Scheduling leave

In the military, vacation is called "leave" and you get 30 days of it per fiscal year. It's definitely a lot, though it's used up a little differently than in the private sector. In the military, there's no such thing as a "weekend day." Every day you're on leave, weekday or otherwise, counts against your total.

Still, four weeks a year is pretty awesome, especially considering it's the same for everyone from Private to General. And it builds up if you don't use it. You can carry over up to 75 days into the following year. If you have more, but don't use it, your boss can actually get in trouble.

This creates an interesting situation. If you have more, you get higher priority for your leave requests, since your excess is "use or lose." That's the situation I'm in now. I have two weeks of leave to take before the end of September (the end of the federal government's fiscal year), so I'm actually being kicked out of the office for the second half of the month.

That's cool. Even better, I *must* take all 30 days of leave next year. If I don't take four week-long trips, I can actually get in trouble.

It's taken me four years to get to this point (following my arrival at Fort Hood), but I'm really liking this.