#I WAS FREELANCE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE HAVING THIS MUCH PTO

[roseband]

going to nola in a couple months to expunge the stupid hoard of pto i have (cheapest week for flights of the year too! and it didn't affect either me or my fiance's work's busy time)

bc of my roll over next year i'm gonna have 5 weeks.......oops? i'm going to have to spend 4 weeks of it next year

[literaticat]

How does medical and bereavement leave work for agents without assistants? If they’re out for months or even years, what happens to their clients?

Many agents are not technically "employees" of their companies, they are freelancers paid by via commission on a 1099 rather than regular salary. So, technically, those of us who are paid in this fashion don't get medical leave, bereavement leave, maternity/paternity leave, sick days, PTO or vacations at all. We don't "clock in" or have set hours anyway -- which means that in practice, we COULD work 24/7 if we wanted to -- or we could work not at all if we wanted to.

(Neither option is great, obviously, so most agents split the difference and work a relatively normal-to-long work week most of the time!)

Point being, hours are flexible and our workload is pretty much whatever we need it to be at that time -- so an agent who is also a mom with young kids may choose to take on fewer clients or trim their list, whereas somebody with no kids or whose kids have grown might have extra time for more, etc.

So basically, if an agent KNOWS that they are going to be gone for a few months ahead of time (maternity leave, say, or they are having a planned medical procedure or something like that), they would likely tell their clients ahead of time, get as much done as possible before they left, so most projects are pretty much squared away or at a good pausable moment, and then somebody else at the agency would handle payments that come in and run point for any questions or issues that might come up whilst the primary agent is away.

(Quite frankly, publishing moves so slowly that most of the time, 8 or 12 weeks away would probably not be that noticeable -- once a client's book is under contract, there are often MANY MANY months where an agent would not have to be around at all. And submissions take long enough that honestly, "having to wait" for a month or three would not make a significant difference in the length of time the sale might take. In other words -- whether I submit this book in March or May, it probably won't sell till later in the year anyway, and both ways, it probably wouldn't be coming out for a year and a half/two years (or more!) after that, regardless of when I submitted it -- so if you finish the book while the agent is away, it can probably wait till they get back to be dealt with.)

If it's an acute crisis situation/family emergency/sudden illness where they DON'T know in advance, they would likely just communicate with their clients about what is going on and somebody else at the agency would step in to help as necessary, and they'd check in periodically and get back as soon as they were able.

If it is a long-term thing, they'd probably figure out a way to adjust and work through it, because few agents would be willing to give up their clients if they didn't have to -- but they might just have more limited hours, or something like that.

If they are gravely ill to the point where they CAN'T work through it, and it really might be YEARS... well, they might decide to retire at that point, or at least step back significantly. I have never encountered that situation (knock wood), but I guess what would happen is, they (or if they are unable, the boss) would let the clients know what was happening, and either the clients could be moved to other agents at the agency, or leave and choose a new agent elsewhere.