I am in partial work mode today, as Smallsteps is home ill. Technically, she isn't that sick, but we wanted to keep her home to observe a little and save her some unnecessary discomfort. This means that I am a bit back and forth between her and the desk, which disrupts both sides of the equation. Lately, I have been taking the "day off" when she has been ill, but she isn't sick enough to do that today, so I will do a partial shift instead.
I have a lot of holidays and extra hours owing, with 58 holiday days in total, and over a week of time in lieu from overtime owing also. Weirdly, our annual leave holidays are not counted on a 5 day week like we work, it is on a 6 day week, so Saturday is included. This is some left over law from times past or something like that, so the total vacation days are a bit misleading.
The reason I have so many though is that since 2021, each year I take my summer holidays, I am actually using the previous year allocation, leaving the current year intact. This is because I had a stroke just before summer holidays started, which meant that it was taken as sick leave, not annual leave.
The only benefit of having a stroke?
Because we have some shared responsibilities as a team, we have to arrange our holidays so there is always at least someone available, just in case. This can be hard if everyone is in Finland, because the holiday month is generally all of July, or a week either side, because this is also about the only chance for decent weather. However, we have one person in the UK and one in the US also now, so it is a bit easier to organize, as they take different periods off.
However, one of the challenges is that the summer school holidays are crazy long here, with Smallsteps only having a couple weeks left before starting, and not going back until mid-August. Even if my wife and I staggered our holidays with no overlap, we wouldn't be able to cover the 10 weeks under normal circumstances. There is some holiday care for the first few weeks however, so that she will spend time there for a bit, but I will probably have to take extra holidays from my bank in August to cover the end of it.
I guess normally, it would come down to grandparents doing some baby sitting, and that is likely possible for a few days. But Smallsteps' are approaching eighty now and they don't have the energy they had when they looked after her cousins in the past. They also used to have a summer cottage where they would spend the summers and would take the kids there, but they gave it up a few years ago because they just couldn't maintain it anymore, as it was just too much work.
For the first fifteen years I was in Finland, I didn't have annual leave, as I was either a freelancer or a business owner. This meant that I would either work through when I could, or be on "forced holiday" because there was no work. The first couple years, the forced holiday was almost ten weeks long, which was completely unpaid, and it was terrible. So, holidays weren't the most relaxing part of the year for me.
Now, things are a bit different as even though I still have a small business, I don't have that much work to do throughout the summer, and I get paid normally from my work as well. This has taken a lot of the stress off holidays, as I can live a normal life, without having to plan many months ahead on how I will survive it.
We aren't travelling outside of Finland this year though, as we don't have the money available to spend on it. However, an overnight beach trip to the coast for a couple days is possible pending the weather, and we want to do a few day trips to see some sights we haven't visited before. My plan is to have more relaxed days where when we are at home we are in the garden or chilling somewhere, and when we are away from the home, maximizing time as a family doing something different.
One benefit of travelling in Finland is, there is always something for Smallsteps to eat on a menu.
I assume it isn't just me, but getting locked into plans is never really comfortable, and as someone who doesn't like to plan free time, booking holiday slots a couple months in advance feels like I am planning ahead too far for it. However, it has to be done so others can plan their holidays too and we can work out the schedules. My wife has a smaller team all in Finland though, and that makes it hard for them to plan and generally means that no one gets quite what they want.
But, it'll be fine.
My wife and I try to roll with the punches, so not getting the exact holidays we want, has never been too much of a drama in the past. However, both of us have experienced some pretty big dummy spits in our time, because people expect that they should always get what they want, even if others don't. More entitlement.
Do you have holiday plans?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
