re: People who don't use their paid vacation

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I don't get it either. I know of people in my office that have thousands of hours of vacation and sick leave. I'm happy to have over 100.

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I have over 300 hours of sick time in the bank, but only about 60 vacation. I think I missed 3 days last year out sick and 2 of them were because of an ATV injury.

I'm not one to take a week off at a time, due to the pile of BS I'd come back to. But you can be damn sure I'll take off at least 3 weeks sprinkled throughout the year. I mostly take Fridays off or like this year taking Thurs and Friday after the 4th.

We are allowed to carry over but it maxes out at something ridiculous like 600 hours.

There’s this dude near retirement age at my work who routinely now has to take vacations to avoid hitting this limit. Not a bad life.

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All I end up using are my use-or-lose days. I have no family of my own right now so I don't need a ton of time off.

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I don't know man... I'd encourage you to be spontaneous and book a trip somewhere. Get out of your normal routine. Time away in a different environment, even by yourself, is invaluable to your mental health and well being. Not to mention that it's also a great way to meet new and interesting people.

Check out Kayak Explore or Google Flights and just book a based upon the cheapest direct flight from your local airport:
Kayak Explore

Google Flights - Just click the map for a range of prices

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Yeah and friends too, but they're at work

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There's a ton of shite I could think of doing besides going to work whether alone or not. You sound boring

At my last job, I had 4-6 weeks vacation time and took all of my overtime as paid leave at a 1.5x rate.

Admittedly, I abused the shite out of it.

I'd purposely skip lunch, get there a half hour early each day, and stay an hour late. I'd work a 13 hour Saturday once a month. That regular work week gave me like 16 weeks off a year. The saturdays gave me another 5.

I was always there... And always not. Bosses figured it out after a year and I was told no more unapproved overtime. I had over 15 or more weeks in the bank at that point.

Just got back from the first week I've taken of in years. It was only to nola but it was great. Now thinking of going to Europe in the fall.

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There's a ton of shite I could think of doing besides going to work whether alone or not.

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Such as? Again, I'll take 3 weeks off this year I just don't want to sit around at my apartment all day doing nothing.

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You sound boring

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I'm going the Byron Nelson this weekend, Colonial next weekend, I do stuff all the time.

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that check will be in the neighborhood of $45K.

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If my office offered the option to take 2k off my salary and add 5 more days of vacation, I would do it every year until I retire.

Time to enjoy life is priceless.

In our company the people that take the least amount of vacation days, sick days or are willing to work at least a few hours each of the days they take off excel and are paid significantly more. It’s definitely a trade off, but their devotion to their job and drive are impressive. Others are not fired for taking two weeks throughout the year and holidays, but if they complain about salary increases and bonuses that is where they are met with the fact that bonuses and salary increases are not guaranteed. Their salary increases and bonuses were spent by the company allowing them to take two weeks off, and 10 holidays and five sick days.

Definitely a trade off of quality of life v. career advancement.

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We have several guys that may take 3-4 days a year but have 4 weeks available.

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And you directly or indirectly report to all of them, don't you?