What do you do for a living?

[butcherboy]

Commercial slaughter and meat processing. USDA custom exempt. I can usually take whatever I need when I need it. It’s my family’s business. The day to day operations are run by me and my older sister with about 4-10 employees depending on the season. With the 2 of us we are up to 8 people working. I could have more but decided to only schedule domestic animals for what we can handle with the number of people we have working. No WG anymore for the past 3-4 years and that has been wonderful! I took 12 days off in September to hunt elk but I haven’t taken that much time off at once since I hunted caribou in Quebec.

 

[Jeffro]

Service manager at Powersports dealership.
I talk hunting all day long with customers and have even had offers to go hunting.
Traded wolf pins for elk pins with a trapper who was in here a few months ago.

 

[iamthenick]

Fireman, work 48 hrs on 96 hours off.

Lots of opportunities to take time off as well, can comp overtime, work one 24 hr shift extra and take off 36 hours. Doesnt pay the best but its a great job.

 

[Undomesticated]

I am a fireman as well. Great job. Hobby farmer/rancher on the side (if you can call a break-even goal a side job).

 

[coloyooper]

Firefighter, work 10 days a month. It’s the wife and kids that get in the way of scouting. Only mostly kidding, wouldn’t change a thing.

 

[Elite]

Power engineer at a large natural gas processing plant. Work shift work so it ends up being half the year


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[adamm88]

Director of foodservice for a retirement home, after march ill earn 35 days of pto a year, its been a rough few years covering after covid but it feels we turned the corner.

between family, scouts other obligations i hunt 10-12 pto days a year, my non pto days my son was shooter so the effort went towards him and living in pa most sundays are a no go bc of old crappy laws so 1/2 my weekends are out…


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[PlumberED]

Retired from our plumbing company.

 

[vanhoorn]

Mechanical Engineering Manager. 4 weeks vacation that I have a hard time using every year. Hunts require a little planning since I’m a flat lander (WI)…. but can normally accommodate 1 hunt per year.

 

[geterdone]

Engineer/project manager in food manufacturing. 4 weeks of PTO plus 1 to 2 weeks of comp days from working weekends throughout the year. Some months are slammed busy, others are dead. I try to persuade project schedules around fishing and hunting seasons, it works most of the time. I spent 10 days hunting this year and around 20 days fishing. That is on the low end for me typically, but with young kids, a wife and work that's the way it goes. I can't complain about my situation, I have as much or more freedom than my circle of friends I share hobbies with.

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[49ereric]

What do you do for a living and how does it benefit / hurt your ability to scout, hunt and plan?


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retired IUOE local 49 member.
nuclear outages in the fall at P.I. cost me many small game & deer seasons cuz I was working 7-12’s.
now days sore back usually keeps me from scouting but been hunting the same area since 1984 but if the deer don’t move in the woods you can’t shoot em and this was a year where that was the issue so tag soup. 3 bad winters with deep snow have lowered deer numbers and that never helps. Naturally morons blame the timber wolves.

 

[Greyinggrayling]

I remove testicles
and other various dismemberments

If I don’t get time off from work, I become scary to other people, therefore I have regular time off to practice stalking, dispatching and dismembering in the field.

 

[Stache Attack]

Sales agronomist, have a great manager and pretty good operations crew. Spend a lot of days out in the field/hills. Winter have a lot of meetings and office work. Manager lets me go screw off a good bit if I’m getting work done and can get back into reception in 24 hours or so. Some farmers hate the elk, deer, or antelope on their place so get to take friends and family out to get their game. 20 days pto a year, wife likes to use most of them though…

 

[BradArnett]

ER travel nurse. I only work 2-13 week contracts a year now, lots of time off to spend with family and hunting.

 

[V35B]

Oil & Gas business. I have 4 weeks per year PTO at this point, mostly taken during hunting seasons. . The last 20 years were very busy for the most part, there were years where I only had a couple of days off to hunt. I was going to retire last year, Im 49, but just couldn't resist the urge to work one more 3-5 year busy spell that I believe is right around the corner.

 

[Forestphantom]

Self employed landscape contractor

 

[Tartan]

@jtevanMT

I recently took a job that has unlimited pto (started Monday). It was a substantial pay raise but I’m starting to grow concerned with the pto aspect. I previously had a job that paid less but I had 24 or so days of pto and I could use them whenever and however. In your experience how does the unlimited pto work?

In my experience this very much depends on your boss , company management, etc. Usually this is a play to reduce risk for the company number crunchers on PTO that would need to get paid out to employees. It gets it off their books. Unfortunately bad management can really ruin it for everyone.

I work in digital health and have very reasonable leadership above me. I usually take 2 full week family vacations a year. The occasional friday here and there for an extended weekend. Plenty time off around the holidays (I have 8 days marked off for this xmas).

For "emergency" time off (accident, drs appointments, etc) it gets approved without question and we all work together to cover as needed.

For myself and those that report to me, we're a team all working together to create value. I've never denied a PTO request. I want volunteers not hostages. If someone's job performance is not up to snuff we're already having a discussion and working on a way to improve. I've also never had anybody trying to game the system. If anything I need to push my direct reports to take more time off.

Outside of my specific employer, a younger/junior level employee with reasonable management I wouldn't expect problems as long as they are completing the work assigned in a timely manner. Plan ahead for longer PTO and do your best to make sure it doesn't impact work that you are supposed to own. If it may affect results and we can't make the timing work (employee had vacation planned 6 months ago and a new project started recently with tight deadlines) work with your boss to create a plan to ensure the impact is minimal.

My experience moving up the ladder is that it gets harder to feel like you can take all that time off if you're taking ownership of ensuring success of the things that fall under you. Unless I'm in limited cell phone service I never feel like I'm fully out.

My hunting has been greatly affected over the last 5 years, but most of that is two little kids (one with some medical conditions) more so than job limitations. I've not felt comfortable just leaving the house for 48-72 hours for a short hunting trip like I used to. I've ended up doing a lot more local fishing lately b/c a couple hours is less of a burden on the wife than a full day or multiple days out. That'll change as the kids get older (at least that's what I tell myself).

 

[Amos Keeto]

Uhhmmm....disabled out at age 54. Leg and foot injuries limit my mobility. I can still walk, but not very far. A quarter mile for me is NOT a stroll in the park.
Was able to drive a tractor for an "in-law" for access to 800 acres of AMAZING hunting!
Deer, turkey, pigs, small game and varmints! A divorce ended that gravy train!
Twenty years later (I'm 73), I still hunt. Have an amazing spot.
I garden, have beehives and run a small flour/cornmeal business. Not getting rich, but it keeps me moving and puts a little scratch in our pockets! ....and I can hunt/fish whenever I get an opportunity.
Live about 4 miles from a lake and a WMA. The lake is a known crappie hotspot!
Life is good, I'm just on the downhill side!

 

[NorthIDHunter]

Work for biotechnology company. I work a lot of hours (salary) but have unlimited PTO for family vacations and hunting season .

I have heard about these unlimited PTO jobs, from what I understand people actually end up taking less PTO than those who have to accrue and can only use what they have. Has that been your experience?

 

[TreeDog]

Forester for a sawmill. We have a good chunk of company owned land that hunting is allowed on. Encouraged to keep a rifle in the truck and tags in the pocket. We bid on and purchase a lot of Forest Service and State timber sales, so get to go behind locked gates quite often. Can't hunt while behind those gates obviously, but I've found some good spots to check out. Can always park at the gate and walk in later. Loggers and road contractors can be good sources of info as well. Pretty good gig.