Employee told he is going to lose all of his leave by the end of the year, takes it all at once, leaving projects struggling to be completed: 'Use all your PTO before December 31 or lose it? Alright, don't mind if I do, even if the project burns...'

It's amusing to think that PTO exists solely for the purpose of taking a break from work when needed, yet you just never seem to use it. Like it is specifically there to use, but the reality is that all it's really there for is so that you can watch the balance slowly climb forever. It really feels like you're always too busy to take some time off, but are we conditioned to feel this way, or is it some internal need we're fulfilling to ourselves? 

To make this even worse, as you're sitting there watching your leave balance climb, your employer will be getting increasingly antsy about it. See, depending on where you work and what arrangement you have, your employer may be on the hook for making sure that the balance of their employee's PTO is available to be paid out, which becomes a pretty big risk when you add it all up. So, at some point, you'll be told that your leave balance is expiring, or if there's a round of layoffs, you might even end up on the chopping block simply because the amount of money your leave balance represents to the business. Then that massive leave/PTO balance, which was yours to rightfully take, was all for naught. 

This worker was told they were going to lose all their leave at the end of the year, but that backfired for their employer when they took all of it during the busiest and most important time of the year, leaving important projects struggling to be finished before deadlines.