Were You Able to Take All of Your Vacation Time in 2020?

It's a topic that I've been bumping into repeatedly over the past week or two: more and more people are telling me that they weren't able to take all of their vacation time in 2020. Chalk it up to another way 2020 is crushing our souls.

Don't laugh. I'm a big believer in taking vacations. As a manager here at Fun 107, I almost insist that people on the airstaff use up their accrued vacation time throughout the year. I don't do it to be a nice guy. I do it because I believe well-rested employees give you more productive workdays than stressed out, frazzled workers.

According to Forbes magazine, Americans leave a whopping 429 million unused vacation days that expire at the end of each year. The final numbers haven't been released yet, but I would bet a week's vacation that Americans will be leaving millions more this year.

I heard it so many times this year, that no one was interested in taking a vacation this spring and summer because of the travel bans. If you can't leave your state, what is the point of taking a vacation?

Now, too many workers are feeling the end of the year crunch. Suddenly, there are only a few weeks left in the year, and they have most (if not all) of their vacation days left. For a good majority of these workers, those vacation days will expire in under 30 days. With it will be family time that will never, ever be able to be retrieved.

Even if you can't leave the SouthCoast, you can spend those days working on home improvement projects.

Hmmm, that may open up the door for another article in favor of not taking those vacation days.