This is a cool idea! It doesn't really work if you don't get all federal holidays off at your job though. For example it's optimizing by wrapping PTO around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth,...
This is a cool idea! It doesn't really work if you don't get all federal holidays off at your job though. For example it's optimizing by wrapping PTO around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, and Veterans Day, none of which are holidays for me at my job. Might be more useful if I had the option to manually specify which days I actually get off for free and feed that to the algorithm.
You can actually edit the list of holidays, and also specify which days count as weekends. As far as I can tell, you can only remove holidays - not add them - but it seems to work fine after...
Exemplary
You can actually edit the list of holidays, and also specify which days count as weekends. As far as I can tell, you can only remove holidays - not add them - but it seems to work fine after removing the holidays I don't get.
Just click "edit" beside the "public holiday" label in the legend.
Ooo I didn't expect this to support so many countries! I agree with other posters it'd be nice to have some config over which publics holidays I might not personally have or care about, but it's...
Ooo I didn't expect this to support so many countries!
I agree with other posters it'd be nice to have some config over which publics holidays I might not personally have or care about, but it's cool to see at a glance weekends this year I could slide in a PTO or two and get good bang for buck.
Thanks for sharing!
Edit: oh wait you can edit the days at the top, that's really cool. Very good!
Honestly this is the way I least like taking vacation. Any more than 4 days off in a row and I know I'm coming back to an absolutely massive pile of emails, tons of work that needs to be done, and...
Honestly this is the way I least like taking vacation. Any more than 4 days off in a row and I know I'm coming back to an absolutely massive pile of emails, tons of work that needs to be done, and things that weren't followed up on properly when I was out, so the week after I return becomes massively stressful.
I'd rather just take an extra Friday or Monday off here or there than deal with that.
Also, the idea that I'm somehow "stretching" my PTO to get more time off isn't at all accurate. I still get holidays off even if I don't take PTO. This just seems like a way to highlight a strategy to take off time at the exact same time that basically everyone else takes off time.
I reckon less than three weeks off doesn't give you enough time to wind down and actually relax before you're thinking about going back to work again. Plus any shorter and your work piles up like...
I reckon less than three weeks off doesn't give you enough time to wind down and actually relax before you're thinking about going back to work again. Plus any shorter and your work piles up like you say, if you take enough time someone actually has to cover for you.
I want to try and take three weeks off from my job this year. I work for a company that has a ton of employees in Europe, and they all take off the whole summer. We in NA are limited to three...
I want to try and take three weeks off from my job this year.
I work for a company that has a ton of employees in Europe, and they all take off the whole summer.
We in NA are limited to three weeks at a time, though.
At least we have unlimited vacation that we’re actually encouraged to use!
Less than three weeks? A day off let's me run errands. Two days lets me chill. The university closure around Christmas and New years means I have a week + without any actual responsibilities (very...
Less than three weeks? A day off let's me run errands. Two days lets me chill. The university closure around Christmas and New years means I have a week + without any actual responsibilities (very occasional student email). There's no other time taking a week off lets me unwind. Three would be impossible.
I am eagerly awaiting having summers off once I get into public schooling. Currently I've never had more than two weeks off in a single stretch over the last two decades or so, since I started...
I am eagerly awaiting having summers off once I get into public schooling. Currently I've never had more than two weeks off in a single stretch over the last two decades or so, since I started working over the summer as a teenager.
I know your situation is different but man oh man am I ready for more time with my family.
Yeah summer is a break from the students being on campus but not a break work-wise for me. (And I have zero interest in being paid on a ten month contract. The sick days are trash) I get why...
Yeah summer is a break from the students being on campus but not a break work-wise for me. (And I have zero interest in being paid on a ten month contract. The sick days are trash)
I get why summers off appeal to some, but my work just pivots and I get to do the things I don't have as much time for during the academic year.
My perspective is likely different - I teach year-round in childcare (and I do mean teach, not just watch the kids) and it gets exhausting by about the 9 month mark, and I'd still have three more...
My perspective is likely different - I teach year-round in childcare (and I do mean teach, not just watch the kids) and it gets exhausting by about the 9 month mark, and I'd still have three more months with that group of kids before getting my new batch.
I also only get about three weeks of vacation/PTO time in a year. I'm used to not getting to take much time. Luckily my wife's work is much more forgiving for when we need to take a day off for a sick kid.
Like I said, I get it for folks that it works for! Every now and then I see folks advocating for a return to ten month contracts here for hall staff (below my level now) and it would really result...
