<p>No one has said this yet, so I will. I don’t know if it was because I worked for tough-guy defense firms or what, but taking vacation was seen as a problem, a sign of a lack of commitment to the company. We always held our breath before a week off - would they insist everyone work OT? The problem is that they may approve the vacation, but actually taking it may reveal you as some sort of slacker and your reputation as someone they can rely on no matter what is hurt.</p>
<p>Pay attention to the culture of the company you are considering (if you have a choice at all), because I’m sure it isn’t like this everywhere.</p>
Definitely not everywhere. I also work with a defense contractor, and not only have I never seen any stigma associated with taking vacation, we have been told in no uncertain terms that everyone WILL take all their vacation each year. Every manager has as part of their duty monitoring end-of-the-year schedules - every person has a “last day” where they must start taking vacation or else they will lose it. My first manager had gotten orders to literally walk one of his employees out of the building when it was discovered that he was about to work past this point and lose vacation days.</p>
<p>Oh, I thought of another piece of advice that might seem obvious, but you need to remember it. If an employer says, “Sure, we’ll give you an extra week of vacation as part of your package,” politely ask them to put it in writing!! My husband was hired by a contractor to oversee a job on a Naval air station. He got the vacation offer put into writing, fortunately, because when he told them he was going to the Bahamas for a week, they suddenly “forgot” what they had said. He showed them the piece of paper, so they honored the commitment.</p>
<p>Oh, Lord, my husband has never worked for a company that’s been generous with vacation days. Can’t get him to take a day off to save his life. He’s been a contractor with the government for the last ten years, and often has to take a “vacation day” when the facility is closed, like Mardi Gras or a Hurricane Day, even though the government workers get it as a holiday. </p>
<p>A friend of ours who is a chemical engineer works the 9 day/80 hour shift. Fantastic! Gets long weekends and does LOTS of traveling. </p>
<p>Definitely look for a job like that. It’s amazing how much you can do with a long weekend.</p>
<p>At my company, people with 0-5 years with us get 15 days off, 5-10 get 20 days off, and 10+ years get 25 days off. That includes sick days. You accumulate until you have 37.5 days, which is when you max out.</p>
<p>We have something similar to 9/80 during the summer months. Work an extra four hours sometime between Monday and Thursday and take a 1/2 day on Friday. As someone else said earlier though, some people won’t be able to do this due to the nature of their jobs.</p>
<p>A lot of kids’ events are as early as 3 or 4 pm on weekdays. I don’t know how parents who work full time at an office manage the transportation. Since we work at home, I often “take off” from mid-afternoon to early evening, then work really late.</p>
<p>I have always been allowed a pretty flexible schedule, including doing some work from home, so I have not had had any problems with my childrens’ schedules as yet. Of course, that could easily change as they get older…</p>
<p>If you can handle a break in pay, is it possible to take large amounts of unpaid time off between projects?
To me, the advantage of an ideal well-paying career would not be to make a bunch of money but to make enough money and afford to have time off to travel etc.</p>
<p>maybe23, if your company has time to waste “between projects,” it won’t stay in business long. Usually you’re working on more than one project at a time, actually. I don’t know of anyone who has taken unpaid time off, except to extend maternity leave.</p>
<p>In most industries (including engineering) long absences are permitted only for medical reasons or military service. Whether you have 2 weeks of vacation each year or 6, there are going to be sharp limits on how much of it you can take at any given time. If a project can survive without you for 4 straight weeks, then it doesn’t need you in the first place. Even if you are working on a single project at a time, it is highly unlikely that your next project can afford to wait long for you to start it. Truly long breaks are going to happen only once in a while, if ever.</p>
<p>FWIW - Not a ton of ChemE jobs in Silicon Valley… but 3 weeks is pretty standard here. Usually you get “Personal days” which includes sick days. 20 personal days is pretty std. So, if you don’t get sick much, you can get 4 weeks vacation. 9-11 company holidays is typical as well.</p>
<p>My current employer ‘only’ gives 2 weeks, I was really surpised when I got the offer. I tried to negotiate more, but no deal. It’s been many years since I worked for a company that only gives 2 weeks.</p>
<p>As I stated earlier, consulting companies often give 6 weeks of vacation and people will take all 6 weeks at once sometimes. You take the vacation between projects - finish one, go on vacation, come back and see what’s next. Those companies have thousands of engineers on thousands of projects, so they always have projects opening. </p>
<p>You’re also ignoring plant engineers. They do not work on projects, they work on plants that operate 24/7. That plant will survive whether you’re there or not, they’ll just have to temporarily move an engineer off project work to cover your plant for however many weeks (it’s the same thing that happens when someone quits and it takes 6 weeks to hire a replacement).</p>
<p>But outside of consulting, the best I’ve seen for plant/design work was a company that offered 3 weeks of vacation + 2 days of floating holidays + 9/80 schedule + Comp time when you were forced to work overtime. </p>
<p>I saw people trade 9/80 days (swap Fridays with someone else so you get 2 Fridays off in a row but then work 2 Fridays in a row), use a couple of comp days, then use 2 floating holidays to take 9 day vacations without touching their vacation time. There was almost an art to maximizing your vacation days.</p>
<p>If you don’t put a premium on pay then investigate whether there are any openings in the federal government. Your entry level pay will be very poor compared to the private sector but eventually should move up to something more satisfactory. Vacation time starts at 13 days per year and rises significantly with tenure. If you are good you will probably wind up working like a dog and earn lots of overtime. Eventually you will have so much time off that you can’t take it (the really good employees can never take off because they do all the work).</p>
<p>^^^Oh, yes. You can’t beat working for the federal government. We have a lot of friends, 50 years old, who are leaving the private sector to take lower paying government jobs because of the benefits. Of course, when you’re young, you don’t think about things like health insurance, pension, but believe me, when you get to retire while you’re still young enough to enjoy it, you’ll be glad you did it!</p>