, productive.  He was worn out. Looking up one day from 
the rockpile, he noticed it was the end of December.  Another year had 
gone by and he hadn't used all his vacation time.  He had 16 days left 
that would now be squandered because he couldn't roll them into next 
year.

"It dawned on me how nuts that was," remembers Ricks, who decided then 
and there to do something about it.  He started researching the 
bizarre leisure practices of the USA and what he found was so 
appalling, he wound up forming his own company to preach the gospel of 
a world beyond work.

Ricks discovered he wasn't the only one suffering from vacation 
deficit disorder.  Some 21 percent of Americans don't take the time 
off they're entitled to, a stat that requires clinical diagnosis and 
shows just how far we've got to go to catch up with the rest of 
Western cvilization -- the Australians, Germans, French and Swedes, 
who find it unthinkable, if not laughable, to pass up a single day of 
their five- and six-week holiday allotments.

Lorraine Klarl, an executive at a Los Angeles advertising agency and 
adventure traveler who uses every hour of her time off -- she went to 
the Cayman Islands, Turkey, Aruba and Tonga last year alone -- finds 
some of her employees have to be shoved out the door.  "I find more 
and more people who work for me at junior levels forego their 
vacations," says an amazed Klarl.  "I don't understand that.  I'll go 
out of my way to try to compensate people who are out so they can take 
their vacations.  That balance is becoming more and more important in 
our lives."

Skipped vacations are part of the general slippage of free time across 
all industries.  The vacations that are being taken are getting 
shorter (so short, why even bother taking them?).  The trend to mini- 
vacations has people trying to cram holidays into four- and five-day 
slots.  "People feel they're not getting vacations at all," Rick 
notes, sentiments he's heard in hunderds of interviews with workers to 
gauge attitudes about leisure and vacations for his company, the 
Leisure Group.  "There's no time to unwind or rejuvenate on weekend 
trips."

Meanwhile, working hours continue to grow.  American manufacturing 
employees work 320 hours more per year - two months' worth - than 
their European colleagues.  Almost a quarter of the work force now 
puts in a 50-hour work week or more.  As the sentence mounts, most 
people are too busy trying to stand upright to realize they could get 
more vacation time if they wanted.

"Time off in many cases is negotiable," offers Leisure Group 
executive, Jennifer Simmons, "and they don't even think about it.  It 
isn't something they feel repressed about."

Clearly, we are quite cooked.  Over the edge.  Beyond the pale.  And 
for good reason, we're told.  The hyper-competitive global economy has 
forced companies to downsize and do more with less people.  The 
proliferation of instant technology - faxes, modems, etc - has pumped 
up the volume.  The switch from a manufacturing and producer-based 
economy to a service one has meant a more volatile job market and 
lower wages.  Yet none of it adds up to an alibi anyone with enough 
time off to think clearly can buy.  Scandinavia, Switzerland and 
Germany face the same global economic challenges as the US and still 
manages to compete effectively and grant citizens a decent interval to 
recharge batteries and forge personal identities.

Even the workaholic Japanese have discovered that there are limits, 
even for invincible salarymen.  When productivity took a nose dive a 
few years ago, the Japanese eased work hours and instituted more 
breaks in the work schedule, though they've got a long way to go.

The only break in sight here, though, is the next 30-second TV spot --
for extra-strength Excedrin.  Besides new economic realities, there 
are other, more entrenched factors that keep Americans grinding away:
low-impact unions, unlike those in Europe and Australia; zero 
political pressure to change the system; no portability of vacation 
benefits from one job to the next; anti-leisure bias; and the sheer 
weight of minimalist US vacation tradition.

Too exhausted to image anything else, most wage warriors simply don't 
know how to take vacation anymore.  They settle for four-day weekends 
and pseudo-vacations visiting relatives or fixing the house, oblivious 
to the benefits of a real vacation.

It's the law of supply and demand.  There's no demand for quality time 
off, so there's no supply.  Vacation time is not a topic of endless 
debate on radio talk shows, filled with the cranky bile of people who 
could use some time off.  Too frivolous.  Especially when the lines 
are crackling with important stuff like OJ and Tonya.  But if callers 
lit up the switchboards of talkjocks on the topic of more civilized 
work schedules, the subject would get out of the taboo stage and begin 
the process of joining other health-based shifts in social attitudes, 
from drinking less to eating fewer Ding Dongs.

