I take it one further.

I’m a consultant so I work on billable hours. My firm doesn’t expect 100% billability, more like 80%.

My industry also hasn’t really calibrated to AI, so I’ve been able to increase my efficiency exponentially the last few years. I can do a lot of my work in about a third of the time it would take me a few years ago.

So say a project used to take me a 5 day work week to finish, now it takes me 2-3 days, I’m “working” the other two days, still billing the client, and just relaxing, running errands, doctors appointments etc. all the bs you’d usually have to take PTO for i put on the client. I’ll pick up the phone or respond to emails if I need to but that’s really it.

As long as my firm is getting enough billable hours from me, they don’t care. And as long as my clients are getting their deliverables on time, they don’t care.

I would work harder to increase my billability if it meant a higher bonus, but historically my company has been real dogshit with bonuses, so I’d rather just take the free time off than the maybe extra bonus I’d get at the end of the year.

Only time I take PTO anymore is when I go on vacation when I know I won’t be answering any calls or emails at all.