Annual Leave

[PessOptimist]

Yeah, just me venting again. I am wondering if anyone else has these issues with scheduling annual leave.

Before you ask, yes the usual watchdogs are aware of the situation and doing the usual watching. No, I am not being singled out. This is just daily life in my little tiny part of the larger .fed machine.

This year there was a big emphasis on scheduling ALL annual leave by 31 Mar 15. Been a rule for years but big emphasis this year.

I have no plans to spend any money on vaca so I spread the use/lose out making more long weekends. This, of course, was questioned by my supervisor as being “unusual”.

Back story and whining starts here.

Supervisor is aka manager and is the rating official.

My supervisor is the first GS type in my command structure. There are three people between myself and my supervisor. I take my daily orders from these three and they schedule the tasking’s.

Last year I scheduled four consecutive weeks of AL for family functions. This resulted in an interview with myself, the three other chain of command persons, and the supervisor. Supervisor stated anyone taking four weeks of AL in a row was "unusual" and meant the leave taker was looking for a different job. I explained the situation and was allowed to take my AL.

In previous years I had been questioned about making plans for vacations that I could not cancel without loss of funds.

It appears there is no way to properly schedule annual leave in my organization. I sincerely wish I could carry it all over and sell it back when I retire. Which is unfortunately not soon enough lately. Greed keeps me employed as a .fed to get the magic 20 years time and the 1.1% FERS multiplier or even be eligible for the phased retirement.

Looking forward to the end of 2017. I actually do like my job.

PO

 

[Shamus13]

In my agency (at least the diffenent offices I've worked in) usually takes a week at a time, if not the whole pay period. We can't schedule single days. That's is usually requested closer to the actual day. Management will then look at it and a lot of times will deny because it MAY cause OT... That is unless you are one of the favorites.

We have a few guys (I'm one of them) that looks ahead at sports schedules, local festivals, kids school schedule, etc. I then schedule a full week knowing I only need a day or two. To me it's annoying. I lock out a whole week so others can't use it. This causes whining but management created this beast.

 

[Scout333]

Sounds like a Union violation! If you don't have one you need one!

 

[Shamus13]

Sounds like a Union violation! If you don't have one you need one!

Haha, I almost said this but held back since there is another thread that went sideways when talking about unions.
if you are constantly at use or lose they either need to let you take the time or file the paperwork that gets lost time do to extenuated circumstances. To me an a$$ for a Sup saying no-go should qualify. Good luck

 

[PessOptimist]

Yeah, just me venting again. I am wondering if anyone else has these issues with scheduling annual leave.

Before you ask, yes the usual watchdogs are aware of the situation and doing the usual watching. No, I am not being singled out. This is just daily life in my little tiny part of the larger .fed machine.

This year there was a big emphasis on scheduling ALL annual leave by 31 Mar 15. Been a rule for years but big emphasis this year…

…It appears there is no way to properly schedule annual leave in my organization. I sincerely wish I could carry it all over and sell it back when I retire. Which is unfortunately not soon enough lately. Greed keeps me employed as a .fed to get the magic 20 years time and the 1.1% FERS multiplier or even be eligible for the phased retirement.

Looking forward to the end of 2017. I actually do like my job.

PO

In my agency (at least the diffenent offices I've worked in) usually takes a week at a time, if not the whole pay period. We can't schedule single days. That's is usually requested closer to the actual day. Management will then look at it and a lot of times will deny because it MAY cause OT... That is unless you are one of the favorites.

We have a few guys (I'm one of them) that looks ahead at sports schedules, local festivals, kids school schedule, etc. I then schedule a full week knowing I only need a day or two. To me it's annoying. I lock out a whole week so others can't use it. This causes whining but management created this beast.

OT for others? Long standing rule here is no OT during a pay period you take AL. Yes management did create your rules and allows it to continue. Yes it is annoying which was my point. As I stated, just venting and inviting others to do the same.

Sounds like a Union violation! If you don't have one you need one!

Got one, a good one. They have been extremely busy lately with contract violations and time off without pay stuff. Until AL is actually refused they need not get involved, just made aware. As I said the watchdogs are watching on both sides. Meaning the U word and higher managers.

Haha, I almost said this but held back since there is another thread that went sideways when talking about unions.
if you are constantly at use or lose they either need to let you take the time or file the paperwork that gets lost time do to extenuated circumstances. To me an a$$ for a Sup saying no-go should qualify. Good luck

I enter each new leave year at use/lose due to choice. I will need that plus whatever I earn the last year to allow me to live until OPM pays me the correct amount. I have never been refused leave just saying there are always questions asked and in the last few years interviews required to justify my requests. This leave year I chose to spread it out a day at a time. Next year I may ask for 208 hours consecutively. The danger there is of course management saying if they can get along without you for five weeks they can get along without you forever. Management around here likes to say things like that. Part of their style I suppose. Another thought that comes to mind is taking one hour at the end of each work day and whatever it takes in addition to use up earned AL. That would be within the current rules but would not be practical.

Just one more thing added to the climate of uncertainty and perhaps fear in this area lately. Most of us just want to do the job we were hired to do and not get scolded or questioned for every personnel action we make. Whatever we do concerning AL seems to be questioned. Whenever the question “should I reschedule my leave?” or the seldom asked “are you denying my leave?” comes up we get the placating lecture about how leave is our right and management is just trying to plan ahead.

PO

 

[Lakebound]

Do you have a Master Agreement? What does your local Union say?

Frank

 

[Maricar19]

I can relate to you PO.

My spouse is a bargaining employee and is required to submit annual leave during "prime time" no later than March 31. Prime time season starts May-September. And it is hard to plan vacations 4-7 months ahead. Sometimes we feel like going on vacations when airfare is cheap or there are special offers.

All other leave outside of prime time must be submitted 60 days in advance. For holiday leave, annual leave is granted by seniority and only 6 or 8 employees at a time are allowed to be on leave. Since my spouse is in the middle of the seniority list (25th on a list of 75), we never had a chance of celebrating either Christmas or New Year with family in the Philippines, Guam or California for the last 25 years. My children are all grown up and never experienced the traditional Christmas or New year. We tried to re-create the traditions as possible, but of course the "real" tradition is different with the presence of close family.

Anyways, we look forward to our retirement where we can just leave in a huff whenever we feel like it, but of course, but of course balancing the budget comes into play! We never win...

And of course the most annoying of them all is what Shamus said about needing only a day or two, but you have to put in for a week so that you can get priority. The union has a also a rule that request for week gets priority over day.

 

[Lakebound]

We do total year leave scheduling by seniority every November for the following year.

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