eee!

It honestly depends on the company. Most give vacation time, with a few personal days and then sick days separately. My first job was completely not the norm -- they lumped all our sick, personal, and vacation days together in a big pool that we could tap from whenever we wanted. Each employee got 5 weeks total. Which, if you never got sick, meant 5 weeks of vacation a year. Woooooo! That's COMPLETELY unheard of for about 99% of America. A lot of places have 2 weeks vacation a year, plus the normal 6 federal holidays, plus a few personal and/or sick days, which you acrue based off how much you've worked. There's the attitude here that working more = higher productivity, but really working without a break = employees getting burned out completely. I'm a big fan of the European way of working, with more vacation and a shorter work week. I mean, it's not like the UK is a third-world country; you're doing just fine with some added vacation time. The US should adopt that policy, too.