Maybe it's more of a question of where do you work? In the US of A, holidays (paid or not) are separate from vacation, no deducting from time off. Been that way in every company I've worked at, large or small, public or private, in a half-century of earning a living. EA's design choice flies in the face of standard practice, and quite possibly federal employment law. Not to mention the already shown lack of logic in view of the game's existing various means of free income.
I work for a community hospital actually. In the US of A. We have one lump amount for everything (sick time, pto, holidays etc.)
Here’s what I found by just googling:
“Traditionally, employers offered separate paid time off benefits to employees, such as paid vacation, sick leave and personal days. However, in the past decade, many companies have moved to a more flexible Paid Time Off or “PTO” benefit that incorporates all policies into one all-inclusive PTO plan.-Jul 12, 2016”
I also get quite a few hours put toward my lump sum weekly. Which maxes out at 400. So maybe I’m not doing so bad lol.
Hmmm, my husband's employer uses PTO, but it certainly doesn't include holidays. I could see it making sense if you had the choice to work on a holiday (or it was required), but otherwise, it makes more sense to keep them separate. Having to take a unpaid day off on a holiday if you don't have the time accrued for whatever reason could be somewhat punitive.
Edit: Thinking about it a bit more, I think people who work longer than 8 hour shifts (10 and 12 hours are fairly common) may have to dip into their PTO to get their entire day pay. The holiday pay is 8 hours (I believe). So I guess it's not so cut-and-dry even in a company that has separate PTO and holiday pay.
All good points. I'll talk design about this. There are people who like both directions here but I'm sure we can find a middle ground solution as well.
Just FYI, for those looking for a cheat type solution, you can quit your job for a extended summer vacation and then start that job again at the same level when your vacation ends.
Anyone who is fine with it probably does not take vacations in the game. We need those days for real vacations (Granite Falls, El Salvadorada.) I currently have 47 holidays in a sim year, (including a full month of summer vacation.) With the current system, none of my sims will ever have vacation days to use as they were intended.
All good points. I'll talk design about this. There are people who like both directions here but I'm sure we can find a middle ground solution as well.
Just FYI, for those looking for a cheat type solution, you can quit your job for a extended summer vacation and then start that job again at the same level when your vacation ends.
Anyone who is fine with it probably does not take vacations in the game. We need those days for real vacations (Granite Falls, El Salvadorada.) I currently have 47 holidays in a sim year, (including a full month of summer vacation.) With the current system, none of my sims will ever have vacation days to use as they were intended.
47 days off of work and school? That's quite a lot.
All good points. I'll talk design about this. There are people who like both directions here but I'm sure we can find a middle ground solution as well.
Just FYI, for those looking for a cheat type solution, you can quit your job for a extended summer vacation and then start that job again at the same level when your vacation ends.
Anyone who is fine with it probably does not take vacations in the game. We need those days for real vacations (Granite Falls, El Salvadorada.) I currently have 47 holidays in a sim year, (including a full month of summer vacation.) With the current system, none of my sims will ever have vacation days to use as they were intended.
Or they don't use traditional 'jobs/careers' for their income.
Sure, I'd be exploiting the holidays so I could pretend the kids were home schooled. But in order to do that, I would also have liked to be able to keep the kids home but send the adult/s to work. Being able to edit the "busy" schedule would have been great for that. I really don't want to have to use paid leave and keep the adults at home too.
All good points. I'll talk design about this. There are people who like both directions here but I'm sure we can find a middle ground solution as well.
Just FYI, for those looking for a cheat type solution, you can quit your job for a extended summer vacation and then start that job again at the same level when your vacation ends.
Anyone who is fine with it probably does not take vacations in the game. We need those days for real vacations (Granite Falls, El Salvadorada.) I currently have 47 holidays in a sim year, (including a full month of summer vacation.) With the current system, none of my sims will ever have vacation days to use as they were intended.
47 days off of work and school? That's quite a lot.
Yeah, but like I said, it includes a full month of summer vacation. So 47-28= 19 real holidays. Now that I know about the vacation days, I've reduced summer vacation to two weeks. Also, some of my holidays do not require days off, like Earth Day, Halloween and The Purge.