Like I said, I get it for folks that it works for! Every now and then I see folks advocating for a return to ten month contracts here for hall staff (below my level now) and it would really result in losing all the time to prep for the year and the professional development/cross training time where you work with other teams in the department.
For me it's losing those times to write proposals/train/ do data analysis etc. instead of constant emotional labor. I also dont have kids personally so none of that is an issue but I take time for my partner's medical needs.
The only thing that made taking time off not that stressful (work wise) was my partner's emergency surgery and recovery. Someone can effectively cover for me for a day, but a week will leave me with a ton of catch up work.
I've honestly never had 3 weeks off of work since I started working when I was 15, except in between jobs while I was waiting for the new one to start. I don't think I'd be able to enjoy that much...
I've honestly never had 3 weeks off of work since I started working when I was 15, except in between jobs while I was waiting for the new one to start.
I don't think I'd be able to enjoy that much time off. I don't have the type of job where someone can cover for me for more than a day or two, so no matter what, I'd have to come back to an absolute mountain of work. I feel like I'd completely forget what I was doing and it'd make it really hard to get back into the swing of things, which would also stress me out on vacation.
The short 3 day weekend trips always seemed to work a lot better for me.
This is very interesting! I wonder if that algorithm is greedy? I think I can find a case where there are two optimal solutions but the tool only presents one?
This is very interesting! I wonder if that algorithm is greedy? I think I can find a case where there are two optimal solutions but the tool only presents one?
I’m pretty sure this is an NP-hard problem, so probably greedy. I didn’t think super hard about it, so take it with grain of salt, but I’m pretty sure you can reduce this to the knapsack problem....
I’m pretty sure this is an NP-hard problem, so probably greedy. I didn’t think super hard about it, so take it with grain of salt, but I’m pretty sure you can reduce this to the knapsack problem. # of pto days = weight limit. Then you can form the value of each item by arranging the fixed vacations.
Cool idea but not much use for those of us with shift work and weekends. I just always use vacation across two weeks and once a holiday to make it longer. Just took 8 days off and thanks to Family...
Cool idea but not much use for those of us with shift work and weekends.
I just always use vacation across two weeks and once a holiday to make it longer. Just took 8 days off and thanks to Family Day I only used 4 PTO days.
Yeah, something to tell you "take your days off between holidays and weekends" isn't particularly revolutionary? I'm not sure what value this provides.
Yeah, something to tell you "take your days off between holidays and weekends" isn't particularly revolutionary? I'm not sure what value this provides.
It didn't have me take off any time until November, at which point it told me to take off 14 days in a row around Thanksgiving. My co-workers would despise me if I followed that advice. :P
It didn't have me take off any time until November, at which point it told me to take off 14 days in a row around Thanksgiving. My co-workers would despise me if I followed that advice. :P
Very cool, though not how I prefer to do it. An extra day off when I just had a few is a drop in the bucket. A day or two in the middle of a shitty week when I'm totally overwhelmed is like sweet...
Very cool, though not how I prefer to do it.
An extra day off when I just had a few is a drop in the bucket.
A day or two in the middle of a shitty week when I'm totally overwhelmed is like sweet nectar.
Yep, agreed. There's nothing quite like a random day off. No one around, all my friends are working, Just a day completely to myself with no responsibilities or expectations of me when I'd...
Yep, agreed. There's nothing quite like a random day off. No one around, all my friends are working, Just a day completely to myself with no responsibilities or expectations of me when I'd otherwise be working, but not tacked onto a weekend where I'm expected to continue being in "off" mode, or even worse, preparing for the upcoming work week.
This is a cool idea! It doesn't really work if you don't get all federal holidays off at your job though. For example it's optimizing by wrapping PTO around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, and Veterans Day, none of which are holidays for me at my job. Might be more useful if I had the option to manually specify which days I actually get off for free and feed that to the algorithm.
You can actually edit the list of holidays, and also specify which days count as weekends. As far as I can tell, you can only remove holidays - not add them - but it seems to work fine after removing the holidays I don't get.
Just click "edit" beside the "public holiday" label in the legend.
On the other hand, my job pads out a lot of extra holidays, so it'd be useful to be able to add those into the algorithm too.
As well as being able to block out non-optimized days you plan on taking off (i.e. trips for events like weddings, conventions, etc.).
Ooo I didn't expect this to support so many countries!
I agree with other posters it'd be nice to have some config over which publics holidays I might not personally have or care about, but it's cool to see at a glance weekends this year I could slide in a PTO or two and get good bang for buck.
Thanks for sharing!
