That's not strictly true. In the US there is in most states NO requirements for paid leave outside of a few protected types. But not vacation or sick. And we also are largely not unionized. We still have time off albeit MUCH less than Europeans and such.
Though I'd argue the norm of having any paid time off is a byproduct of labor/union battles in the past.
We're given just enough scraps to avoid mass unionization. That's because the last time it happened we got The New Deal. This time it'll be the Economic Bill of Rights. The leftist platform hasn't changed for 80 years.
I dunno. I work a 35 hr week with 6 weeks paid vacation and 20 days paid personal leave each year... Oh, yeah, and it accumulates annually if I don't use any of it.
Oh, and 17%>of my income is paid into retirement in addition to my salary, not out of my salary.
It's a bit above the legal minimum, but it's still pretty normal here.
I'd say you earned them as part of the agreed compensation in exchange for your work. That way you also cover circumstances where there's no union, and no government requirement, but the employer still offers PTO to be competitive with other employers. Which theoretically could also be driven by other people's unions or governments, but then that would be indirect.
Besides which, regardless of how the arrangement came to be, you earned your PTO.
Not calling you out specifically, but I see this phrase everywhere and don't understand its popularity. It would be more concise and equally "clever" to just say "Sounds like this guy works in the US". What is the appeal that everyone keeps typing this?
AFAIK it's been a challenge some people did on... twitter I think?
Basically it's "Tell me you're XYZ without telling me you're XYZ" and people responded with funny answers.
At some point that got turned around and people satrted to use that sencence structure to indicate that the thing they are commenting on would have been a great answer for that challenge.
It's a colloquialism of Internet denizens that I've seen floating around for many years. In fact it's somewhat baffling to me that you haven't seen it until now.
"My boss grabbed my dick and shook the piss out of it in the bathroom! Then he made me go into a stall and wiped my ass to check if that risky fart he had noticed earlier was indeed just a fart!"
"No shit?"
"None!"
Then he sits down and makes himself an award certificate for best personal hygiene and another for most caring boss and wonders if talking to himself really means he's crazy.
I've heard from friends who are self employed that this is a double edged sword. When you have an employer and take vacation, it feels like you've earned it and are taking time off at the expense of your employer. But when you're self employed it feels like you're just not getting paid.
One of my friends didn't take any time off for something like 5 years before realizing how incredibly bad that was for him.
Guy was basically Brent (if you know you know) for a huge project. So on the 2st of Dec our boss phoned him and said he had 4 weeks to take before jan 1st. Brent's responce was cool see you next year and was told no I can't let you do that
We just looked at eacother in total amused confusion
Was it me? Because I had that conversation back in '10 or '11. I ended up taking most of it off then took off the rest after the project "off the books" (but with an email paper trail because I've been burned before).
I'll never understand this. I regularly encourage my staff to use their PTO and only deny requests if multiple people want overlapping days. Even then, if we can rearrange the schedule to make it work, we will.
I go so far as to get all involved parties together and discuss to see who has the greatest need. I also make a point of trying to make the person who doesn't get have as easy a time as possible on their next request.
It would supprise you how often the reason for the holiday is meh got to use em before the end of the year
IT manager of more than a decade here. Vacation days are earned. They're part of your pay. If you're not taking vacation days, you may as well be not cashing a paycheck. That's unacceptable.
If several folks request off the same day I'll gently ask if anyone is willing to swap. If they're not willing or able, it's OK. I'm paid more and I will work the overtime needed to cover them, because they earned it and it's their time. Period. The company will survive a few days of less stellar work so that my guys and gals can live their life and work a job where they feel confident that they're taken care of.
So glad my work has sick days too. Mental health is a good enough reason to use one and you don’t even need to use a reason. I do my best to show up for important things but I am so thankful I can call in sick or use a vacation day any time I want for the most part….
You in Germany? There is some kind of tax thing, so it costs money if people don't take there holidays in the year itself, so companies are mostly quite keen with you raking all holidays.
