The 8-4-8

When we found out that our families were coming down for roughly three weeks this month, I did my best to take some time off of work to be with them. A recurring theme when writing about family is the fact that we live so far away and don't see them very often. So when we go home or they come down here, I try to take some time off just to visit.

One problem that can come up is vacation time. Whether it is not having enough or at a time during the year when work is so busy and hectic that I can't take the time off. When it is too busy to take vacation time, in rolls ingenuity. And in rolls a two week schedule that makes me wonder about my sanity from time to time. It is what I refer to as the 8-4-8. Work eight days straight, take four days off, work another eight days straight. Crazy right? Yes. I have good reasoning for doing this. It takes up no vacation time! Instead of taking sixteen or twenty four hours of vacation, I use none. One question that people ask is usually, Is that legal? The way it balances out on the work schedule is that the first three days of the eight day stretch starts out on one work and then rolls over to the next week for the next five days. So there is no crazy overtime (the pay would be nice) and both weeks involved include two days off. The second part of this stretch is a mirror image of the first.

I have done this a few times in the past two years and it works out great. There is always something to do at work so the time just flies through the week. When the four day vacation stretch comes, it is insanely relaxing. Later on this year when we want to take a seven to ten day trip somewhere, having that extra vacation time banked will come in really handy. It is all about looking ahead and planning.