Edit: oh wait you can edit the days at the top, that's really cool. Very good!
Honestly this is the way I least like taking vacation. Any more than 4 days off in a row and I know I'm coming back to an absolutely massive pile of emails, tons of work that needs to be done, and things that weren't followed up on properly when I was out, so the week after I return becomes massively stressful.
I'd rather just take an extra Friday or Monday off here or there than deal with that.
Also, the idea that I'm somehow "stretching" my PTO to get more time off isn't at all accurate. I still get holidays off even if I don't take PTO. This just seems like a way to highlight a strategy to take off time at the exact same time that basically everyone else takes off time.
I reckon less than three weeks off doesn't give you enough time to wind down and actually relax before you're thinking about going back to work again. Plus any shorter and your work piles up like you say, if you take enough time someone actually has to cover for you.
I want to try and take three weeks off from my job this year.
I work for a company that has a ton of employees in Europe, and they all take off the whole summer.
We in NA are limited to three weeks at a time, though.
At least we have unlimited vacation that we’re actually encouraged to use!
Less than three weeks? A day off let's me run errands. Two days lets me chill. The university closure around Christmas and New years means I have a week + without any actual responsibilities (very occasional student email). There's no other time taking a week off lets me unwind. Three would be impossible.
I am eagerly awaiting having summers off once I get into public schooling. Currently I've never had more than two weeks off in a single stretch over the last two decades or so, since I started working over the summer as a teenager.
I know your situation is different but man oh man am I ready for more time with my family.
Yeah summer is a break from the students being on campus but not a break work-wise for me. (And I have zero interest in being paid on a ten month contract. The sick days are trash)
I get why summers off appeal to some, but my work just pivots and I get to do the things I don't have as much time for during the academic year.
My perspective is likely different - I teach year-round in childcare (and I do mean teach, not just watch the kids) and it gets exhausting by about the 9 month mark, and I'd still have three more months with that group of kids before getting my new batch.
I also only get about three weeks of vacation/PTO time in a year. I'm used to not getting to take much time. Luckily my wife's work is much more forgiving for when we need to take a day off for a sick kid.
Like I said, I get it for folks that it works for! Every now and then I see folks advocating for a return to ten month contracts here for hall staff (below my level now) and it would really result in losing all the time to prep for the year and the professional development/cross training time where you work with other teams in the department.
For me it's losing those times to write proposals/train/ do data analysis etc. instead of constant emotional labor. I also dont have kids personally so none of that is an issue but I take time for my partner's medical needs.
The only thing that made taking time off not that stressful (work wise) was my partner's emergency surgery and recovery. Someone can effectively cover for me for a day, but a week will leave me with a ton of catch up work.
I've honestly never had 3 weeks off of work since I started working when I was 15, except in between jobs while I was waiting for the new one to start.
I don't think I'd be able to enjoy that much time off. I don't have the type of job where someone can cover for me for more than a day or two, so no matter what, I'd have to come back to an absolute mountain of work. I feel like I'd completely forget what I was doing and it'd make it really hard to get back into the swing of things, which would also stress me out on vacation.
The short 3 day weekend trips always seemed to work a lot better for me.
This is very interesting! I wonder if that algorithm is greedy? I think I can find a case where there are two optimal solutions but the tool only presents one?
I’m pretty sure this is an NP-hard problem, so probably greedy. I didn’t think super hard about it, so take it with grain of salt, but I’m pretty sure you can reduce this to the knapsack problem. # of pto days = weight limit. Then you can form the value of each item by arranging the fixed vacations.
Cool idea but not much use for those of us with shift work and weekends.
I just always use vacation across two weeks and once a holiday to make it longer. Just took 8 days off and thanks to Family Day I only used 4 PTO days.
Yeah, something to tell you "take your days off between holidays and weekends" isn't particularly revolutionary? I'm not sure what value this provides.
Yeah, not much, but I imagine it wasn't hard to make and it at least makes a calendar for you so it saves you like two minutes.
It didn't have me take off any time until November, at which point it told me to take off 14 days in a row around Thanksgiving. My co-workers would despise me if I followed that advice. :P
Very cool, though not how I prefer to do it.
An extra day off when I just had a few is a drop in the bucket.
A day or two in the middle of a shitty week when I'm totally overwhelmed is like sweet nectar.
Yep, agreed. There's nothing quite like a random day off. No one around, all my friends are working, Just a day completely to myself with no responsibilities or expectations of me when I'd otherwise be working, but not tacked onto a weekend where I'm expected to continue being in "off" mode, or even worse, preparing for the upcoming work week.