All good points. I'll talk design about this. There are people who like both directions here but I'm sure we can find a middle ground solution as well.
Just FYI, for those looking for a cheat type solution, you can quit your job for a extended summer vacation and then start that job again at the same level when your vacation ends.
Anyone who is fine with it probably does not take vacations in the game. We need those days for real vacations (Granite Falls, El Salvadorada.) I currently have 47 holidays in a sim year, (including a full month of summer vacation.) With the current system, none of my sims will ever have vacation days to use as they were intended.
Or they don't use traditional 'jobs/careers' for their income.
That too. I'm hoping they consider making holidays unpaid and letting us keep our vacation days instead of adding a cheat. That would supremely suck.
All good points. I'll talk design about this. There are people who like both directions here but I'm sure we can find a middle ground solution as well.
Just FYI, for those looking for a cheat type solution, you can quit your job for a extended summer vacation and then start that job again at the same level when your vacation ends.
By the way, it would be much appreciated if you could separate work/school on the calendar. That would help to preserve the adult's vacation time when we only want kids & teens to have the day off.
I agree that holidays should not be using our sims vacation time, because it will mean then the won’t get to experience a proper vacation.
When I worked I didn’t get paid for holidays, the only day I was guaranteed off was Christmas Day
Many of the holidays don’t require time off if you are being realistic about it.
I guess I'm one of the rare ones who hardly ever uses all the vacation earned? I always end up with gobs of vacation time for my sims that I don't know how to use, even including travelling. I actually don't mind the custom holidays using up vacation days.
I guess I'm one of the rare ones who hardly ever uses all the vacation earned? I always end up with gobs of vacation time for my sims that I don't know how to use, even including travelling. I actually don't mind the custom holidays using up vacation days.
Yeah, but previously you were not forced to use your days so they accumulated. If your vacation days were constantly being taken by holidays, you'd probably have none left.
I guess I'm one of the rare ones who hardly ever uses all the vacation earned? I always end up with gobs of vacation time for my sims that I don't know how to use, even including travelling. I actually don't mind the custom holidays using up vacation days.
Yeah, but previously you were not forced to use your days so they accumulated. If your vacation days were constantly being taken by holidays, you'd probably have none left.
Well as long as my sims earn at least 1 vacation day a week, which I'm pretty sure they do, if not more, then I don't think they would run out, unless they wanted to go on long vacations to Selvadorada. To be honest what I've been doing recently is when my sims turn Elder, I have them take vacation every day instead of retiring so they get full pay because they usually have around two weeks worth of unused vacation days.
Right now my YA sim has 6 days of vacation, which if playing 1 week per season, is a full "year's" worth of holidays (assuming 1 day a week of a non-work holiday) plus two vacation days. That seems fairly realistic.
I guess I'm one of the rare ones who hardly ever uses all the vacation earned? I always end up with gobs of vacation time for my sims that I don't know how to use, even including travelling. I actually don't mind the custom holidays using up vacation days.
Yeah, but previously you were not forced to use your days so they accumulated. If your vacation days were constantly being taken by holidays, you'd probably have none left.
Well as long as my sims earn at least 1 vacation day a week, which I'm pretty sure they do, if not more, then I don't think they would run out, unless they wanted to go on long vacations to Selvadorada. To be honest what I've been doing recently is when my sims turn Elder, I have them take vacation every day instead of retiring so they get full pay because they usually have around two weeks worth of unused vacation days.
Right now my YA sim has 6 days of vacation, which if playing 1 week per season, is a full "year's" worth of holidays (assuming 1 day a week of a non-work holiday) plus two vacation days. That seems fairly realistic.
I used to have my elders use up vacation days like that, too. But now, I don't think my elders will have any left because I've added quite a few holidays. You probably don't have to worry about running out if you only use the default holidays but many of us have added more. And I'm on 4 weeks per season. Oh well. Guess I'll just have to see what happens.
