What kind of jobs give you a lot of time off?

[GsR]

I keep hearing about how Europeans get 4-6 weeks of vacation a year, and being European myself, I think I should be entitled to said vacay time.... But seriously, I've always had summers off, or at least breaks between jobs, and I never had a full-time job for even a whole year (currently in college and graduating next year.) I can't help but think that if I was stuck at the same job with only a week or two for vacation, I'd feel a sort of claustrophobia. Call me lazy if you want, but I've been to Europe a bunch of times and the consensus over there is that Americans are overworked. I like to travel and like the notion of being able to take an extended period of time off, even if it means putting in extra hours to cover for it.

So, aside from self-employment, is academia the only avenue that offers this kind of leniency or flexibility?
I'll be graduating with an engineering degree, btw. Side note: My mom says she used to have, like, 3 whole months off - paid- every year...unless you love being at your job (highly unlikely), that sounds pretty enticing.


Modified by GsR at 6:53 AM 4-21-2010

[delta v]

Even Academia doesn't really have that much time off. I'm just finishing grad school, and we were expected to work all summer long. My adviser probably took a little more than the 'normal' 3 weeks you could expect (he was Greek and took a trip to visit family each August), but I'm sure he made up for it the rest of the year, considering the number of emails I got from him sent at 2am...

I worked (as a Mechanical Engineer for a defense company) for a little over 2 years before going back to school, and never really felt 'overworked'. Most places these days offer 'flex time', so you can front load your work schedule and be off by noon-ish on Friday. I also had a decent amount of vacation time to cash out at the end of my time with them. As for self employed being 'more flexible', I'm going to guess that it is actually the opposite; building a company takes lots of time, and I can't imagine being able to take 3 months off.

[NightTrain EX]

United States President

[seoulstice]

Welcome to the work force.

Teachers get lots of time off during the summers as well as during the school year. That is the only profession I could think of.

[Elliot]

Doctors can. One of my friends is a pediatrician and only works 3 days/wk. Another is a radiologist and does the same. My bro-in-law is a veterinarian and only works 14x12hr shifts/mo.

[VR6JetPilot]

as elliot mentioned, the medical field.
my wife is a RN and works 2-3 days a week. if she works the beginning of one week and the end of the following week, she gets a whole week off without taking vacation.

most businesses give you 2 weeks vacation and then offer 3 weeks after 5 yrs. the company i work for gives us 3 weeks after our 3rd yr.

also, we have a 9/80 schedule so we work 9 hr days but get every other monday (some people in the company have fridays) off. you can also find companies that have a 4/40 where you only work 4 days a week.

[2003vwgolf8v]

you could also try to find a european company that has offices in america. my uncle works for lufthansa cargo and gets 4 weeks a year at least.

[Hostile]

I get 20 days of paid vacation a year and unlimited paid personal/sick leave.

[smittyATL]

Radiologists and, I also believe, anesthesiologists get 8-16 weeks of vacation per year. The pay isn't too bad either.

It sounds like your first couple of years in the real world will be an eye opener. Getting 5-10 days off per year and working for an ****** is a lot more work than college.

[AaronD]

Work for a european company with high euro influence. I work for a Dutch/German Company and I get 30 days off the bat.

btw, welcome to life...find something you really love doing bc you will always have to work..might as well make it something you enjoy doing..

or be a cop..they dont do much but sit around/drive around and bug people...prolly make you miserable, but its easy and they have like 3 days on and 4 off and can retire early bc of pension...quite ridiculous really when u think about what they actually do..


Modified by AaronD at 1:14 PM 4-22-2010

[robr2]

Quote, originally posted by AaronD »

or be a cop..they dont do much but sit around/drive around and bug people...prolly make you miserable, but its easy and they have like 3 days on and 4 off and can retire early bc of pension...quite ridiculous really when u think about what they actually do...

Yeah that potential for getting shot really isn't a concern.

[LGBoogie19]

Quote, originally posted by AaronD »

or be a cop..they dont do much but sit around/drive around and bug people...prolly make you miserable, but its easy and they have like 3 days on and 4 off and can retire early bc of pension...quite ridiculous really when u think about what they actually do.. Modified by AaronD at 1:14 PM 4-22-2010

I'm not a huge fan of cops but do you realize how dumb that makes you look?

[focuz04]

Military gets 30 days paid vacation a year. from day one.
jake

[VW1.8Tsunami]

Quote, originally posted by focuz04 »

Military gets 30 days paid vacation a year. from day one. jake

I don't think it's from 'day 1' I think you have to accrue them. Like 2.5 days/month IIRC.

Firefighters have pretty sweet schedules.

[Chacolla]

Quote, originally posted by LGBoogie19 »

I'm not a huge fan of cops but do you realize how dumb that makes you look?

Seriously...I'm sure that your local law enforcement would love to read that when someone breaks into your house.

