When does your sort take their vacations?

[konsole]

In our building the preload sort vacation scheduled is posted up for all to see. I was taking a look at it and I noticed something interesting. The vacation schedule goes from May-May and the sheer number of people that took their vacations between May and October is astounding. I understand that most people want to take their vacations in the summer but the number of people that took all their vacations in the first 5/6 out of the 12 months is amazing. One year I remember taking 2 weeks in a row in the summer but my 3rd and final vacation was not until after Christmas. The main reason why this trend concerns me is that the people that take all their vacations in the first half of the year are going to find themselves dragging in the second half of the year and wish they could take another vacation then. So what they will end up doing is calling in sick more then usual when they really arent sick, there just tired from not having any vacations. I would guess that if there are 130 people on the sort with an average of 3 vacations each, making it about 400 vacation weeks for the sort, there are only about 25-50 vacations scheduled for the second half of the vacation year of about Christmas to May. It bugs me a bit because it feels like the workers are just abusing the excessive leniency that exists with taking days off. I understand that the work environment isnt that strict an an absent worker can be fairly easily replaced with a fill-in but I imagine that it must instill a lack of dedication.

Have you guys noticed a trend like this in your buildings?

 

[Norma]

I'm sorry, but I had to get an ID just to respond to such a ridiculous posting.

First off the majority of PT's have less than 2 years seignority, meaning they get at the most 1-2 weeks vacation. Now imagine if your local had a Jan - Dec vacation schedule. When would most vacations be taken? Maybe May - October? Why? Because there is much more to do in warm weather. What newbie in their right mind takes a precious week of vacation in March or November?

Me personally? I've been around 20+ years and during that time I have figured out the best vacation method is to split them out every 2-3 months. New people don't have that option. Your post comes dangerously close to mandating vacation time. If someone wants to take 3 weeks in July, who are you to say otherwise?

Dedication? If taking days off is a problem in your building, it's a problem with the management team in your building. If I used coworkers as my roll models, I would have been fired (numerous times) years ago.

 

[PT Stewie]

Hey the Islands are great in November and March !I have had more than a few Red Stripes in Jamaica in March

 

[UnconTROLLed]

I'm sorry, but I had to get an ID just to respond to such a ridiculous posting.

First off the majority of PT's have less than 2 years seignority, meaning they get at the most 1-2 weeks vacation. Now imagine if your local had a Jan - Dec vacation schedule. When would most vacations be taken? Maybe May - October? Why? Because there is much more to do in warm weather. What newbie in their right mind takes a precious week of vacation in March or November?

Me personally? I've been around 20+ years and during that time I have figured out the best vacation method is to split them out every 2-3 months. New people don't have that option. Your post comes dangerously close to mandating vacation time. If someone wants to take 3 weeks in July, who are you to say otherwise?

Dedication? If taking days off is a problem in your building, it's a problem with the management team in your building. If I used coworkers as my roll models, I would have been fired (numerous times) years ago.

Well I work in the same local and used to work in the same bldg.

Just my opinion that most people have more than 1 week vacation at this point. Most have two and some have 3. Yes there are some newer hires but turnover is a bit less than past years, at least IMO.

As far as burnout, it's only a part-time job. My FT job is preload/ air. If every employee were FT preloading for 6 hours, 1000- 1200 pcs, and air driving for 3 hours after that, I could see burnout happening without some vacation spacing. However preloading for 3.5-5 hours a day , at least to me, was never wearing enough to need a vacation so much that I'd miss work regularly. ONLY perhaps, on the hottest summer weeks, and of course most of us take at least one week in the summer.

 

[konsole]

Norma,

Go take a look at your sorts vacation schedule and see how few vacations were taken between October and May. Then ask yourself if the only explanation is people want to take the warm summer days off. They probably would prefer to not go 6 months without a vacation, its just that they know that in the back half of the vacation schedule they can take days whenever they feel like it. Listen maybe I am wrong, all I am doing is expressing my opinion based on what I see. No I do not think its as simple as people want to take their vacations in the summer, though this is probably part of the reason, I don't believe its the whole reason and I wanted to figure out what the rest of the reason was. You may feel that people should be taking all their vacations in the summer and not leaving any vacations for October-May but I myself would prefer not to go 6 months without a vacation. Don't hate me for simply making an observation but one other thing I noticed was that the people that take all their vacations before October and dont leave any for October-May aren't the best workers and generally really don't like the job. These people can't wait for May to come around so they can start taking their vacations in rapid succession. Just because its only a part time job doesnt mean there cant be burnout. For a go-go-go physical, dirty job at 4am in very hot and very cold temperatures I think your underestimating burnout. Maybe its not physical burnout, maybe its just mental burnout from having to work the job for day after day after day without a day off.

 

[dillweed]

one other thing I noticed was that the people that take all their vacations before October and dont leave any for October-May aren't the best workers and generally really don't like the job.

gosh konsole, I was trying to work with your post and think of something agreeable to say but the above sentence is just too much. Do these vacation picks correlate with the number of weeks earned? Are you qualified to judge your co-workers? Go study it some more and see what you can come up with.

