19 years
Oh good lord. I looked at the date today on my phone and realised that I started at the Evil Empire 19 years ago today.
NINETEEN YEARS!
Boy doesn’t that make me sound like a sad old Larry No-Career! Which may be the case, but I swear I’ve done many different things over the time, it just happens they were all in this one company. And department. Ahem. Even the 11 straight years supporting the-system-that-just-won’t-die are excused because six and a half of those were in London and I dismiss that time with an airy wave and the comment that “it suited me to stay in London so my career wasn’t my main focus.” Has my career ever been my main focus? Ahem-hem… oh look, what’s that over there?
Far more interesting though is how much closer I am to the big 2-0. See, at fifteen years I got 3 month’s long service leave (which I still haven’t taken) and then because I [am so ancient] started so long ago, when I get to 20 years I get another 3 months. I thought the time would be delayed a few years because I’m now part time, but it turns out it still happens around the 20 year mark, the amount is just pro-rataed. (The only thing that has affected it was the 3 month’s unpaid leave I took at the end of 2001 before moving permanently to London, which shifted the date three months. I thought my maternity leave would do the same but not according to SAP, and you don’t argue with SAP.)
… So this means that as of 24th April 2013, I’ll have a total of 994 hours of paid leave up my sleeve. At my current rate of 0.6, or 3 days a week, that’s almost 41 and a half weeks of leave. If I can wrangle it as 0.5 instead (there’s an option to have it paid at half-pay, but that could mean 0.3 for me) then it’s almost 50 weeks. As of now I am 68 weeks away from at least nine and a half months of paid leave. Hmm, I guess I won’t be looking for a role outside the organisation for a while yet!
I have no idea if I’ll take the time straight away, or what I’ll do with it. Maybe I’ll just hang on to it just in case. Mind you, that’s why I haven’t taken the 15-year leave yet either. There’s a chance Dave will be offered a role overseas in a year or so, maybe in Singapore, or perhaps we’ll go back to London for a while. It would come in really useful for then. Or maybe I’ll just take a year off at a random point and use the time to potter around at home.
Either way, I’ve got long enough to weigh up my options. One thing I do know is I’m not going to save it up to go with the 25-year entitlement! That would be just too sad.
Oh, and how do I know the date so accurately? Well, there’s an option within our SAP system to see your leave entitlements as at a particular date, so I spent a an hour or so this afternoon putting in different dates to see when exactly it ticked over. Yep, my 19th anniversary of starting was a very productive day. They are lucky to have me, indeed.