In all the ranting over health care reform, not one word has been 
uttered about the preventive benefits of leisure time.  As Ricks has 
found in his surveys, we're so far gone, the notion never comes up.
"People don't see time off as a necessity," he says.  "They have lost 
sight of the benefits of leisure.  They don't take the time to plan 
it, because there's no real compelling reason to do so."

Those who have studied the problem find the health risks of our 
national workaholism compelling enough.  "It's very important to 
disengage," insists David Compton, professor of recreation and leisure 
at the University of Utah.  "We need to understand why it's important 
to refresh and recreate, to engage in activities that bring pleasure 
and happiness, intrinsic satisfaction.  Intensity of time on task 
creates stress and may lead to depression."

Numerous studies have found quality leisure to be a key component of 
mental health, under assault these days from all sides, on the job and 
at home.  Active leisure lifestyles are thought to act as a buffer 
against life stresses, helping active people cope better than 
sedentary types in the face of life's growing pressures.

When there is no break in the work onslaught, even the best jobs 
become what Max Weber called the "iron cage."  One of the earliest 
analysts of entrepreneurial activity, socialogist Weber theorized in 
1904 that it was the restless Protestant work ethic, particularly that 
of the Calvinists and Puritans, that helped drive the engines of 
capitalism.  That Puritan notion of all-consuming work still has a 
firm grip on American psyches and plays a big role in our dim view 
about leisure.

Idle time is still the devil's time, or these days, unproductive time. 
There's a reverse Maynard G Krebs syndrome on the loose, fear of 
non-work, because people don't know what to do when they're not 
working.  "We're terrified to leave the office," notes Jerry Mallett, 
direcotr of the Adventure Travel Society in Boulder, CO, which 
promotes the virtues of adventure and environmentally-sensitive 
travel.  "But we have to start trading the workaholism for some quiet 
time."

One of the reasons some people fear their off-hours is that 
non-working time is unstructured and self-driven, and not everyone is 
equipped to chart their own path.  As a result, "Most people tend to 
get apathetic and depressed in their free time," Mihaly 
Csikszentmihalyi of the University of Chicago has written.

But the tide of overwork may be ebbing slightly since its peak in the 
acquisitive eighties.  In those days, "not using your vacation time 
was a status symbol," says Ricks.  "It was, 'I'm here, hard at work, 
making money and getting promotions.'  But I think that time is meaning 
less and less all the time."

Ricks has put that hunch on the market, targeting people who want 
quality vacation time, but don't know what to do with it.  He assess 
individual leisure needs through classes and seminars, channeling 
people into off-hour pursuits that reflect interests they've never 
taken the time to develop or imagine.  He also tries to change some of 
the myths about vacations; for instance, that they're just the 
opposite of work, a state of idleness.  The message of his program is 
that holidays should be fulfilling - not just filling time.  To get 
something back from a vacation, you need objectives and plans not 
unlike at the office.  "If you don't work at leisure, leisure won't 
work," quips Ricks in a favorite refrain.  "The quality of the 
experience is really tied to the time you put into planning it."

Without a plan, most people see the time off itself as the goal.  
Vacations quickly devolve into a series of time plugs - housework, 
errands, day trips, shopping, TV - stopgap measures that aggravate the 
need to refresh and recharge.

In traditional cultures, people learned a variety of skills to use in 
their free time - dancing, weaving, story-telling.  But in an all-work 
culture, the talents lean more to crafts such as gourmet microwaving 
and parallel parking.  We need to rediscover leisure skills, the 
ability to entertain ourselves lost to TV; explore new pastimes; feel 
a real vacation.  But it's a struggle to overcome the diminished 
expectations.  "People think that getaways are good enough," Ricks 
concedes.  "They think, 'We've planned this and we're going to take 
two days off and that's great.'  They think there's a reward in 
getting away period, when in fact, they're selling themselves short."