UK. But it's actually a German company. Everywhere I've worked has been pushy about you using your holiday though (managers obviously don't want it to hit the end of the year and suddenly everyone wants to use it instead of loosing it) but the 75% almost as soon as it renews is the most extreme example I've come across.
I am fortunate enough to have a manager that only gives a shit about deadlines being met. I'm 100% WFH and can work at whichever hours I choose. Though I feel I must mention I neither live nor work in the US
Are you allowed to carry over PTO hours? I might just be a pessimist, but my immediate thought is if they ever have to let anybody go, they don't want to pay-out accrued PTO hours.
At my previous place, there was one employee that NEVER took PTO for some insane reason. Had saved up like 2 months of PTO.
He was told by HR he had too many hours and needed to use some PTO time. This specific scenario is not unheard of.
However, a month or so after he came back from a month and a half of PTO, he got laid off for reasons unknown to me.
Rumors are they didn't want to pay-out the PTO.
Honestly it doesn't make sense, they had to pay him for the PTO anyways, but when has HR made sense?
Oh that's definitely because they don't want to pay it out at the end of the financial year. But at least it kind of sometimes ends up working in the employee's favor
I get 5 sick days a year. I can roll over sick days, allowing up to 13 sick days a year. If I use more that 2 in a row, I need a doctors note. If I use 5 sick days in a row I forfeit my bonus pay for that month. Fuck me right?
Government job I had gave 10 sick days a year. Use or lose. I'd do extended weekends. Boss said he'd noticed a pattern of me calling in sick on Fridays. Well duh. Started alternating Mondays. He gave up.
Had one that let you accumulate one sick day per month, but if you didn't use them they rolled over. First few years I didn't use all of them, and then one year I used thirteen sick days in one year (most of them for kids home sick from school) and got lightly scolded for it in a performance review.
I wanted to say "Bitch why do you allow rollover at all if you don't want us using more than we can possibly accumulate in one year?!" Looked it up in the contract and it said nothing at all about maximum sick days usable in a year. Of course if you have sick days left when you leave, they pay out at one third, but FUCK that, I earned that time, I'm not taking a one third payout. And they didn't EVER give merit raises for those years I barely called out sick.
So the next year I took even MORE sick days, and afterwards made sure not to leave any unused, even if I wasn't sick, because fuck them.
Hard not to be cynical when we're treated like shit because our parents, grandparents, and dipshit neighbors keep enabling the billionaire oligarchs in stealing our money and our time. Yeah I'm fucking cynical, mate.
"Not a team player", gripes and mumbles the boss as he drives towards the Wells Fargo Center that weeknight, he and the other executives have a luxury suite to watch the 76ers and Flyers, season tickets!
My holiday year renews in April. If I've not got 75% of mine booked by June they moan at me everyday until I get it booked. I'm pretty sure that if I don't book it up the policy is that they'll just book me off (at times it suits them of course).
With the US is it the vacation rules are mostly not required. Many states have different rules, and the more conservative the state, the more anti worker the rules are.
And all the jobs I've worked, I've never seen any pushback for taking vacation. But that's because I work in a white collar industry that is competitive and I can find another job if I wanted to. The less skilled you are, and the lower the opportunities are in the industries around you, the more opportunity exists for shitty employers.
The interesting thing is, that I currently work for a Scottish company, and their vacation rules are worse than mine because I am guided by California labor laws, and they're under shitty UK labor laws.
The main difference from a vacation standpoint is that the vacation days are allocated per calendar year, and must all be used in that calendar year. You're given x amount on January 1st and they must all be used by December 31st.
In California, vacation days are treated as an accruing asset. They can't reset my vacation days at the turnover of a calendar year . The vacation hours build up over time. This means there's not an end of the year rush to use vacation days, there is no use it or lose it, and if I'm ever laid off the company has to pay me for all the vacation days I've accrued. The California system is a much better system than the one the employees have in Scotland.