Pointless Annual Leave

Employers these days are a mixed bag but most employees can happily put their hands up and say that after a while, no matter where you work, you get nothing for free.

Take pay increases for example. We all work for them. We all hope to be provided with one but then what happens if you get continually turned down until that is someone leaves in the office?

It happened to me in a previous job. I was asked by a manager when I was leaving what I was on and then my colleague who was the nicest human in the world, yet continually got turned down for pay raises, suddenly got a big pay bump...do you ask yourself then is this due to the work I do and the positivity that I provide or is it merely to stop more people leaving?

There are shades of grey in this, as there always is in this life but that does not mean that we should stop asking questions. Quite the opposite in fact. We should never stop asking questions to ensure that we have all the facts. Opinions are free, as they always will be but being able to establish the facts is a skill second to none.

What About Annual Leave?

Annual leave is great but how many of us can actually take it as intended? What I mean by this is can you put your hand to your heart and say that you can:

• Take a holiday when you truly wish to
• Do not need to work additional hours ahead of your holiday to get everything ready, as the work is still expected to be completed?

In addition to this, how many of us are provided with additional holiday days each year, which are then lost due to caps on how much you are able to carry over each and every year?

How many of us end up either:

• Being the colleague with three or four days lost each and every year or
• Know people in busy departments that are understaffed and end up chatting to them about the five days they once again lost this year?

This then creates pointless or empty holidays where the only inevitable conclusion is that everyone is required to take more of December off than they would typically choose to do and as such businesses suffer.

December is the road to Christmas and the closer you get to this point, the more the team starts to tune out but on the flip side, why is this the case?

Would it not be more productive to continue working up until the last possible point to then make the next year easier? It should be but like a lot of pointless activities in life, old habits are hard to break.

PAL

Pointless Annual Leave is where you are provided this to entice you to stay, something that works wonders with parents and family units, yet practically offers nothing but more stress in your day.

If for example, the only way for you to get two weeks off is to ensure that the two weeks before you work four weeks worth of work into them, no one on their right mind would agree to it as it would add additional stress to the working week. No one needs this.

You would then also walk away and ask yourself this one very simple question, why don't I just go freelance as it is how I am working anyway, with no holiday to take as mine, except that for which I create for myself, can I truly say that I am actually entitled to any annual leave?

If you are pushed in a direction in life then more often than not, as obliging human beings we simply walk in that direction anyway, as it is easiest.

I mean why make things harder for ourselves but adding management and additional responsibilities? If we are looked at like a freelancer in terms of what is expected, then why don't we simply become freelance, as at least the take-home pay would be 100% ours?

Think about that for a second. If our jobs as salaried employees are more stressful than that of a freelancer who has to carefully plan whenever they take holiday, yet can take more home to the bank, plan our days around that which we wish to achieve, when we wish to achieve it and can also say that we have made a difference to our lives and can take credit for everything that we are doing, without fear of someone stealing, then why would we not?

Why would we not simply take the credit and ensure that we as a person grow?