Quality leisure is an experience that broadens, teaches, challenges, 
stimulates and provides a sense of achievement - all hallmarks of the 
major countervailing trend to shrinking vacations: adventurous travel. 
But for those who haven't experienced the charge of exploring an 
unknown land, a battery of excuses bars the way out.  The Big Three, 
says Ricks: no time, no money, and no idea what to do.

Caught up in an endless spiral of toil, most of us are our jobs.  
There is no identity outside the office.  "We have a leisure ethic 
that is very weak, if not terribly absent," confirms Compton.  "You as 
an individual ought to have your own leisure ethic and your own 
expressions, activities you can singularly do that you are passionate 
about."

Getting an identity beyond work is important not just for better 
vacations, but also for survival in a volatile world.  Face it, in 
today's four- and five-career era, many of us will have our job ID's 
yanked.  Psychologists tell us that people whose self-image extends 
beyond the office walls to other aspects of life fare better in these 
traumatic times.  There are other parts of life to fall back on for 
strength, esteem, diversion, even new career paths.  People who feel 
the most fulfilled in their work often are those who found a way to 
merge off-hours passions and their livelihoods.  So a new leisure ID 
could lead not only to a better vacation but also to a more fulfilling 
line of work.  All you have to do is take your time.

    
    To all this I couldn't agree more. After working my A$$ off the past
    three years wothout much "down-time" I came to the realization that
    I wasn't having much fun.
    
    I chose the computer field because it was intriguing, dynamic,
    creative, and something different and exciting every day. When it
    started to become just a job, it was time to take action. This year
    I basically took the month of April off, went to FL with the whole
    family, spent lazy days at the beach, on boats, seeing friends, and
    just having a good time.
    
    I return to Digital refreshed, happy, and ready to go. I, for one,
    will NEVER not take all my vacation ever again.
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

RE: .111 and .112

There is no saint like a reformed sinner (loose translation: people who think
they have gone too far in one direction tend to go *WAY* too far in the other).

I think what bothered me most about that article were the blatant insults and
denigration of people who did not agree with it.  Examples include:
 
>without letup, plowing ahead with the multi-dimensionality of musk oxen. 
...
>bizarre leisure practices of the USA
...
>as the sentence [the amount of time spent at work] mounts
...
>Clearly, we are quite cooked.  Over the edge.  Beyond the pale.  And 
...
>anyone with enough time off to think clearly 
...
>Too exhausted to imagine anything else
...
>workaholic ... workaholism

That may be true for some people, and it clearly benefits Ricks to make people
believe it is true for them (since the people will then pay him lots of money
to show them how to relax), but it is not true for everyone.


>Quality leisure is an experience that broadens, teaches, challenges, 
>stimulates and provides a sense of achievement 

I agree that quality leisure does all of those things.  But so does quality
work, quality hobbies, in fact, any activity done well will do those things.  


>Those who have studied the problem find the health risks of our 
>national workaholism compelling enough.  "It's very important to 
>disengage," insists David Compton, professor of recreation and leisure 
>at the University of Utah. 

Let me see if I understand this:  John Ricks (who owns a company which makes
money by making people feel guilty about the time they spend at work) finds
a professor of recreation and leisure who thinks that people need to take
more time for recreation and leisure.  Somehow I tend to suspect their motives
in this area, since they both earn money and/or publicity if they push this
point of view.  (By the way, how does a professor of recreation and leisure
spend their vacation?  Given the thrust of their argument, he can't spend
it in recreation or leisure, since "it's very important to disengage"...)

What I found most revealing were the references to the US being "behind" the
rest of the world, and us needing to "catch up" to their policies.

This article is so one-sided, so biased, so blatant in its financial agenda,
and so insulting of anyone who does not immediately agree to despise their
job and pay Ricks' company lots of money to get away from that job, that it 
is ridiculous.  As I was reading it I kept looking for a dateline of 1-Apr.

-- Ken Moreau

    re: 114
    
    Being English and therefore used to 4-6 weeks holiday, and having
    worked abroad and only had 2 weeks (US style).  I can only say don't
    knock it till you've tried it...........2 weeks holiday sucks.
    
    
    Mc.

    Europeans reading this must be amazed, 4 to 6 weeks holiday is the norm
    in the UK, and even more in the mainland European countries like
    Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. As a contractor, holidays
    are a luxury I can rarely afford, so 2 weeks a year is about all I can
    take (including public holidays, some of which I work). My other
    half, however, works for the European Commission here in Brussels, and
    this year has, including public holidays, 52, count 'em, 52 days off; paid.
    