Another option could be to have the holidays in Seasons use a different system altogether rather than using the standard vacation days (in real life, holidays do not take away from your vacation days, so why should they in the game?). The way I see such a system, is quite simple, just allow us to have a certain number of school or paid work days off per Sim year for holidays (separate from vacation days), the exact number of days depending on the length we have our seasons set to. I totally agree that it shouldn't be an unlimited number of days.
I was thinking something like this too... A set number of paid holidays.
That too. I'm hoping they consider making holidays unpaid and letting us keep our vacation days instead of adding a cheat. That would supremely suck.
Except that, holidays that you get off work for, should be paid. They could still prevent abuse of the system by giving us only a set number of paid holidays per calendar cycle, so that players can't make unlimited paid holidays. As long as they're paid and don't use vacation times, I'm okay with a limited number of them.
Ok after sleeping on this issue, I really feel like it needs to be changed. I mean who cares if someone exploits it by never working and getting paid. There are two money cheats in the game that does the same thing.
I'm glad I read this thread. This seems so backwards. My boss would never tell me he/she was going to use my vacation time to use for Christmas. And that's the point of earning vacation days isn't it? To use them ever how long you want and when, not when a federal holiday rolls around. That's how people take three or four weeks of vacation and 'never work'. Good to know, this is so backwards.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
There's a lot of people posting on Twitter that they're happy about how the new system works, so I'm even more convinced that a cheat to add vacation days or being able to take unpaid days off would be reasonable solutions.
Count me in on this request. I hope the Guru's will consider this request. So many of us love Seasons, and finally, we have so many reasons (Seasons) to actually take advantage of, and use multiple times, the vacation worlds. Please Guru's consider heavily this request. Thanks also.
Having to balance and juggle vacation time adds more interesting gameplay, in my opinion. Making money is so easy in the game just having "unpaid" time off doesn't seem sufficient. I agree a certain number of holidays might not count against vacation, but not all.
In real life people can't take unlimited time off - paid or unpaid - without having it affect their work performance. For example, right now, in my RL, in my family, our income has gone up so we have the money to take a vacation - but now we are limited because of vacation time available in both our jobs. I like having a bit of realism with this. I would prefer if there is a change, that it is in the form a cheat to add more vacation days or something along those lines.
Having to balance and juggle vacation time adds more interesting gameplay, in my opinion. Making money is so easy in the game just having "unpaid" time off doesn't seem sufficient. I agree a certain number of holidays might not count against vacation, but not all.
In real life people can't take unlimited time off - paid or unpaid - without having it affect their work performance. For example, right now, in my RL, in my family, our income has gone up so we have the money to take a vacation - but now we are limited because of vacation time available in both our jobs. I like having a bit of realism with this. I would prefer if there is a change, that it is in the form a cheat to add more vacation days or something along those lines.
This is not about Sims taking a vacation. This is about holidays, which shouldn't use vacation days to be fair. They could give us, aside from our Sims' vacation days, a set number of holidays (not unlimited) that grant a day off school/work. As long as it's only a set number, and not unlimited, so our Sims could at least get a few major holidays off without it using their vacation time (because it doesn't in real life either). It would be similar to real life, and more fair, that way.
Like, seriously, what's wrong with our Sims being allowed a set number of off work/school holidays per seasonal cycle that don't count towards vacation time? Because that's literally how it works in real life. No one here is asking for an unlimited amount of days.
Maybe they should allow the calender's to add up to 10 or 11 paid work days - separate from vacation days like most schools and jobs do in real life to solve this issue. That way it would be fair as earning vacation days is important to my sims in order to pursue their archeology skill in JA - and I can't have the calender taking away those days. Right now I guess I have to get rid of all holidays as my sim is in archeology and only has a fitness job to pay her bills until she earns enough time to fully develope her archeology skills and maybe one day does not need the job anymore. So I guess for now I need to kill the calender and Holidays then.
So sad - no more Holidays for my sim. OH well.... I don't use cheats or CC or mods - so for now it is my only solution.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....
@SimGuruGeorge: could you allow the player to set the 'annual' number of paid, no-work &/or school holidays for every household? That way everyone can play every household as s/he chooses, and no one would have to use cheats (which some prefer not to do).
