[cmsmith]

Perhaps she retired and was awarded the value of her accrued vacation time?

[mikeyouse]

That's exactly what happened. She had been employed for 21 years and accrued that much PTO over that period.

http://blog.sfgate.com/matierandross/2013/07/24/barts-golden...

[cmsmith]

I'm just going to add that I think it's silly to get paid your last salary for vacation time you earned when you were 25. While I don't care for caps on the accrued time, I see nothing unfair about scaling the time by your salary - such that if you have 100 vacation days and you get a 10% raise you now have 90 vacation days.

[ars]

You should at least adjust by cost of living.

But now you know exactly why people save up vacation like this: To get a larger payout at the end of the career.

Personally I think unused vacation days should be savable for 2 years, and then are automatically paid at the current salary rate.

[webjprgm]

Personally I don't care about being paid for unused vacation days. I just want my vacation. And I don't want to have to use it all for Christmas. (Some employers I've worked for give you a week or two for Christmas automatically, some make you use your allocated days.)

I think it makes sense to pay out for vacation days one could have taken but didn't when they quit or get laid off. I'm not sure it makes sense to pay for vacation not taken in previous years, but maybe.

[ojilles]

Well, I'd assume here vacation time from 25 years ago didn't incur compounded interest?

(I'm actually in favor of a 1~2 year cap, but I'm betting she left money on the table by not getting it paid out)

[Osiris]

My brother is a CHP officer and they have the same type of arrangement. They get paid out vacation, sick leave, etc if they don't use it. But then they end up getting double-paid. You get paid because you worked and then you get paid again because you didn't take vacation. if they USE the vacation, then they only get paid once (no work pay + vacation pay).

There should be a vacation cap. Once you hit the cap, you can't accrue any more. The cap should be 2 years worth of vacation. You should never get paid out vacation. It's a benefit, not an entitlement.