    Laurie.

    re.115
    
    Me too. I started work here in the UK straight from colleege with (I 
    believe) 23 days' paid vacation, plus a week off at Christmas/New Year 
    (public holidays + company days) and two days off either side of Easter 
    Day. When I relocated to the US, most of my measly 10 days' vacation was 
    used up visiting family back home over the Christmas period. It came as 
    quite a shock to the system.
    
    You then suddenly realise why Americans have vacations of the "If this
    is Tuesday, it must be Belgium" type. 
    
    John (now back in the UK)                

    A European, but personal, view of America:      
    
    The country that has it all...
    ...with a population that doesn't have time to see it.
    
    By this, I mean that it is strange to talk with my Corporate colleagues
    only to find that I've seem more of the attractions (natural and
    man-made) of the United States than they have.
    
    It reminds me of the question:
    
    "Do you work to live or live to work?"
    
    
    Ken 
    (looking forward to his next holiday in the USA)
    
    

    Ken ... I agree!! I think all of us should get six weeks vacation
    during which no yard work will be required!  ;-)

    ...we do the yard work in the four weeks that are left over after
    taking the six weeks...
    

    Yeah, it's pretty damn rough over here.  I only got a few hours of
    windsurfing in last night before it got dark, then it was home to wine
    and the hot tub.
    
    Of course, I wanted to go windsurfing Tuesday, but couldn't, 'cause
    that's my Skeet Club shooting night.  We're supposed to practice next
    Saturday at 4pm, but my neighbor wants me to go roller-blading with him
    at the park.
    
    Guess we'll have to see, 'cause we've got a friend from Ireland coming
    over for steaks on the grill, drinks, etc.  My wife rearranged her
    rock-climbing trip to accomodate it, so it's pretty important.
    
    Gee, guess we're too busy having a blast here every day to moan as much
    as we should, huh?
    
    								Tex

Being British living in the US and now having less vacation time
than I've ever had in my life, this one is dear to my heart....


I can see a European version of Tex's scenario (.121):


>>>    Yeah, it's pretty damn rough over here.  I only got a few hours of
>>>    windsurfing in last night before it got dark, then it was home to wine
>>>    and the hot tub.

I only got a few hours of windsurfing in last night before it got dark,
but that's no problem, I'm taking this Friday off as a vacation day
to go visit the beach with wife/husband, spend the day, relax, eat 
out.

>>>    Of course, I wanted to go windsurfing Tuesday, but couldn't, 'cause
>>>    that's my Skeet Club shooting night.  We're supposed to practice next
>>>    Saturday at 4pm, but my neighbor wants me to go roller-blading with him
>>>    at the park.
    
We're supposed to practice next Saturday at 4pm, but my neighbor wants 
me to go roller-blading with him at the park.  I suggested we take a 
day off the week after next and really get some time together.  This 
way I can still get my Skeet Club shooting practice in and my neighbor
and I can make a day of it.

>>>    Guess we'll have to see, 'cause we've got a friend from Ireland coming
>>>    over for steaks on the grill, drinks, etc.  My wife rearranged her
>>>    rock-climbing trip to accomodate it, so it's pretty important.
    
Guess we'll have to see, 'cause we've got a friend from America.  I'm 
taking 2 days off to spend some time showing them the sites around 
here.  I would have taken more time but they're only here for the 2
days, something to do with lack of vacation time...  My wife/husband
will be joining us too...

>>>    Gee, guess we're too busy having a blast here every day to moan as much
>>>    as we should, huh?

Yes.

:-)
martin
    								Tex

>Being British living in the US and now having less vacation time
>than I've ever had in my life, this one is dear to my heart....
    
    I believe British Air will be happy to return you, no problem.
    
    								Tex

    re: last note
    
    Tex:
    
    Am I to presume a ;^) should have been inserted somewhere in the
    previous note?

>>Being British living in the US and now having less vacation time
>>than I've ever had in my life, this one is dear to my heart....
>    
>    I believe British Air will be happy to return you, no problem.
>    
>    								Tex

Martin, you probably already know this, but not all of us in the US
are so insecure that we have to lash out like this at the slightest
hint of less than total perfection (whether correct or not).