Anyways, to give advice to the OP, vacation time varies extremely from industry to industry. I've only been at my employer for about 10 months, I get 12 days off and 10 days sick time. I'm allowed to work certain days throughout the year to build up extra vacation time- for example, the day after Thanksgiving will give me another vacation day. I built up a total of 5 extra days off, so technically I had 17 days off throughout the year, which is 3 business weeks and 2 extra days. Not too bad...after I'm here for 3 years, I think I get 15 days set, and then I can continue to build up time. You might want to check out a job working for your state. My mom works for the state's Health Center and she has RIDICULOUS vacation/sick time. It's crazy how many days off she can have throughout the year without anyone saying a thing to her, but my mom hates sitting at home doing nothing so she just continues to work.

I'm more concerned with "flex time". Right now, the position I am in does not allow me to leave my desk. I have a set schedule that I must follow every week because I have to remain on the phones (I'm an inside property loss adjuster for a property/casualty insurance company). I recently took a position (that I won't be starting until September) where I will be an outside property loss adjuster/bodily injury adjuster and I don't have to be tied to any phone. Meaning, if I have 10 assignments I need to take care of throughout the week, I can either space out my work for even work days, or I can get all my work done as soon as possible, and then sit on my ass the rest of the week until something else comes in. To me, that is a MASSIVE benefit and way more important to me than having extra vacation time. Being allowed to work on my own schedule, and set my own pace while being able to go in and out of the office at my leisure is going to be awesome

Counting down the seconds until 5PM everyday so I can turn off my phone is the worst


Modified by Chacolla at 3:04 PM 4-23-2010

[John Lee Pettimore]

law enforcement
firefighters
nurses/healthcare

all of these positions typically have a 4 on 4 off or 4 on 3 off type of shift rotation, so if you like a lot of time off throughout the year vs. one lump sum of time, these are great careers. work OT on your on days & you'll earn as much as coming in on your off days for regular shifts = higher income working extended shifts and then still taking 3-4 days off/week.

plus they still get fatty time off for vacations/family time etc. i know several who can take ~3 months a year off straight w/ full regular pay. it's done by applying their days off only to their scheduled work days vs. taking 2 weeks off. ie 14 days off in a row = maybe 7 or 8 used vacation days, and the rest were off days already.

[inov8ter]

Firefighters get the most time off I have seen. They work less than like 80 days a year.

[FlyinbySTi]

The company I work for gives you 2 weeks of a year for the first 5yrs you work there. Then at 5yrs you get 3 weeks off.

You want to have alot of time off be a pilot. Typical pilot days worked it about 12-15days a month. Some months you work more, some you work less.

When my father retired he had 6 weeks vaca and worked about 15 days a month.

[azunderg]

Most of my friends/family work for the Big 3 in OH and MI. They seem to be getting tons of time off lately...

[leitmotif]

I used to work for a Danish company and later on the N.A. head office for the company transferred to a Canadian company. The Danes would often have their out of office replies on stating they would be out for 3 or 4 consecutive weeks. I believe they got this twice a year. I don't recall exactly though. The Canadians got all of our U.S. holidays off and their Canadian holidays. However, we did not get boxing day of for example. I was there for 3 years and I think I got 5 sick days and 10 vacation days. I was lucky though because my CEO was cool and basically said "if you're sick, I don't want you here" and I ended up getting sick a lot my first year there. He also allowed me to go negative with my vacation time for my wedding and honeymoon. I eventually earned it all back, but didn't have much to cash out on when I was laid off.

The Danes are some of the happiest people on earth. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=4086092&page=1

I wonder why American companies don't offer more time off? I think people would be more productive and have a better attitude if they were able to take time off. I would love to be able to travel more and to farther away places. I don't want to be limited to taking a vacation then if something came up later in the year, I'd be screwed because I wouldn't have any time off.

edit: the end of this video talks about their time off http://www.cbsnews.com/video/w...video


Modified by leitmotif at 8:13 AM 4-27-2010

[G60ING]

Fire fighters have a good amount of time off if you can handle their rotation. They typically get to retire at an earlier age. Some locations make overtime easy to get for firefighters. If I could handle dealing with being an EMT I'd be a fire fighter

[John Lee Pettimore]

here's a couple more i hadn't remembered before:

oil hands/rig workers. they'll work 30 days straight, but then get the next 12 or 18 days off - that sort of shift rotation isn't too uncommon.

miners. sometimes you'll work a three month stint, then you're off for a month solid & back home. then there are others that will be flown in for an 8 day work tour, then flown back home for 4 days off, then back to work etc.

long haul truckers. depends how much money you want to make, really. some work non-stop to the legal maximum & never spend time at home, but i know truckers that will go do 2 hauls in 6 days, then take the next 4-7 days off, rinse & repeat.

commercial fishermen. they work their bags off for the fishing season, then drink for a few months before they can go back out again.

longshoreman. when you start out you show up 3-4 times every 24 hours for a work call out to see if you can get a shift. guys might do this for their first year or so, then they move up the boards (here it's from H to A board, and coincidentally there are a lot of HA's working there.. ) & get priority for shifts over those with less seniority. once you're up on D, C, B, or especially A - you can make great money on your on-shifts, especially if you can get a shift operating a gantry crane or "the money train" (triple tandem yard hauler rig train nicknamed such because it's a piece of cake job for the highest shift differential due to the "danger" and "expertise" & "stress" etc.) anyways, long story short they make fat money & get great benefits and time off.

