Work Work Work Work Work. ...

And now I get to talk about paid time off ... if I haven't talked about it yet.  Don't remember.

So when it comes to paid time off, I am eligible for so many Hours a Year based on tenure.  That time off is meted out every Sunday, about 2 3/4 Hours.  You get to use it whenever you like, assuming that not everybody is trying to take that day off.  (We have a lottery for the most popular days employees want off, such as Black Friday and the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.)  You can even "borrow" up to 40 Hours in advance of getting yours every week.  However, the maximum number of Hours you can carry over to the next calendar Year is 40.  On December 31, any time off you have above 40 Hours is gone forever.

That isn't a problem in normal times.  I remember last year where I actually was trying to cling onto time off that I wanted to carry into 2020.  It was difficult to hold onto them because in November and December there were several days where the work dried up so much we were asked to use time off.  I had some Hours that I took through 2019, but those days of short work lasted past 2019 as well, and I think I used the last of my carryover time off in February when we were once again cut early.

The Year 2020, of course, is not a normal time.  I wanted to take my customary annual trip to St. Louis to whore around with my All-Time Favorite down there.  I also wanted to see my sister and brother-in-law in Hawai'i.  The pandemic, of course, put the kibosh on those plans.  Meanwhile, those nine Weeks or so where we were brought down to part-time Hours did not alter the amount of paid time off we accrued.  I was working from, say 8:30 until 12:30 and yet I still got another 2 3/4 Hours of time off every Sunday.  That's a good thing, but that turned into an embarrassment of riches that I noticed in the back half of the summer.  I was putting in a request to take a day off, and while looking ahead to the end of the year, I noticed that I was going to build up a lot of paid time off, much of which I was going to lose if I didn't start scheduling days off for myself starting, like, the day I noticed this.

So I came up with a plan.  Calculating the number of Hours I need to use or otherwise lose, I put in requests to take either half-days or whole days off every other Friday.  It wasn't easy to figure that out, even with the line graph of Hours of time off I would both get and use, because I could only put in requests up to three Months in advance.  But by October 1, I got in all the Hours I needed to request off to get me down below 40 Hours by the time 2020 finally dies off.  (By the way, I figure that it is better to get down below 40 Hours now despite the theoretical risk that we will be cut off from work this November and December as well.  Some of the days in which we got cut were the days after Christmas, and since Christmas this Year falls on a Friday, I won't have to worry about using my paid time off on Boxing Day because I won't be working on Boxing Day.  And besides, if I do get cut early, I could put in a request to take back my paid time off and work the whole day instead.)

But one complication has made things complicated, and it started well before October 1.  I have been asked by my boss to fill in for other people in other departments on weeks where I planned on using time off.  In situations like this (and for my whole time employed there I think I refused an ask by my boss to fill in just once), I get back the paid time off I am actually working.  I don't mind it; I like to help out.  But it seems as though right now I am filling in for a lot of people -- much of it on short notice, possibly because the people I'm filling in for also have a surplus of use-it-or-lose-it paid time off.  So when I go back above 40 Hours, I need to find another Friday in which I can take off in whole or in part.

That has happened so often that instead of taking paid time off on alternate Fridays, I am taking paid time off on most Fridays through the end of the Year.  In fact, right now, including yesterday, I am supposed to work all day on only three Fridays for the rest of 2020.  And I think that's going to go down to two.  (This is the reason why I decided to blog post about this.)  Late last/Friday night my boss texted me giving me a head's-up that I might have to come in to work for someone in The Third Department because the person who was supposed to work there today/Saturday is sick.  Several Hours later, he texted again confirming that the guy is sick (and, God bless him, but the way this came about suddenly, I think he's got the 'Rona) and that I can come in for six Hours of work.  (Aside: I texted back asking if working six Hours will put me into Overtime, something that my boss says he is under constant pressure not to give out.  But then I realized that my Hours of work will just displace the eight Hours of paid time off I took yesterday/Friday.  My goodness, I still don't understand paid time off.)  I'm above 40 once again, so I'll have to find a stray Friday and beg to put in only a half-Day.

I'm now afraid that this won't be the end of it.  We've got ten Weeks left of the Year, and I think more people will either come down with something or beg for time off, and my boss will ask me to come in, and I'll say yes, and I'll get back paid time off that I will now be desperate to use up before the Year is over.  I find it a tad ironic that I am obsessed to find days not to work, and yet I am still working like a dog.  Rihanna said it best -- "Work, work, work, work, work," followed by crap I don't understand.