Taking Time Off When You Are The Only Admin?

iso9k asks: "Yesterday I was called into my boss's office and told that I have maxed out my PTO. This means that I can no longer accrue time off for hours worked. I am the sole Network/Unix admin (no backup admin) at my company. I don't have time to take a week or two off. If I were to do so my return would involve two weeks of 60+ hours a week to make up for lost time with projects. My company will not 'cash me out.' The reason being 'you need to take some time off to recuperate.' The execs don't seem to understand that my being gone will not bode well for an Internet company where uptime is critical. This leaves me in a strange position. Do I take a week off and just let the network or Unix machines fail if they fail? Or do I stay here at the office and ignore my vacation accruement? Has anybody else run into this issue? What did you do?" For those of you in this situation: not having a backup administrator on staff is not a good sign. Instead of worrying about vacation, why not see about getting a back-up administrator hired so that you can take the much-needed time off?