@SimGuruGeorge: could you allow the player to set the 'annual' number of paid, no-work &/or school holidays for every household? That way everyone can play every household as s/he chooses, and no one would have to use cheats (which some prefer not to do).
I don't think setting it on a per household bases would work, seeing as holidays are global and affect the whole town.
Comments
Hmmm, my husband's employer uses PTO, but it certainly doesn't include holidays. I could see it making sense if you had the choice to work on a holiday (or it was required), but otherwise, it makes more sense to keep them separate. Having to take a unpaid day off on a holiday if you don't have the time accrued for whatever reason could be somewhat punitive.
Edit: Thinking about it a bit more, I think people who work longer than 8 hour shifts (10 and 12 hours are fairly common) may have to dip into their PTO to get their entire day pay. The holiday pay is 8 hours (I believe). So I guess it's not so cut-and-dry even in a company that has separate PTO and holiday pay.
But an important distinction is it's a choice.
Anyone who is fine with it probably does not take vacations in the game. We need those days for real vacations (Granite Falls, El Salvadorada.) I currently have 47 holidays in a sim year, (including a full month of summer vacation.) With the current system, none of my sims will ever have vacation days to use as they were intended.
47 days off of work and school? That's quite a lot.
Or they don't use traditional 'jobs/careers' for their income.
Yeah, but like I said, it includes a full month of summer vacation. So 47-28= 19 real holidays. Now that I know about the vacation days, I've reduced summer vacation to two weeks. Also, some of my holidays do not require days off, like Earth Day, Halloween and The Purge.
That too. I'm hoping they consider making holidays unpaid and letting us keep our vacation days instead of adding a cheat. That would supremely suck.
By the way, it would be much appreciated if you could separate work/school on the calendar. That would help to preserve the adult's vacation time when we only want kids & teens to have the day off.
When I worked I didn’t get paid for holidays, the only day I was guaranteed off was Christmas Day
Many of the holidays don’t require time off if you are being realistic about it.
Sim Stuff by Pegasys
Yeah, but previously you were not forced to use your days so they accumulated. If your vacation days were constantly being taken by holidays, you'd probably have none left.
Well as long as my sims earn at least 1 vacation day a week, which I'm pretty sure they do, if not more, then I don't think they would run out, unless they wanted to go on long vacations to Selvadorada. To be honest what I've been doing recently is when my sims turn Elder, I have them take vacation every day instead of retiring so they get full pay because they usually have around two weeks worth of unused vacation days.
Right now my YA sim has 6 days of vacation, which if playing 1 week per season, is a full "year's" worth of holidays (assuming 1 day a week of a non-work holiday) plus two vacation days. That seems fairly realistic.
Sim Stuff by Pegasys
I used to have my elders use up vacation days like that, too. But now, I don't think my elders will have any left because I've added quite a few holidays. You probably don't have to worry about running out if you only use the default holidays but many of us have added more. And I'm on 4 weeks per season.
I was thinking something like this too... A set number of paid holidays.
Count me in on this request. I hope the Guru's will consider this request. So many of us love Seasons, and finally, we have so many reasons (Seasons) to actually take advantage of, and use multiple times, the vacation worlds. Please Guru's consider heavily this request. Thanks also.
In real life people can't take unlimited time off - paid or unpaid - without having it affect their work performance. For example, right now, in my RL, in my family, our income has gone up so we have the money to take a vacation - but now we are limited because of vacation time available in both our jobs. I like having a bit of realism with this. I would prefer if there is a change, that it is in the form a cheat to add more vacation days or something along those lines.
Sim Stuff by Pegasys
Like, seriously, what's wrong with our Sims being allowed a set number of off work/school holidays per seasonal cycle that don't count towards vacation time? Because that's literally how it works in real life. No one here is asking for an unlimited amount of days.
So sad - no more Holidays for my sim. OH well.... I don't use cheats or CC or mods - so for now it is my only solution.
"Games Are Not The Place To Tell Stories, Games Are Meant To Let People Tell Their Own Stories"...Will Wright.
In dreams - I LIVE!
In REALITY, I simply exist.....