Personally, I found Tex's remark embarassing (not to mention childish).

-Hal

    
    	Geez, guys, lighten up.
    
    	I, for example, have been imperfect all my life, but Digital (DEC,
    whatever) continually demonstrates its good faith in my humble attempts
    to sell, and keeps me gainfully employed (at least enough so my
    creditors are happy).
    
    	Vacation time is for your brains - use it :-)
    
    
    		the Greyhawk

    Gee, guess I missed Miss Manner's last book.  I'm soooo ashamed!
    
    						:^] Tex

Tex, my reply wasn't meant to offend you, sorry if it did. I was trying to
demonstrate that a few more vacation days can make life even more enjoyable!

I've tried both and know which I prefer.

Thanks Hal - no worries!
martin

>Tex, my reply wasn't meant to offend you, sorry if it did. I was trying to
>demonstrate that a few more vacation days can make life even more enjoyable!
    
    I had missed your point and mistaken it for kvetchin'.  Your point is
    taken and, indeed, agreed to.  I'll even warm a beer up for ya if
    you're though this way to show you there's no hard feelin's. :^]
    
    							Tex
    
    (...and Laurent...sniff...sorry I'm so...(sob)...insecure.  Thanks for
    (sniff) apologizing for me....booohohohohooohohohohahahaha)  :^]]]]]]]]

    Some of these people keep their beer in the _freezer_.
    
    We're not talking cultural differences here, we're talking alien
    worlds here... :-)

    speaking of beer...
    
    have you tried Sam Adams Double Bock?  
    
    really good stuff!
    
    tony

    
    re:.133 et al
    
    I've already mentioned to Hans that perhaps some of us in the UK prefer
    warmer beer and to be more selective in his us of the term "Europe" next
    time!
    
    For more beer info check out KP7.
    
    Cheers,
    Chris.
         

>    I've already mentioned to Hans that perhaps some of us in the UK prefer
>    warmer beer and to be more selective in his us of the term "Europe" next
>    time!

Yes, but it's a popular American misconception that the English
like beer that's actually warm (as opposed to simply warmer than
the Americans like it).   It's supposed to be cellar temerature!
We just don't like it frozen.

    
    >>...It's supposed to be cellar temerature!
    
    Not if the cellar temperature is just above freezing point as happened
    to my local pub the other night...
    
    Point taken though, and you are correct!
    
    Chris(please excuse me filling the Digital notesfile with beer
          information, but a principle was involved!)

Thanks for the explanations. To my great relief I've learned that American's
dont' drink(?) frozen beer (beer-flavored ice[cream]?) either ;-)

I suggest we return to the originally scheduled program about the pros and cons
of vacation in general, lot's of vacation specifically, and selling vacation
time...

Hans. ;-)>>>

>I suggest we return to the originally scheduled program about the pros and cons
>of vacation in general, lot's of vacation specifically, and selling vacation
>time...
    
    Sure, and spoil a *wonderful* rathole?  I think not!
    
    OK, OK< we can, but first you asked about Prozac.  It's a somewhat
    controversial drug that, in short, has helped people lead normal lives
    after therapy and counseling has failed.  It comes up a lot in cartoons
    (Sally Forth, Life in Hell, Ballard Street, etc.) here in the US.
    
    Although I include it in jokes frequently, I'd like to go on record
    that I've got a few friends on it, it's been very helpful for them, and
    I'm not denigrating it, its use, or those who use it.
    
    Now, back to our regularly scheduled program, brought to you by
    "Budzac...the beer with the pick-me-up!". :^]
    
    								Tex

    
    	Prozac is also an excellent therapy for stress-related, short-term
    anxieties which are difficult to assess. Which, of course, is why
    *real* DECies eat them on their Wheaties...
    
    		the Greyhawk

So, for the ignorant, what IS prozak ?

Alan

    Lessee, Prozak ... isn't that the society of Australian and New
    Zealand veterans?
    
    No, that's Anzac...
    
