When does your vacation start and end?
 

For those who travel for work I would like to pose a question: when does your vacation start and end? What I mean is if you take a Friday off of work for example when do you expect or think is reasonable to return home on Thursday evening? And the flip side if you are returning from a week off do you think travel on the Sunday after your week off is reasonable or would you travel on Monday?

The way I look at it my vacation starts at 6pm on Thursday (in the above example) and ends on Sunday night - meaning I need to be "on vacation" at those times which may result in me leaving the work location early/arrive late to accommodate that. Is that a rational/reasonable way to look at it?

It starts when I turn the out of office reply in outlook.
It ends when I turn off out of office in outlook.

When I get through security at my departure airport.

My rule of thumb is travel time = work time, so i rarely travel on Sundays and late friday nights. easy to justify when i do reports and admin work on sat AM or all evening/late with news/ball game in the background.

therefore, when i take actual vacations, my vacation begins the last workday, usually around 6-7pm that evening, and I'm not plugged back in until that first actual workday (normal start time for me is usually around 8:30...but some days it's 5-6 am start or midnight-2am end...just depends on what's happening.

the main thing is, when i vacate, I make it known to the team and my clients that i will be unplugged and will *not* be checking messages. clients get an escalation list for emergencies.

we work too darn hard to work during vacation also...i love what i do but vacation = total unplug, and i guard that like gold.

I guard not just my vacation time but ordinary weekends as well. Travel that involves going out Sunday afternoon or coming home late, late Friday night (or late, late Thursday night in your example) is taking my personal time. I'm willing to give that time when I feel it's being compensated appropriately, but people need to understand it's mine to give.

I find that how well this attitude works with colleagues and managers really depends on two things: First, do they travel for work themselves, or are all these issues just theoretical to them? Second, do they have loving families?

Talking about how someone's family situation informs their professional behavior is very un-PC but it is fairly accurate. My coworkers who have spouses and/or kids and mutually get along with them virtually never pressure me to work over weekends. They plan meetings and trips around work/life balance. I'm not saying they're slackers because they're married with kids. They do get the job done and they do make sacrifices; they just go about it sanely. The jackasses who routinely schedule me for onsite meetings 3000 miles away on Monday morning 8am or Friday afternoon 5pm are invariably divorced and estranged. It's like they've got nothing to go home to so they don't understand why anyone else would.

Vacation: Depends on the Company
 

Having worked for Microsoft, Visa, Wells Fargo and a few other big companies I'll tell you that it definitely depends on the work culture. For example at Microsoft it's common for people to leave early on rainy days just to get across the 520 bridge, and certainly on a vacation day it would be easy to leave early and arrive late on a Monday due to vacation. Other companies frown on vacation even when it has been accrued and would expect to have you there until 7pm on a Thursday even if you were leaving on vacation. I'd recommend you get a sense of what other co-workers you respect are doing and go with what your company culture will allow

In theory, 5pm on my last work day (whether that is in the office or outside of it) is when my vacation starts, and 9am on my first day back is when it ends.

In reality, 4:30 tends to be the time that everyone remembers I am going on vacation and 'just needs' x y and z (despite them having been told a week earlier, two days earlier, and that morning). So I cannot actually recall the last time I left the office at 5pm the day before a vacation! Thus I work towards 5pm, and build a 'known only to me' soft cushion of a couple of hours just in case (ie I don't book at 7pm flight!) If I am out of the office, I try to arrange to be finished by 5, or plan to be back in the office that day - or, as I have done occasionally, with permission of the company, go straight from where I am (e.g. in London for business, fly direct to Europe for a few vacation days) If that is the case, I will be as flexible as I can as I know those things work both ways.

That is how I look at it as well but my schedule this past year has had a lot of late Friday/Sunday travel. It makes the weekend very short when you get home at 11:00pm on a Friday and leave at 2:00pm on Sunday.

That is a good point - I hadn't thought about the scheduler and their situation. In my case, the guy who creates my schedule is single and in his mid 20s. That probably impacts a lot of the "why" he schedules things. Also, I don't think he has been west of the Appalachians so the sense of geography is a little lacking. It took a while to convince him that Sioux Falls, St. Paul and Fargo (in that order) was not a logical or cost effective three day schedule.

Corporate culture as well as direct managers have a lot to do with it. My supervisor used to have my role and is very understanding of the travel schedule. Unfortunately the department head has not been in this role for a while so has maybe forgotten a little bit of it. She also works in NY but lives in LA and only makes the trip twice a month so has no problem working some weekends (though I don't think she expects us to - at least not directly).

I agree that the flexibility goes both ways. In your situation do you feel that the trip home at the end of your last day of work is work time or vacation time?

that's still my vacation time. *I* get to choose whether to perform work tasks or not. (usually I at least start clearing out emails if the laundry and other 'house' stuff i need to catch up on are completed...) my vacation ends when the 'out of office' message is shut off.

in my experience that trip home has given me some of the best memories of my life...and the inbox will still be full.

if i'm working for someone who doesn't understand that, then i'm not in the right place...(fortunately i am in the right place, and it is a blessing).

+1

I agree - actually I set my OOO up about 45 minutes before I check out so that anyone sending me an email at the end of the day knows I am not going to get to it until I get back.

But the part that I struggle with is that trip home - is that eating into vacation time or is it still part of your "work" time?

Never really considered it, if you mean my flight home after my vacation (but still part of my work trip as it is the return portion paid for by the company). I guess it is technically work time, and I have spent that travel time doing some work before.

If you mean if I was travelling back from that trip on the Thursday afternoon before going on holiday on the Friday, it is work, and I would do my best to ensure I was back in the home city (although not necessarily home, as my commute from office to home is over an hour) by 5pm.

I've flip flopped around to - this incarnation, I don't take a laptop away with me, don't have my cell on etc. One person (who I trust not to bother me with trivial stuff) has the name of the hotel in case of a real emergency (someone from the office dying type emergency, not 'where is the file'!) In previous jobs I have taken my lap top, and been happy to check emails once a day, etc. But again, give and take, they were good about me taking time whenever I wanted, in return I tried not to leave them unsupported. Plus if we did any part of work on holiday, we were allowed to use the VOIP on our laptops for personal use (not to mention I could watch DVDs on the flights - this was pre my iPhone!) . Hey, give and take right ;)

Same here. If I have the next day off, I ought to be done with work by 5 or 6pm. "Done with work" includes traveling back from a remote location. Getting home at 11pm the night before a day off is not okay. As I said up-thread I adapt this from, and then extend it back to, the way I treat ordinary weekends.

Every case is different, but up thread you say that it has been a lot of Friday/Sunday, so I would consider it eating into your vacation time.

If this was a single case of arriving home late on a Friday before a vacation, I would let it slide and not make a big deal, but I think in your case it is different.

I would also have a joint talk with your scheduler and your boss/supervisor - which does not seem to be the same person. You really dont have a life at the moment it seems.