Vacationer Lifetime Reward

[Anomalocaris]

Could anybody clarify something for me? I've seen conflicting reports on just what the Vacationer LTR does.

Carl's guide says it gives you random days off, which sounds more annoying than useful.

Other sources say it just diminishes the rate your job performance decreases when missing work.

Could somebody who has taken Vacationer in their game confirm it one way or the other for me?

[Deklitch]

In all my years of playing Sims 3, I've never taken the Vacationer LTR, due to Carl's guide warning against it.

@Trip or @KRae or @Nindigo or MrsFlynn might know.

Someone might be able to run a test of it and let us know.

[MrsFlynn]

I've never used the LTR myself, so I don't know if this information will be useful.

Coming from recently playing the Criminal Career and how many days you get off with that career anyway,  this LTR sounds terrible.

When I was playing a criminal, my Sim's work performance never went down. On her days off, it would be static. - However, I didn't have this LTR, so that might make a difference.

This is what I find when checking out the Sims Wiki
https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Lifetime_reward

Vacationer
Feel free to take the occasional day off. Nobody at work will notice!
15,000 =     Teen
When Sims with this Lifetime Reward take days off, their work performance bar will go down much slower than usual. When they are home, they will not get paid for doing their job.

[Trip]

I've never bought the LTR either because of disinterest (and later Carl). I can try it out after work but while I'm here (I'm alone in the office don't judge me!) I decided to do some forum sleuthing. No results on the official forums, and some more interesting ones here.

ClayMask, a former member of our challenge/dynasty team and tournament heavyweight (so a champ at figuring out game mechanics), found that the only effect is getting off easy for missing work: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=4775.msg96217#msg96217

Ricalynn, another former challenge/dynasty team member, said explicitly that she uses it for making sure her criminal sims don't lose as much job performance when jailed. No mention of random days off, which she probably would have brought up: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=1810.msg267638#msg267638

Apparently I have bought the LTR? It was in a dynasty for a criminal sim (of course!) who I remember having the world's most ordinary work schedule but it may have been a later purchase too: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=16540.msg315349#msg315349

Vacationer is mentioned as a good strategy for not losing work performance in at least one tournament challenge: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=795.msg107195#msg107195 (you're not gonna win a tournament challenge with a needless career handicap, if that's what Vacationer truly was)

The origin might be with the "promoted after midnight" bug that happens with some careers with post-midnight hours at any stage (criminal, music, medicine) and is the earliest mention of the Vacationer LTR I can find on the forum. For the record, the bug does not care about which LTRs you have: https://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/forum/index.php?topic=750)

[Nindigo]

Well, I was loading my game when I came across this topic.

I have now given the Vacationer reward to a Sim in the Politics career to investigate myself.

As I understand it, it will give a Sim random days off not of one's own choosing, but job performance won't suffer.

[Anomalocaris]

Based on the responses thus far, it sounds like the "random days off" suggested by Carl's guide is inaccurate, and it really just reduces job performance decay for missing work.