    It's a prescription drug used to treat depression (or indigestion;
    one or the other). It seems to be "the new Valium" in terms of drug
    name recognizability (Valium having gotten so common that I think
    they've got a version in gummy bears).

      What has been controversial about Prozac is that some practitioners
    advocate its use even for people who have nothing clinically wrong with
    them, or who are simply unhappy, maybe for good reason (like serious
    illness/death of a loved one) rather than suffering from clinical
    depression.
      It basically has the effect of making the user feel happy. While this
    obviously is a help with depression, this potential use in people who
    have nothing actually wrong with them moves it onto the boundary
    between being a therapeutic drug, amd being a recreational one.
    Puritanical people hate to see anyone taking short cuts (or in some cases,
    any route at all 8*}) to happiness, and are trying hard to find
    undesireable side effects, such as those associated with drinking,
    smoking, other recreational drugs, etc. I don't know if there are any,
    other than that it can mask the real problems causing unhappiness,
    dissatisfaction with an individual's life, etc., thus tending to
    prevent them from doing anything to correct them.
    
    Ken

  Prozac is a drug that blocks the chemical pathways that would
  remove the neurotransmitter seratonin from your brain. Seratonin
  makes you feel good, warm_n_fuzzy. So Prozac has the effect of
  making you feel good.

  It's a dilemma for certain moralists because increased seratonin
  levels also reduce your urge to procreate. So on the one hand,
  you're less interested in sex, which the moralists like. But
  you feel good anyway (and, as was pointed out, "for free"),
  which the moralists dislike.

  On the other hand, it doesn't make you pee turqouise.

                                   Atlant

>>  On the other hand, it doesn't make you pee turqouise.


	Now THERE is an advantage...

							mike

    I've heard of stones ... but gems?

re .144,

so what's the problem?  :)  (Er, I hope, anyway)

Chris.

    Re. .144
    
    So what does make you pee turquoise then? I'm intrigued.
    
    Ken

Re: .144 (pee turquoise)

You mean like porphyria does?  (See "The Madness of King George".)

				Steve

Re: .144 (pee turquoise)

I took this as a Kurt Vonnegut allusion.  People were given a drug that 
caused them to have no feeling below the waist.  A side effect of this drug 
was that they pee'd turquoise.

Ray

    Have to add my two cents to the prozac discussion...
    
    Seems to me that prozac is only useful for depressed people who are
    suffer from seratonin deficits.  I recall reading (?where?) that
    clinically depressed people who use prozac and are NOT seratonin
    deficient will have no/little benefit from the drugs.  Normal people
    who are not seratonin deficient can take the drug and feel no/little
    effect.
    
    I seem to recall that this is why this drug is so controversial -- the
    effectiveness is related to the seratonin levels of an individual - and
    those levels are all relative to an individuals specific emotional
    biochemistry.
    
    Your mileage may vary,
    
    Randy
    

Is there any relationship to seroxat (paroxetine hydrochloride)?  Just
curious...

Chris.

    re: -1
    
    < Is there any relationship to seroxat (paroxetine hydrocloride)?
    < Just curious.
    
    perhaps better discussed inthe MEDICAL notes conference on VMSZOO ?
    
    Notes 1156.*, and 1434.* discuss this in some detail (in MEDICAL)

ta for the pointer, I'll go and have a nozy.

Chris.

Well, I've tried ....   so far this year I've taken 72 hours vacation plus 
my personal holiday (80 hrs total) ... and I'm still at 312 hours available. 
They'll still be adding another 30+ hours for the remainder of the year... 
so, I'll need to take at leaast 145 hours more this year just to get down to 
the magic 200 number .... I'd sure like to turn that into cash instead...

Arlan

	I hearya brother, I hearya.. My schedule just isn't accomodating
	to 3+ more weeks of vacation.

							mike

    I was near being maxed out in June.  Took five weeks vacation (july and
    1 wk in August) 
    
    felt great, even though I got called back for three days in July.
    
    but, I'm still close to the limit (180 hours this paycheck.)  seems
    while I was on vacation for five weeks, I accrued another 15+ hours,
    and if I can't take at least another 22 hours between now and Jan  I'll
    stop acrueing.
    
    God!  now even taking vacation has turned into a numbers game!
    
    tony
    (who REALLY enjoyed the time off)