Member-only story
Thirty-two months ago in June of 2015, I hit my ten year anniversary at my current place of work. Upon that anniversary, my annual allotment of vacation days increased from fifteen days to twenty.
I had already been a good hard worker bee for twenty-two years at that point consisting of nine years with Crook County and then three years with a horrible town that employed me from spring of 2002 through spring of 2005 during which time my son was very young and my daughter was born, and ten years with my current organization.
I had occasionally cashed out vacation days over the past few years, one here, two there, and occasionally three, but it was then that I decided that taking a day off was more valuable to me and my family and my mental health than the extra dollars. The extra dollars were much needed, but my sanity was needed even more.
Since that first of June in 2015, I have accumulated an additional fifty-three and one-third vacation days but have taken only forty-two.
In all of 2017, I took only fourteen. In 2016, I took seventeen, which matches the most I have ever taken in a year. From June 1st of 2015 through the end of the year, I took ten.
During the first month of 2018, I took one vacation day on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day since my children were both off from school.