 

[konsole]

one other thing I noticed was that the people that take all their vacations before October and dont leave any for October-May aren't the best workers and generally really don't like the job.

gosh konsole, I was trying to work with your post and think of something agreeable to say but the above sentence is just too much. Do these vacation picks correlate with the number of weeks earned? Are you qualified to judge your co-workers? Go study it some more and see what you can come up with.

I already did spend about 15-20 minutes looking at the schedule and my already stated opinions are what I came up with. Take a look at your sorts vacation weeks and see if you come to the same conclusion as me. I've been preloading on the same sort for 9 years so I have some experience on how people take their vacations and how they manage their time off for the rest of the vacation year. I never said these were facts, all I said is these are what I have observed and then expressed my opinion on the observations. Prove me wrong, see how people around you take their vacations and then see how they manage days off for the rest of the vacation year. Also pay attention to the workers around you that you respect and the workers you dont respect and compare how the two manage their vacations/sick days/personal days. I think I was looking at the schedule one day because I couldn't remember exactly which week I took off and I happen to notice the above mentioned trend jump out at me, so its not something that I actively looked for in the beinning and then tried to come up with whatever reason I could to downplay others choices. I just happened to notice it because it was really glaring and so I naturally started wondering why people were doing this.

 

[fethrs]

I hate to do it, but I can't resist. First of all, our vacations are not posted for all to see, none are, not the preload, the sorters, unloaders, drivers, none. Second of all I don't care who takes a vaca when, it doesn't concern me one whit. I don't care to prove you wrong or right either, it doesn't matter to me how they manage their days if...it's none of my beeswax. What a trip. Wondering about who takes vaca when and if they will be lazy or tired later in the year...I'm sorry...who cares?

 

[konsole]

I hate to do it, but I can't resist. First of all, our vacations are not posted for all to see, none are, not the preload, the sorters, unloaders, drivers, none. Second of all I don't care who takes a vaca when, it doesn't concern me one whit. I don't care to prove you wrong or right either, it doesn't matter to me how they manage their days if...it's none of my beeswax. What a trip. Wondering about who takes vaca when and if they will be lazy or tired later in the year...I'm sorry...who cares?

Wait until March rolls around and people around you start calling out unusually often, and the sort struggles because of it, and tell me then that you don't care. Tell me you don't care when you are getting crushed with packages and the help that you would normally have gotten is instead filling in for the other people that have called out. We have 5 people on our belt and two weeks ago 3 of them took a vacation the same week and the fourth person was out the whole week probably because the the best friend they work next to was one of the ones on vacation. These are some of the people that are taking all their vacations quickly and will undoubtedly start calling in "sick" when we get into February/March/April.

I'm not trying to make this into that big of a deal. I just thought it was something that was worthy of discussion and perhaps criticism.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

Wait until March rolls around and people around you start calling out unusually often, and the sort struggles because of it, and tell me then that you don't care. Tell me you don't care when you are getting crushed with packages and the help that you would normally have gotten is instead filling in for the other people that have called out. We have 5 people on our belt and two weeks ago 3 of them took a vacation the same week and the fourth person was out the whole week probably because the the best friend they work next to was one of the ones on vacation. These are some of the people that are taking all their vacations quickly and will undoubtedly start calling in "sick" when we get into February/March/April.

I'm not trying to make this into that big of a deal. I just thought it was something that was worthy of discussion and perhaps criticism.

No worries , the sups will be working hard, sweating, more than I will.

 

[thelus]

In our building the preload sort vacation scheduled is posted up for all to see. I was taking a look at it and I noticed something interesting. The vacation schedule goes from May-May and the sheer number of people that took their vacations between May and October is astounding. I understand that most people want to take their vacations in the summer but the number of people that took all their vacations in the first 5/6 out of the 12 months is amazing. One year I remember taking 2 weeks in a row in the summer but my 3rd and final vacation was not until after Christmas. The main reason why this trend concerns me is that the people that take all their vacations in the first half of the year are going to find themselves dragging in the second half of the year and wish they could take another vacation then. So what they will end up doing is calling in sick more then usual when they really arent sick, there just tired from not having any vacations. I would guess that if there are 130 people on the sort with an average of 3 vacations each, making it about 400 vacation weeks for the sort, there are only about 25-50 vacations scheduled for the second half of the vacation year of about Christmas to May. It bugs me a bit because it feels like the workers are just abusing the excessive leniency that exists with taking days off. I understand that the work environment isnt that strict an an absent worker can be fairly easily replaced with a fill-in but I imagine that it must instill a lack of dedication.

Have you guys noticed a trend like this in your buildings?

the answer to your question konsole is when ever we feel like it. i mean with some exemptions no one can during peak and that's understandable. but seriously its not that employees are lazy its that we don't car. management can go to there fancy classes on how to treat employees and try to scare us i'm just going to sit there and laugh

 

[upssup]

I thought Corporate did not allow more than two weeks consecutive?

 

[konsole]

I thought Corporate did not allow more than two weeks consecutive?

Might be the rule I don't know. I think a few people in my building are taking more then 2 weeks at a time.

 

[dillweed]

We have a man in our building who takes all six weeks at one time. I'd have a rough time going back after so long.