In many workplaces, holiday days are a precious commodity. We save them up for special occasions (read: friends' weddings) and the savviest among us even know how to maximise our time off by booking them strategically.
But not everyone puts as much thought into their annual leave, according to new research. The average worker in Britain still has six days to use up before the end of the year, which, if left unused, would mean a staggering 134 million wasted days as a nation. A third of employees have as many as 10 days still to use up, found the survey of 1000 workers by Jurys Inn.
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The most common reason for having annual leave left? That's also pretty surprising, given that being "like, ugh, so busy right now" has become a status symbol in our culture. The top explanation was not knowing what to do with the remaining days, the Mirror reported.
Being too busy was the second most common reason, while others were reluctant to book annual leave because there's no one around to cover them and they didn't want to risk accumulating an unbearable workload.
Other more optimistic employees (11%) purposely save up their holiday days until the end of the year with the aim of booking an exciting trip – only to find that by November there are no holidays available that tickle their fancy. A further 11% said they simply didn't have enough money to spend on holidays.
If you're among those with holiday still to use, with just two months of the year left, you may want to think about taking action or risk losing them altogether. If budget isn't a concern of yours, why not try skiing, renting somewhere unusual abroad on Airbnb or escaping to a woodland cabin before 2017 is through?