i took pretty much no vacation days last year. i’d say having set vacation days would force me to take them, but during a pandemic that doesn’t work. i’m gonna sit home anyway, so why even bother? my home is my office. so it isn’t even a change in scenery
also i was super busy the last few months of the year, so jamming it all in at the end to be miserable come january made little sense.
So from a legal perspective, in the United States if you are exempt from overtime rules (which most actuaries are, except interns) then they’re not allowed to make you take paid time off.
If you work 5 days a week, roughly the same number of hours each day then taking off up to 3:59 means no vacation / PTO under normal circumstances.
When I was having a LOT of short appointments because I was planning a wedding I did end up taking two-hour chunks of vacation. But that was because it was like 3-4 appointments a week in a few cases, which would be excessive in my mind.
And at some point HR came to me and said WTH, are you trying to get us in trouble? Don’t do that! Take a half-day for every other appointment if you really think you’re cheating the system, but stop taking 2 hours of vacation please!
I rarely take time off. Last year I took 10 days, and only once was it two days in a row.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used even three days in a row.
The most I ever took was 4 days, and that was for my honeymoon.
I take days when I need them, which isn’t often.
But what about people who might need a break from you?
I look forward to the days some people are off. It’s almost like a free day off for me, too.
Generally not. I mean sometimes I go work out in the middle of the day and it takes more than two hours. If I miss a bunch of work because of it I can make it up in the evening. Even going to the dentist usually takes more than 2 and that’s considered acceptable to not request PTO for it.
Absences that are at least half a day long and not made up I will take PTO, unless it’s for something healthcare related which I consider to be fair game as far as work-related self-maintenance goes. Unless I’m out for at least a day in which case I would need to take time off.
If people need a break from me they can use their PTO.
I don’t like taking off from work unless I need to. It’s not that I love work. I very rarely go away, and when I do I try to do it on a weekend and get home by Monday.
In my 25 (or so) professional years, I’ve probably left so many days on the table I could take a year off now.
My boss told me to stop bothering him with apologies if I came in late or needed a long lunch. So I did. I’ll usually let him know for informational purposes. Have definitely just taken off though. Every now and then, like before a holiday, they just suggest we all leave.
And this is a big reason why I do. We have several weeks where I have 2-4 fostering-related appointments, each a couple hours. It adds up to at least a half day a week in many cases, so I prefer to just take the time off (HR has never yelled at me for taking off two-hour chunks, though).
Since we’ve been WFH, it’s been much easier to schedule them without taking the PTO. I take them over lunch, or don’t take lunch, or roll it into what I consider to be appropriate non-work time that I naturally have throughout a day. Once it gets up to about two hours, though, I take the PTO. Not that I don’t make up those hours anyway, because I do, as I rarely work only 40 hours a week, but it gives me peace of mind to do it that way. Plus, I have way more PTO than I can use organically.
I completely agree. Especially if I’m working with someone who’s giving me a lot of stress, it is super relieving when they take PTO.
My current company doesn’t allow you to take partial day PTO. It’s all or nothing. I think it’s a weird system, but 
if they want to let me take off for appointments and not be able to track it with PTO then I’m game.
In the US you might not be compelled to take time off, but in most (all?) states, they can stop adding to your accrued time off when you reach a certain point.
I work at another one of the “unlimited PTO” shops, although that rule applies only above a certain point on the job trees. Most of our ACASes/FCASes are in that category. If the job gets done, and if you’re available when needed, it’s OK.
The company made this change when they realized that there was a quality-of-life issue when it came to managing PTO, and because there were some huge payouts for accrued PTO when some higher-level folks left the company, as at the higher levels there was a tendency to not take all your PTO time.
As regards the question in the OP – at my company, for salaried folks subject to PTO rules, the policy would require taking PTO, which can only be taken in half- or whole-day increments. But in practice, most managers would accept taking a long lunch and making up the difference elsewhen. 
my employer doesn’t allow any carry over, so this is irrelevant.
My boss is chill, so that helps
I am regularly on at 7:00 a.m. and work till I find a natural stopping point. If I take two hours during the day, I just make sure I work a bit long in the afternoon. Many days even though I eat lunch. I don’t take a real lunch break, certainly not an hour.
It helps that I can monitor my e-mails off my personal cell phone. and I already check after hours and weekends. So, nobody gets excited about an hour here or there. As long as a 2 hour lunch isn’t a habit
interesting topic. I like to take 30-40 minutes mid afternoon to take a walk. I sometimes find solutions to problems during the walk, so i consider this productive time
I try to take one in the late morning,
Not productive but the break keeps me productive
I usually start my day at least fifteen minutes late. And after that, I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. In a given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.
At my company, they make very clear that PTO is granted and not earned so they do not have to ever payout for PTO hours (except in CA where I’m told it is state law). I haven’t logged any PTO in the HR system in years as there is really no point. I tell my boss when I will be gone for a full day, sometimes half day. Otherwise, I’ll come and go as I please. I get paid to do a certain amount of work, not sit at my computer for a certain number of hours. I’ve got some good stories about that at a previous employer.
That’s interesting. I know from an accounting perspective they have to account for unused vacation and PTO (but not sick IIRC) as a liability. Hence so many “use it or lose it” policies because the employers don’t want massive vacation/PTO liabilities on their books.
I had assumed that the accounting rule was because it matched the rules on paying out unpaid leave at separation. But a quick Google search tells me that’s wrong.
I do think the accounting rules line up with common practice in terms of paying out unpaid leave.
I will say that I left a job in the middle of a pay period and was mildly annoyed that I didn’t get prorated PTO for the partial pay period. But they’re definitely not required to do that. I think it’s a little sleazy, nonetheless. But whatever.
