In my blog posting following my interview by the NBC Nightly News last week about vacation deprivation in the United States, I said that I would spotlight some of the comments that resulted from my query asking my time management training audiences and consulting clients to share reasons why using earned vacation time is difficult. This response below came from a state agency employee. When you consider that the reason you usually earn the extra hours to exchange for time off is because there was not enough time in a work day to accomplish everything, how do you manage this during the same interval when you are already so busy you cannot get it all done?

I started a new job and a whole new program mid-year and was told to use up my comp time. It was very stressful to try to get what I needed to get done and still whittle away at my excess annual leave and comp time. Then I was told to clean up my office. I was not working enough hours to both get things accomplished and keep up with my office organization! The way our leave system works for state employees is that you earn 4 hours annual leave every two weeks for the first 5 years, 5 hours every two weeks the next 5 years, then 6 hours every two weeks from then on. By the time you get to 6 hours, that’s 19.5 days, which is hard to use when they keep cutting positions and expecting everyone to do more and more! And if you travel like I do, you earn comp time, which you then have to take off in the same two weeks if they do not want you to have comp time on the books. It is all a stressful balancing act!