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I just signed an offer last week, and I'm starting this week.

The offer outlines: "You are entitled to two (2) weeks of paid vacation per calendar year, pro-rated during your first year of employment".

The situation is, another company who I thought was not gonna continue with me, finally reached out for an on-site interview request. Now I'm gonna have to fly across the country (North America) for a full day of onsite. I'm trying to schedule the interview for a Monday or Friday.

It's a small start-up, should I just be upfront about taking a day off for something personal? Should I take a sick day? (4 days available)

Ultimately my question/concern is, how does this pro-rated two weeks of vacation work? It's so confusing from my research online. Will I have accrued 1 day of vacation by working from today to January 6th?

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    VTC, as company specific. Every company has their own rules about when/how you accrue vacation and the formula for pro-rating. You need to check with HR or whoever fills that role. – cdkMoose Dec 20 '16 at 21:31
  • Couldn't find out what VTC stood for. I'll ask the appropriate person. Any idea what I should do if I don't have that 1 day of vacation? @cdkMoose – legoose Dec 20 '16 at 21:56
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    VTC means VOTE TO CLOSE. Some users look for any reason as to why to remove a question - apparently they get brownie points for doing nothing. If you get two weeks VACA a year, that works out to 3.08 hours per pay period (if pay is every two weeks). According to my calculation, you won't have enough time - you'd need to be working almost 5 weeks before you'd have over 8 hours of VACA. So, no. – Hannover Fist Dec 20 '16 at 22:06
  • Thanks @HannoverFist, it seems like I'll only have 2 weeks of work by January 6th. I'll consider talking to my employer about putting in extra hours or working a saturday to potentially make up for it. You can make your comment an answer, I'd select it, if you want. – legoose Dec 20 '16 at 22:15
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    At some companies you just get the vacation there is no accrual. Hence the company specific reason for closing. I'm not aware of any universal accrual formula to be applied. Only your company can tell you what their policy is. – cdkMoose Dec 21 '16 at 0:13
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You need to ask the specific question of your company."how does vacation accrual work?"

But you also need to ask can you go negative, and is there a deadline for getting back to zero. For example if you earn x hours per check but you will not have enough by the time you need to take a day of vacation can you go a few hours in the hole? Some will let you go negative as long as you get back to zero by the end of the year. Others will not let you go negative. Some will limit you to not more than 40 hours negative.

You should also ask if they will allow for a flexible schedule. Sometimes they will let you work longer days around the day you need to take off. This allows you to tend to personal business and not need to take a day of vacation.

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Two weeks of vacation time works out to 80 hours.

Since a year has 52 weeks, you are accruing about 1.54 hours a week.

If you get paid every other week (bi-weekly), you'll accrue about 3.08 hours per pay period.

According to my calculation, you won't have enough time - you'd need to be working almost 5 weeks before you'd have over 8 hours of VACA.

So, no you won't have 8 hours of VACA. If you started Monday of this week, you'd only have 3 weeks by January 6th for about 4.6 hours.

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    You're assuming every company works the same, which is a stretch. For example, at the company I work for, we get all of our vacation as of Jan 1. – cdkMoose Dec 21 '16 at 0:19
  • seconding @cdkMoose 's comment, the fact that legoose's vacation is described at prorated during the first year implies that it's a lump sum at the start deal; a per pay accrual would at most be pro-rated during the first pay period (and any subsequent ones where less than the standard number of hours was worked). – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Dec 21 '16 at 1:18

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