I just got back from a short vacation with my kid. We had a great time - our first resort. I am typically the type of traveler that is out sight seeing and planning things so it was a nice change up in how I use my PTO. I totally understand why people do the resort thing, now. Before, I was like, “but you don’t get to see the place for real” - ok, yeah, as it turns out, it’s nice to just be in a beautiful place and not have to worry about anything, though.

On the flight back, I thought about how even at just 3 days of PTO (plus the weekend), I still felt great and was so happy we went. Then, I remembered something from earlier on in my career: I used to take pride in not taking PTO.

I think that mentality came from never hearing about ANYONE taking time off growing up unless it was an absolute emergency. Living in poverty makes you unaware of what life is like outside of survival mode. Work is everything because it IS everything. You take pride in working and it’s shameful if you don’t work.

So, when I got my first full-time job, I couldn’t tell you how much PTO I had. Honestly, I’m thinking 10 days? IDK - what I do remember is I took off 5 days because my family was doing our annual Mexico trip and I had already missed it for 3 years in a row. I took the 5 days off and was so apologetic to my manager - I worked some extra hours every day until I left for my trip just to make up for it. LOL. (if any of my former coworkers are reading this… I know I know… super embarassing.)

My next job gave me about twice as much PTO. I think in almost 2 years, I only took 5 days off as well, though. I even took my laptop with me to Mexico - “just in case they needed me.” lol, wtf. Just being a “team player”, right?

After that, I remember talking to the engineers from that company and they were like, “wtf take time off, who cares.” They were more experienced than me and I realized that they felt no guilt whatsoever when they took PTO… so maybe I shouldn’t either. After that, the shame gradually subsided.

For the past 8 years, I have gotten like 5-6 weeks of PTO.

After I started at Aetna, my husband and I would take:

• 2 weeks every year to explore a new country
• Take our annual 2 week family trip to Mexico
• Explore a new US city for a few days
• take my birthday off

Of course, once we had our kid (during COVID), I started letting 40 hours rollover each year “just in case.” Because omg, what if one of us or the baby got sick for a long time? lol I cannot emphasize enough that this was all in my own head. My managers for the past few years have been amazing and they know I’m a responsible adult. I just had this really skewed view of what taking time off meant.

The truth is - everyone needs to step away from work here and there. If you have PTO, take it. Live. Plan it for yourself, no one else will do it for you.

Happy to report I still take 2 weeks off every year to go somewhere abroad, 1-2 weeks for a family trip to Mexico, and I leave some days to just hangout with my kid whether it’s long weekend type trips to explore or just relaxing. I also aim to not have any hours left to rollover next year. Although, now… it’s because I may have promised to my kid that we’d start having an annual resort trip moving forward…