tug boat operators. especially captains or those with seniority. they can make incredible money ($180k cdn) & only have to work hard for about 8 months for it.

and depending what you want to do with your time off, perhaps a travel industry job. my twin bro sells cruises for a living (mostly alaskan) & gets quite a bit of time off. his vacation time has increased with seniority to a few weeks now, but he gets a lot more than that off considering all of the REQUIRED cruises & tours he "has to" do for work purposes - so this vacations don't count against his time off, but he still gets to travel the world. but he does have to attend info seminars & such on these industry trips to learn the product better so he can sell their particular cruise & destination experience. he now typically gets plenty more of these sorts of trips per year than he gets in time off, then if he's won sales contests throughout the work year, he's likely earned enough credits with various cruise lines & credit dollars at his agency to take a cruise & cover airfare and sometimes even hotel stays at a highly discounted rate.

[retro_rocket]

A friend of mine works for the county government in social services, and I swear they must make up new holidays all the time so they can have even more days off Between that, vacation time, personal days, and comp time, it seems like he's never working a five-day week.

[Merc-MarkO]

I work for Intel. 3 on, 3 off, 4 on, 4 off. 12hr shifts.

8 paid weeks off every 7yrs. I tacked on 2wks of vacation to my last sabbatical and had a glorious 10wks straight of no work.

[Here's Johnny]

Firefighters get the most time off I have seen. They work less than like 80 days a year.

I worked EMS for three years and had the same schedule as the Fire Department. Alot of people are not cut out for it, I had shifts where I'd see the station at 8 am beginnig of shift and than again 24 hours later the following day. Other shifts I wouldn't turn a wheel, but the average amount of sleep was around 4 hours a night. Call numbers are directly corellated to your station, there was a station that would get 20 calls minimum a shift while mine was 14 but could jump to 20 pretty easy.

No job is easy, do what you love and don't make time off the largest influence.

[teutonicgoodness]

Move to Europe, Sweden has it best. They get 25 days off, as in 5 weeks vacation.

[Low J.]

I work for a large tech company and we get 6 hours of time off every pay period (every 2 weeks) so it ends up coming out to 4 weeks off. Then you get all the holidays on top of that. Not too bad and pretty standard at those types of firms these days.

[vwbrvr6]

We get 3 weeks paid time off. That is used for sick, vacation, anytime we need off.

[peecee]

I echo the sentiments of being a firefighter. Here's a little story.

I have a friend that graduated from college the same day I did.

We both tested for the same county firefighting agencies. We each finished 1 & 2 in four tests. We were both offered positions with the same departments. I took a position with a private company making about $10,000 more than him (back in 1991). He accepted a position with a fire department.

In that time, I've changed jobs a few times, while he has remained with the same department. He also started doing small home improvement jobs on the side.

Ironically enough, we were just talking about the subject of hours of work the other day. Over the last 4 years, he has averaged 72 days of work with the fire department (1,728 hours) and about 100 days of side work (roughly 1,000 hours) for a total average per year of 2,278 hours. During the same time, I have put in an average of 2,800 hours per year. I have been called back from family vacations, prevented from going on others, and lost 3 weeks out of 6 weeks because I didn't have time to take them. He, on the other hand, has not once been prevented from going on planned vacations, and has a lot of time off. He's planning on retiring from the fire department in 2016 with a full pension, and hopes to maintain his side business just to have something to do.

Over the last 4 years, he has averaged about $50k a year more than me. He has the advantage that his out of work time is bringing in additional income, while mine is just wrapped up in my salary for my one job.

While my retirement fund is in good shape, I have no plans on retiring for at least another 15 years.

Be a firefighter.

[12v71]

I wonder why American companies don't offer more time off?

The same reason we don't allow a woman's nipples to be shown on public TV. Dang Puritans.

[dunhamjr]

teachers
dentist
doctors

and really any field where you own the company, or are 'the boss'... as long as you are willing to let others make some decisions while you are off golfing.

if you do some sort of consulting you can make decently large $$ and decide which gigs to take to make an acceptable income balanced against the time off you desire.

[pappas64]

Bank jobs have a lot of time off normally. I think the standard teller where I work starts with combined 3-4 weeks (sick & vacation) right after the first 90 days. Managers get 4-5 weeks.

[vanaman]

rumors i have heard is that at chase corperate offices they have manditory 4 weeks paid vacation.

steve

[Mabe]

Construction in the north. In a typical year most big contractors lay off their laborers and operators in early novemeber a hire them back on around may. You can make good money as an equipment operator and have most of the winter off earning unemployment.

[EngineCo52]

your fire dept's do shift work / either (work 2days2nights/4 off) / (24on-72off(PG County, DCFC)) there are more depending on the county/city you work for but those are the most common/ i work for a PSAP and work 5on 3off