A：Hey, Paula. Hi, Will. Did you have a good weekend?

B：Yeah... I checked out that new 3-D movie. It's amazing what they can do with technologies these days!

C：I went mountain biking with a couple of friends. We worked up a good sweat and had a good time. How about you, Jerry?

A：Actually, I spent most of the weekend looking at travel brochures.

B：Really? Are you going somewhere?

A：Well, starting on the 20th of this month, I'm taking a five-week vacation.

W：Five weeks!! No way!

B：Get out of here! How did you swing that?

A：Actually, the company owes me about four months' worth of vacation time. I've been working here since 2002 and haven't taken a vacation yet. I've got oodles of comp time as well.

C：Sorry, what's comp time?

B：The comp is short for compensation. Basically he means overtime pay.

A：Yeah, but some companies - like ours - don't really pay overtime.... they give you extra vacation hours instead. If you add up all the vacation time and comp hours I have, I have a lot of time.

B：When I was working for a company in Germany they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules.