OMG yes. Do it in four hour increments so they have to process ten separate requests for a week off. Get everyone else to do it too. I’d bet money they’ll change the rule once it inconveniences them.
This is the way, make the administrative costs prohibitive and increase the burnout and turnover in the payroll department as a result. Death by a tiny million cuts for the company.
If you want, say, December 16-20 off, put in for the 16th now. After your next pay period, put in for the first half of the 17th. Two weeks later, put in for the second half of the 17th. Keep doing that every time you get another 4 hours of PTO, because that's "as soon as possible." Tell them that's why you're doing it that way. They'll have to process 9 different requests for that one week off, which changes it from "your problem" to "their problem." Managers tend to solve their problems faster than they solve yours.
It took me a long time to understand how many American movies protraied how vacation/ PTO worked was actually real( ish) and not a way for the movie director/ screenwriter to often villify the boss/ company. And the idea of going to your boss and just say that : I am taking my PTO in a week, and that is normal?
And I will still say that this system confuses me( and the idea of bragging about how much you work, and how little time off one takes).
As you probably have understood, I am not american.
Am Norwegian and I cant just decide to take days off, as I - have- to get approval( and usually you need to give at least a months notice, unless it is a chill company and/or it is almost nothing to do)
I do however have 5 weeks vacation, were I by law can demand at least 3 weeks at one time( but then again, vacation schedule is usually worked out in the time frame april/may ( and summer vacation is usually june-august) and if one did not get the vacation time one wanted, see if anyone want to trade)
And am sorry, and do not mean to be rude but; is it just in the movies, or do the average worker not get pay it the miss work going to the doctor/dentist/sick child?
( Please excuse this almost granmother bad grammar and weird word choices, English do/did not come to me as easy as you young people :-). )
Typically PTO does require advance approval, but specifics policies vary widely between industries and employers.
Some companies allow a separate type of leave called “personal leave,” which can be taken on short or no notice, similar to sick leave.
The best part is that PTO is NOT required to be offered. A company can decide that no one gets paid time off ever, no exceptions. (These companies tend to not be able to hold onto competent workers, though, because no employee WANTS to work for a company like that.)
And unless the individual state has more generous laws than the federal ones, it is absolutely common that sick time (either whole or partial days) is unpaid. PTO policies sometimes allow use of accrued hours to pay for sick days, but even this isn’t required.
To summarize: typically, American employers are as stingy and predatory as the law allows them to be. And the law allows for A LOT of predatory behavior; it’s made to protect the *employers* rather than the *employees.*
There's a lot wrong with the UK right now, but one thing I'm ever grateful for is mandatory paid holiday entitlement and sick pay. The US system absolutely horrifies me - if you don't have savings or you aren't well off then how do you survive? Even then the working hours seem insane. Not being able to take a paid break from work for a couple of weeks to rest and relax and recharge your batteries? UK stat sick pay is bobbins but better than nothing. Decent firms will offer company sick pay to top it up. On the days when I feel a bit meh about my job, I remind myself I've got a good employer - 6 weeks fully paid holiday plus bank holidays, plus 26 weeks of fully paid sick leave every year.
Don't forget that also when you're American and call out other countries in Europe (and Europe-adjacent) having better worker protections you'll get shouted down as being a socialist or a communist (or worse) by a good 40% of the country, most of whom would actually benefit greatly from it.
The thing you have to understand about the US system is that it is calibrated to deal with full-blown workaholics. Despite scientific studies showing that productivity plummets after 40 hours per week, there are way too many people who are convinced that if they need more money, the best way to get it is to just work more hours. In the US, it's usually the employer arguing for fewer hours; many of the employees are ecstatic about working longer as long as it comes with overtime pay. Giving employees unlimited vacation days or personal time off results in an average of fewer days taken rather than more; cutting hours much below that 40 limit tends to result in people looking for second (or even third!) jobs.
It's not everyone in the US who's like this, obviously; and i suspect the percentage isn't as high as it used to be--but workaholics and borderline workaholics are still a large enough percentage of the US labor force that trying to apply the European approach here would be a disaster.
Rationing the vacation days, and making any that accrue past a certain limit use-it-or-lose-it makes time off seem valuable enough that most employees actually take enough time off to stay healthy. Mostly. Relative to any other approach. What turns this system toxic is way too many managers, both upper and middle, who were never taught the reasons for doing things this way. Contrary to what many seem to believe, discouraging overtime isn't about saving the company money; it's about keeping your best employees from burning themselves out and leaving you stuck with new hires who are both too few and too inexperienced to get the job done. Those who get this bass ackwards think they're supposed to be limiting hours paid rather than hours worked.
For the US system to work properly, employees and employers need to treat each other as allies, working together to bake a (usually) metaphorical pie large enough for everyone to stuff themselves full and still take home leftovers. I don't know what exactly they're teaching in business schools, but it clearly doesn't include the kind of ethics needed to make this system work.
You don’t. For instance, my small office was already down to half staff yesterday and one of my co workers came in and they should not have been there as sick as they were. Ended up having to leave to go to the ER for crying out loud all because of the way the majority of Americans have no sick time and even if they do, the company will likely start to target you if you are out too often no matter how legitimate the reasons. They do not care despite all company proclamations to the contrary.
6 weeks holiday + 26 weeks sick leave every year.
You can just not show up 60% of the time and still have a job? If everyone did that, it would be impossible to run a competitive business.
I don't take 26 weeks' sick leave every year!! If you were doing so you wouldn't last long in the job. But it's designed to cover big illnesses such as cancer treatment or serious mental health breakdowns. I don't know of many firms that will give that in one go - it's more common that it comes in stages. E.g. year one 8 weeks sick pay, year two, 16 weeks, year three full entitlement.
A good employer recognises that they want to attract and keep good staff and that people get ill. A good employee recognises that this is a very good benefit to have and that abusing it would be very short sighted. For long term sick leave you need to be signed off by a Dr and usually seen by them at frequent intervals to check and refresh that status. The employer will usually also ask for their occupational health teams to get involved to see if there's anything they can do to help you back to work sooner (e.g. lighter duties, workplace adjustments, phased return and so on).
I have a colleague who was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was off for a good chunk of time and it meant that she didn't have to worry about paying her bills and could focus on her treatment and trying to get better (she did, and is back at work). Another colleague very sadly lost a baby but it was before the viability week (24 I think?). Here, if you lose a baby after the viability week it's classed as a stillbirth and you are entitled to your full paid maternity leave. Before that point there is no mat leave entitlement, but my colleague used her sick leave instead to cover a period away from work.
Most people aren't sick to the extent that they need time off (I wasn't last year thankfully). If they are it tends to be for a bad cold or upset stomach so they are back to work relatively quickly.
I'm quite interested that you're go-to interpretation is that you just don't "show up". If you need extended time off then it's because you're ill and need to be away from work for your recovery - which is a good thing, no? Without your people you don't have a business - they are the engine that keeps your firm going, so sensible to invest in them and treat them like human beings who have value and worth because they are your business assets, no?
Got it! Glad you have such a good safety net.
In USA most employees can take advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which guarantees you have 12 weeks off *unpaid* due to medical or similar challenges.
Few jobs include disability insurance. The best most can hope for is having a guaranteed job to return to.
It's so mad because I have always wanted to visit the US - and when I was growing up going to America or maybe even moving there, was always seen by me and my peers as a dream goal. But I don't think I could afford to (and I make a reasonable living) and even if I could I think the the health insurance and situation with women's medical rights would deter me. I am lucky by UK standards as my benefits package is very good, but even a minimum wage job here entitles you to stat sick pay (which is appallingly low but better than nothing) and 4 weeks' paid holiday.
All good thoughts to you and yours - may you all stay healthy!!
About 20 years ago I had a conversation with "big blue" about moving to the US from Sweden. After a serious conversation with my wife I decided to not take the offer. US is nice for vacation but moving there from Sweden seemed like a step back.
10 years ago I found out I had cancer, so it was a smart move to stay in sweden
My toddler just started kindergarten this year, and that means we get a lot of stomach bugs, and colds. I'm out roughly 1 week/month rn due to being sick.
It's not an issue. They know I come back asap.
I'm in Germany.
oh, that kind og explains the whole tesla-company issue in Sweden..., as they try to "do it the american way, as it is an american company", and they, as us are not having it..,
The irony is that quite a few American workers will fight any attempt to introduce employee protections because they lump them in with all the other regulations on businesses and they're convinced that such laws primarily protect the mega-corporations by stifling mid-size competitors that could otherwise grow up to replace them. The biggest companies can use the economics of scale to absorb the compliance costs; two guys in a garage can fly under the radar; but anything in between is unlikely to last long unless they either are providing a service that requires a local presence or else have invented an entirely new market niche. (And in the latter case, getting bought out by a bigger company is still a far more likely outcome than continued growth, past a certain size.)
To an American by ideology, the proper way to deal with an abusive employer is to quit and march across the street to start a rival company. Sadly, this is nearly impossible to pull off against any but the smallest businesses, and even then the odds can be pretty bad unless you luck out on the location and prospective business partners.
I am not interested in getting into an argument on whether this view is accurate; merely explaining what any would-be reformer is up against.
it isn't just PTO, there's no guaranteed pay for new parents. We have job protection federally for up to 12 wks, but no pay unless offered by the company or if you use PTO/Sick time.
I took 6 paid weeks and then 12 unpaid weeks to be with the child I gave birth to. I used every single hour of PTO from the last year and almost every hour of sick time I've saved for the last 3 years. I go back to work tomorrow. we've been putting rent on a credit card to stay afloat, and we haven't even looked at the hospital bills. at least one has gone to collections.
you don't afford kids. that's why so many of us aren't having them, and why conservatives are trying to take away our contraceptives.
> Am Norwegian and I cant just decide to take days off, as I - have- to get approval( and usually you need to give at least a months notice, unless it is a chill company and/or it is almost nothing to do)
I am Dutch. Throughout my entire 21 year long career I have always considered asking for permission to take days off as a formality. As a professional, I consider it my own responsibility to arrange my own backup and to accommodate for my absence. I have never received any objections or complaints about my absence.
Incidentally, I’m used to fulfilling various key positions in very large infrastructural projects.
I worked for a company that was union. There were specific rules regarding vacation time. In January we were given our accrued vacation for the year. Everyone would submit their first choice of vacation times.
Depending on the needs of each department x number of employees were allowed vacation for each week. Vacation requests were approved based on seniority. Some weeks were far more popular than others.
My last year with the company I had 23 years of seniority (about mid range for my department). I requested Christmas week (a VERY popular week). They allowed 10 people off at one time. I was so thrilled because I actually made #10 (the last slot) on the WAITING list for the first time. 🙄
Vacation times and rules vary tremendously depending on the state (some states treat their employees more like indentured servants), the industry, union status (unionized companies generally have much better benefits and less leeway with rules) and the company.
I've been in the workforce, officially, for about 25 years. When I worked in TV News I got 10 days of vacation time and 5 days of sick time. I had to schedule that around the other people in the same role, and I there were certain months we couldn't take vacation because they were the main times that ratings were measured and extra effort was put into every newscast. We also lost that time if we didn't use it within the calendar year.
Now I work for a community college system, and, due to my years of service, earn 3 weeks vacation per year, about a week of personal time, and I'm not sure how much sick time. We also get to bank time we don't use up to a certain limit for vacation and sick time. Currently, my sick time is maxed at 600 hours.
We also work on an educational schedule, so I have a lot of time off due to the holiday schedule. It works well because I generally have the same days off as my kids.
I try to give timely notice of any time I need to take, but I currently do not have a set deadline for advance notice.
Well , I'm Australian, not American. everywhere I have worked you generally ask for leave in advance, but if you go to the boss and ask for immediate leave they will give it if they can.
Well, the Boomers were definitely brainwashed into sacrificing for The Company. Gen X a little less. Millennials recently a lot less. Gen Z gives them the middle finger (which most companies deserve). There are some delusional power hungry managers who try and play games with PTO, who eventually lose when the most productive people quiet quit or actually quit. However, the movies are accurate, for the time period, when The Company wouldn’t approve time off for a child’s funeral - typically for those towards the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder
There is no national standard for time off in the US -- it varies state to state and job to job.
A great many (mostly poor) people do not get ANY paid time off at all, especially if they work multiple part time jobs. (My mom spent a few years working for a company that limited her to 35 hours a week because 36 hours was full time and would have earned her vacation pay and other benefits.)
Yes, this means that workers come to restaurants sick because they cannot afford to take time off.
Two weeks off a year is pretty standard, and often that includes any time you take off sick.
Most folks covered the basics but I did want to add that depending on your job and boss asking permission in the US is sometimes just a formality.
I've been working for over 40 years in various jobs and I've never had a vacation denied especially once I became a programmer.
Americans (in most cases) trade worker protections for at will employment. In most cases if you’re an employee you can just quit with zero notice with zero (legal) repercussions. It’s not a good idea because people talk, but you can just leave and they can’t sue you (in most cases). It’s a shitty trade, but it’s better than nothing. So I can take a vacation whenever I want with however much notice I feel like and the most my employer can do is fire me (and tell everyone they know not to hire me).
Same in Germany. I get my full days at the start of a year, and my boss wants us to hand our planned vacation times in until March.
Leftover days carry over, and have to be taken until March.
But I also can take any overtime with one week notice, and it just gets approved.
My boss is the opposite. She will not even review requests for time off if the dates requested are more than 3 months away.
She says any further in the future is hard to plan for.
I just make the plans anyways.
I'm lucky enough to be fully remote, so worse case scenario I might have to bring my company laptop on my vacations and log in for a few hours.
My company asks that we submit time off requests only 90 days in advance, but we can ask our manager for exceptions which will be approved on a case-by-case basis. They give examples of payment being required for travel (cruise, airfare, wedding, etc.). My boss has approved my requests 6 months in advance, as our kid sees the same ENT and he knows those appointments are scheduled 6 months out, and he'd rather I submit it the day that I book it than forget and submit the request a week before the appointment (which happened a few times after they started the 90 day policy...).
I can also see this company having a "use it or lose it" policy too!
"Is anyone planning on taking off for NYE?"
"Yes, probably all of us."
"Why aren't there any requests in? You have to use all the PTO by the start of next year."
"None of us will have the PTO until the morning starts. Don't worry, first thing on the 31^st and I'll be submitting that day off!"
Yeah, every place I've ever worked did it that way. And then when it's time for you to take your vacation, if you don't have the PTO then you just don't get paid for that time. It seems like maybe OP's boss misinterpreted a change in PTO policy maybe?
Worked for boss who wanted me gone. I was told she chased men away
Put in for week vacation at end of July in early March
2 weeks before vacation, was told I could have the 5 days off, M-F but had to work Sat Sun prior and Sat Sun after, so I technically had my 5 days off, just my 5 days though.
I had to apologize to her later so I said.
“I apologize that you did not understand what I said”
(my boss boss standing behind her jaw dropped to the floor)
Glad my previous employer didn't have a policy as idiotic as that. See, the PTO hours accrual system in our payroll did not communicate correctly, so you had to put in your pto in the same system as you clocked in/put with, but the pto hours were NOT tracked/accrued in that software. So if you didn't see your pay stub and only went off the software, you'd think you always had 0 pto hours
That's...incredibly stupid. Jan first everyone get's their PTO for the year and you have until March 31st to use any remaining PTO from the previous year.
Wow, I'm glad that our scheduling system allows for us to not only submit for future available time, but you can put a date in and it will tell you how much PTO, floating holidays, and sick time you will have available based on what you already have requested off 9r used.
No credible HR system has that stupidity in their system. At least, it's not forced by the system. At MOST it would be a setting that the HR dept would have to explicitly turn on.
Where I worked there was something like that with comp time, which is why I mentioned it. But they did fix it after awhile because it was such a pain for employees and supervisors who were scheduling time off.
> HR dept would have to explicitly turn on
Very possible, and it's also possible that they have been told to set it like that. IT has amazing abilities, but they often claim "we can't do that" when the issue from the top really is "we won't do it because it costs too much money to change it." We had a lot of that when it came to the systems we had to work with.
Place I used to work gave us PTO for Christmas day, Cristmas eve, New years day, New years eve, and then shutdown for the week between. This particular year, New years day was a Thursday. PTO rolled out on Jan. 1, so I put in all my remaining PTO days to cover the shutdown as well as an additional day for Jan. 2.
I was told I didn't have enough PTO and I had to explain that by the time I took off the next year, I would have plenty of PTO.
Is that even legal? The only justification for not allowing you to use time off you’d accrue before using it, would be that you might not work there long enough to accrue it, in which case they’re still claiming your PTO even though you left before the redemption date..
One of the things I really liked about working for government was that the time-off request system didn't balk if you asked for more than you currently had (although it would flag it for you). It was just assumed that as a government employee, you would make up the required leave credits before you left. If your boss was agreeable, sometimes you could even plan to make it up after you came back (for small deficits), which could be the difference between returning to the office on a Monday or having to make up a few hours the previous Friday.
Your post has been removed because it did not contain any form of malicious compliance, which is required for all posts on this subreddit.
Every pay period, request a few more days for your planned vacation months away.
"One piece at a time"
I got a 2 day , 8 hour, 16 hour, week long vacation…
RIP Johnny Cash.
And it didn’t cost me a dime
Keep submitting those top up leave requests. Let the manglement fuckers plan, then replan, then replan, and so on until your time off.
Bahaha good plan!
OMG yes. Do it in four hour increments so they have to process ten separate requests for a week off. Get everyone else to do it too. I’d bet money they’ll change the rule once it inconveniences them.
This is deliciously malicious.
"hmm, I think I will take the rest of that half day off after all"
I think I can see Carol Burnett’s eye twitch.
Buahahahaha
This is the way, make the administrative costs prohibitive and increase the burnout and turnover in the payroll department as a result. Death by a tiny million cuts for the company.
The perfect answer, reflect their stupidity right back at them.
The problem with that is that management then has dozens of opportunities to deny it.
Maybe start off requesting half days or only a couple hours each day.
If you want, say, December 16-20 off, put in for the 16th now. After your next pay period, put in for the first half of the 17th. Two weeks later, put in for the second half of the 17th. Keep doing that every time you get another 4 hours of PTO, because that's "as soon as possible." Tell them that's why you're doing it that way. They'll have to process 9 different requests for that one week off, which changes it from "your problem" to "their problem." Managers tend to solve their problems faster than they solve yours.
It took me a long time to understand how many American movies protraied how vacation/ PTO worked was actually real( ish) and not a way for the movie director/ screenwriter to often villify the boss/ company. And the idea of going to your boss and just say that : I am taking my PTO in a week, and that is normal? And I will still say that this system confuses me( and the idea of bragging about how much you work, and how little time off one takes). As you probably have understood, I am not american. Am Norwegian and I cant just decide to take days off, as I - have- to get approval( and usually you need to give at least a months notice, unless it is a chill company and/or it is almost nothing to do) I do however have 5 weeks vacation, were I by law can demand at least 3 weeks at one time( but then again, vacation schedule is usually worked out in the time frame april/may ( and summer vacation is usually june-august) and if one did not get the vacation time one wanted, see if anyone want to trade) And am sorry, and do not mean to be rude but; is it just in the movies, or do the average worker not get pay it the miss work going to the doctor/dentist/sick child? ( Please excuse this almost granmother bad grammar and weird word choices, English do/did not come to me as easy as you young people :-). )
Typically PTO does require advance approval, but specifics policies vary widely between industries and employers. Some companies allow a separate type of leave called “personal leave,” which can be taken on short or no notice, similar to sick leave. The best part is that PTO is NOT required to be offered. A company can decide that no one gets paid time off ever, no exceptions. (These companies tend to not be able to hold onto competent workers, though, because no employee WANTS to work for a company like that.) And unless the individual state has more generous laws than the federal ones, it is absolutely common that sick time (either whole or partial days) is unpaid. PTO policies sometimes allow use of accrued hours to pay for sick days, but even this isn’t required. To summarize: typically, American employers are as stingy and predatory as the law allows them to be. And the law allows for A LOT of predatory behavior; it’s made to protect the *employers* rather than the *employees.*
There's a lot wrong with the UK right now, but one thing I'm ever grateful for is mandatory paid holiday entitlement and sick pay. The US system absolutely horrifies me - if you don't have savings or you aren't well off then how do you survive? Even then the working hours seem insane. Not being able to take a paid break from work for a couple of weeks to rest and relax and recharge your batteries? UK stat sick pay is bobbins but better than nothing. Decent firms will offer company sick pay to top it up. On the days when I feel a bit meh about my job, I remind myself I've got a good employer - 6 weeks fully paid holiday plus bank holidays, plus 26 weeks of fully paid sick leave every year.
Your take on the US system being horrifying is appropriate
Don't forget that also when you're American and call out other countries in Europe (and Europe-adjacent) having better worker protections you'll get shouted down as being a socialist or a communist (or worse) by a good 40% of the country, most of whom would actually benefit greatly from it.
I'd say about 49.6 to 51.3 % depending on the way the wind blows in the swing states
But don't forget that the largest voting bloc is "don't care".
And a decent % are "both sides are the same".
As designed - you don't survive.
> if you don't have savings or you aren't well off then how do you survive? That's the neat part! You don't! You just die, as capitalism intended.
The rich survive the poor, just as God intended. U S A!!! U S A!!!
The thing you have to understand about the US system is that it is calibrated to deal with full-blown workaholics. Despite scientific studies showing that productivity plummets after 40 hours per week, there are way too many people who are convinced that if they need more money, the best way to get it is to just work more hours. In the US, it's usually the employer arguing for fewer hours; many of the employees are ecstatic about working longer as long as it comes with overtime pay. Giving employees unlimited vacation days or personal time off results in an average of fewer days taken rather than more; cutting hours much below that 40 limit tends to result in people looking for second (or even third!) jobs. It's not everyone in the US who's like this, obviously; and i suspect the percentage isn't as high as it used to be--but workaholics and borderline workaholics are still a large enough percentage of the US labor force that trying to apply the European approach here would be a disaster. Rationing the vacation days, and making any that accrue past a certain limit use-it-or-lose-it makes time off seem valuable enough that most employees actually take enough time off to stay healthy. Mostly. Relative to any other approach. What turns this system toxic is way too many managers, both upper and middle, who were never taught the reasons for doing things this way. Contrary to what many seem to believe, discouraging overtime isn't about saving the company money; it's about keeping your best employees from burning themselves out and leaving you stuck with new hires who are both too few and too inexperienced to get the job done. Those who get this bass ackwards think they're supposed to be limiting hours paid rather than hours worked. For the US system to work properly, employees and employers need to treat each other as allies, working together to bake a (usually) metaphorical pie large enough for everyone to stuff themselves full and still take home leftovers. I don't know what exactly they're teaching in business schools, but it clearly doesn't include the kind of ethics needed to make this system work.
In Germany, to take a second job you need the written allowance from your first employer.
You don’t. For instance, my small office was already down to half staff yesterday and one of my co workers came in and they should not have been there as sick as they were. Ended up having to leave to go to the ER for crying out loud all because of the way the majority of Americans have no sick time and even if they do, the company will likely start to target you if you are out too often no matter how legitimate the reasons. They do not care despite all company proclamations to the contrary.
6 weeks holiday + 26 weeks sick leave every year. You can just not show up 60% of the time and still have a job? If everyone did that, it would be impossible to run a competitive business.
I don't take 26 weeks' sick leave every year!! If you were doing so you wouldn't last long in the job. But it's designed to cover big illnesses such as cancer treatment or serious mental health breakdowns. I don't know of many firms that will give that in one go - it's more common that it comes in stages. E.g. year one 8 weeks sick pay, year two, 16 weeks, year three full entitlement. A good employer recognises that they want to attract and keep good staff and that people get ill. A good employee recognises that this is a very good benefit to have and that abusing it would be very short sighted. For long term sick leave you need to be signed off by a Dr and usually seen by them at frequent intervals to check and refresh that status. The employer will usually also ask for their occupational health teams to get involved to see if there's anything they can do to help you back to work sooner (e.g. lighter duties, workplace adjustments, phased return and so on). I have a colleague who was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was off for a good chunk of time and it meant that she didn't have to worry about paying her bills and could focus on her treatment and trying to get better (she did, and is back at work). Another colleague very sadly lost a baby but it was before the viability week (24 I think?). Here, if you lose a baby after the viability week it's classed as a stillbirth and you are entitled to your full paid maternity leave. Before that point there is no mat leave entitlement, but my colleague used her sick leave instead to cover a period away from work. Most people aren't sick to the extent that they need time off (I wasn't last year thankfully). If they are it tends to be for a bad cold or upset stomach so they are back to work relatively quickly. I'm quite interested that you're go-to interpretation is that you just don't "show up". If you need extended time off then it's because you're ill and need to be away from work for your recovery - which is a good thing, no? Without your people you don't have a business - they are the engine that keeps your firm going, so sensible to invest in them and treat them like human beings who have value and worth because they are your business assets, no?
Got it! Glad you have such a good safety net. In USA most employees can take advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which guarantees you have 12 weeks off *unpaid* due to medical or similar challenges. Few jobs include disability insurance. The best most can hope for is having a guaranteed job to return to.
It's so mad because I have always wanted to visit the US - and when I was growing up going to America or maybe even moving there, was always seen by me and my peers as a dream goal. But I don't think I could afford to (and I make a reasonable living) and even if I could I think the the health insurance and situation with women's medical rights would deter me. I am lucky by UK standards as my benefits package is very good, but even a minimum wage job here entitles you to stat sick pay (which is appallingly low but better than nothing) and 4 weeks' paid holiday. All good thoughts to you and yours - may you all stay healthy!!
About 20 years ago I had a conversation with "big blue" about moving to the US from Sweden. After a serious conversation with my wife I decided to not take the offer. US is nice for vacation but moving there from Sweden seemed like a step back. 10 years ago I found out I had cancer, so it was a smart move to stay in sweden
Wow, hopefully now all ok and clear?
So far so good, still have checkups every six months
My toddler just started kindergarten this year, and that means we get a lot of stomach bugs, and colds. I'm out roughly 1 week/month rn due to being sick. It's not an issue. They know I come back asap. I'm in Germany.
oh, that kind og explains the whole tesla-company issue in Sweden..., as they try to "do it the american way, as it is an american company", and they, as us are not having it..,
Can't even get License plate for sold cars because the License plate issuers are unionized.
The irony is that quite a few American workers will fight any attempt to introduce employee protections because they lump them in with all the other regulations on businesses and they're convinced that such laws primarily protect the mega-corporations by stifling mid-size competitors that could otherwise grow up to replace them. The biggest companies can use the economics of scale to absorb the compliance costs; two guys in a garage can fly under the radar; but anything in between is unlikely to last long unless they either are providing a service that requires a local presence or else have invented an entirely new market niche. (And in the latter case, getting bought out by a bigger company is still a far more likely outcome than continued growth, past a certain size.) To an American by ideology, the proper way to deal with an abusive employer is to quit and march across the street to start a rival company. Sadly, this is nearly impossible to pull off against any but the smallest businesses, and even then the odds can be pretty bad unless you luck out on the location and prospective business partners. I am not interested in getting into an argument on whether this view is accurate; merely explaining what any would-be reformer is up against.
It is more hellish and dystopian than even the movies portray. We have the fewest and worst worker protections in the developed world
it isn't just PTO, there's no guaranteed pay for new parents. We have job protection federally for up to 12 wks, but no pay unless offered by the company or if you use PTO/Sick time.
WTF? But how do you manage to afford? To have kids if you dont have played paternity leave?
I took 6 paid weeks and then 12 unpaid weeks to be with the child I gave birth to. I used every single hour of PTO from the last year and almost every hour of sick time I've saved for the last 3 years. I go back to work tomorrow. we've been putting rent on a credit card to stay afloat, and we haven't even looked at the hospital bills. at least one has gone to collections. you don't afford kids. that's why so many of us aren't having them, and why conservatives are trying to take away our contraceptives.
Birth rates are falling in part because people can't afford to have kids.
> Am Norwegian and I cant just decide to take days off, as I - have- to get approval( and usually you need to give at least a months notice, unless it is a chill company and/or it is almost nothing to do) I am Dutch. Throughout my entire 21 year long career I have always considered asking for permission to take days off as a formality. As a professional, I consider it my own responsibility to arrange my own backup and to accommodate for my absence. I have never received any objections or complaints about my absence. Incidentally, I’m used to fulfilling various key positions in very large infrastructural projects.
I worked for a company that was union. There were specific rules regarding vacation time. In January we were given our accrued vacation for the year. Everyone would submit their first choice of vacation times. Depending on the needs of each department x number of employees were allowed vacation for each week. Vacation requests were approved based on seniority. Some weeks were far more popular than others. My last year with the company I had 23 years of seniority (about mid range for my department). I requested Christmas week (a VERY popular week). They allowed 10 people off at one time. I was so thrilled because I actually made #10 (the last slot) on the WAITING list for the first time. 🙄 Vacation times and rules vary tremendously depending on the state (some states treat their employees more like indentured servants), the industry, union status (unionized companies generally have much better benefits and less leeway with rules) and the company.
I've been in the workforce, officially, for about 25 years. When I worked in TV News I got 10 days of vacation time and 5 days of sick time. I had to schedule that around the other people in the same role, and I there were certain months we couldn't take vacation because they were the main times that ratings were measured and extra effort was put into every newscast. We also lost that time if we didn't use it within the calendar year. Now I work for a community college system, and, due to my years of service, earn 3 weeks vacation per year, about a week of personal time, and I'm not sure how much sick time. We also get to bank time we don't use up to a certain limit for vacation and sick time. Currently, my sick time is maxed at 600 hours. We also work on an educational schedule, so I have a lot of time off due to the holiday schedule. It works well because I generally have the same days off as my kids. I try to give timely notice of any time I need to take, but I currently do not have a set deadline for advance notice.
Well , I'm Australian, not American. everywhere I have worked you generally ask for leave in advance, but if you go to the boss and ask for immediate leave they will give it if they can.
Well, the Boomers were definitely brainwashed into sacrificing for The Company. Gen X a little less. Millennials recently a lot less. Gen Z gives them the middle finger (which most companies deserve). There are some delusional power hungry managers who try and play games with PTO, who eventually lose when the most productive people quiet quit or actually quit. However, the movies are accurate, for the time period, when The Company wouldn’t approve time off for a child’s funeral - typically for those towards the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder
There is no national standard for time off in the US -- it varies state to state and job to job. A great many (mostly poor) people do not get ANY paid time off at all, especially if they work multiple part time jobs. (My mom spent a few years working for a company that limited her to 35 hours a week because 36 hours was full time and would have earned her vacation pay and other benefits.) Yes, this means that workers come to restaurants sick because they cannot afford to take time off. Two weeks off a year is pretty standard, and often that includes any time you take off sick.
Most folks covered the basics but I did want to add that depending on your job and boss asking permission in the US is sometimes just a formality. I've been working for over 40 years in various jobs and I've never had a vacation denied especially once I became a programmer.
better than my Norse...
Americans (in most cases) trade worker protections for at will employment. In most cases if you’re an employee you can just quit with zero notice with zero (legal) repercussions. It’s not a good idea because people talk, but you can just leave and they can’t sue you (in most cases). It’s a shitty trade, but it’s better than nothing. So I can take a vacation whenever I want with however much notice I feel like and the most my employer can do is fire me (and tell everyone they know not to hire me).
Same in Germany. I get my full days at the start of a year, and my boss wants us to hand our planned vacation times in until March. Leftover days carry over, and have to be taken until March. But I also can take any overtime with one week notice, and it just gets approved.
My boss is the opposite. She will not even review requests for time off if the dates requested are more than 3 months away. She says any further in the future is hard to plan for.
Doesn’t that make planning a family holiday/vacation pretty challenging?
I just make the plans anyways. I'm lucky enough to be fully remote, so worse case scenario I might have to bring my company laptop on my vacations and log in for a few hours.
My company asks that we submit time off requests only 90 days in advance, but we can ask our manager for exceptions which will be approved on a case-by-case basis. They give examples of payment being required for travel (cruise, airfare, wedding, etc.). My boss has approved my requests 6 months in advance, as our kid sees the same ENT and he knows those appointments are scheduled 6 months out, and he'd rather I submit it the day that I book it than forget and submit the request a week before the appointment (which happened a few times after they started the 90 day policy...).
I can also see this company having a "use it or lose it" policy too! "Is anyone planning on taking off for NYE?" "Yes, probably all of us." "Why aren't there any requests in? You have to use all the PTO by the start of next year." "None of us will have the PTO until the morning starts. Don't worry, first thing on the 31^st and I'll be submitting that day off!"
That’s so stupid. Our HR and payroll software allows us to dedicate future PTO earnings to our requested time off.
Yeah, every place I've ever worked did it that way. And then when it's time for you to take your vacation, if you don't have the PTO then you just don't get paid for that time. It seems like maybe OP's boss misinterpreted a change in PTO policy maybe?
Worked for boss who wanted me gone. I was told she chased men away Put in for week vacation at end of July in early March 2 weeks before vacation, was told I could have the 5 days off, M-F but had to work Sat Sun prior and Sat Sun after, so I technically had my 5 days off, just my 5 days though. I had to apologize to her later so I said. “I apologize that you did not understand what I said” (my boss boss standing behind her jaw dropped to the floor)
I mean, under this logic, if your PTO reset in January, you'd never get to use your December PTO.
Glad my previous employer didn't have a policy as idiotic as that. See, the PTO hours accrual system in our payroll did not communicate correctly, so you had to put in your pto in the same system as you clocked in/put with, but the pto hours were NOT tracked/accrued in that software. So if you didn't see your pay stub and only went off the software, you'd think you always had 0 pto hours
Rule #7 - fallout is missing
The MC is also missing.
The MC is there, it's just not very good.
What was the fallout?
That's...incredibly stupid. Jan first everyone get's their PTO for the year and you have until March 31st to use any remaining PTO from the previous year.
Wow, I'm glad that our scheduling system allows for us to not only submit for future available time, but you can put a date in and it will tell you how much PTO, floating holidays, and sick time you will have available based on what you already have requested off 9r used.
Sounds like a change in IT. Like it might not even be possible anymore to schedule more time of than you have on your account.
No credible HR system has that stupidity in their system. At least, it's not forced by the system. At MOST it would be a setting that the HR dept would have to explicitly turn on.
Where I worked there was something like that with comp time, which is why I mentioned it. But they did fix it after awhile because it was such a pain for employees and supervisors who were scheduling time off. > HR dept would have to explicitly turn on Very possible, and it's also possible that they have been told to set it like that. IT has amazing abilities, but they often claim "we can't do that" when the issue from the top really is "we won't do it because it costs too much money to change it." We had a lot of that when it came to the systems we had to work with.
So glad im self employed... Fuck this shit
Place I used to work gave us PTO for Christmas day, Cristmas eve, New years day, New years eve, and then shutdown for the week between. This particular year, New years day was a Thursday. PTO rolled out on Jan. 1, so I put in all my remaining PTO days to cover the shutdown as well as an additional day for Jan. 2. I was told I didn't have enough PTO and I had to explain that by the time I took off the next year, I would have plenty of PTO.
Is that even legal? The only justification for not allowing you to use time off you’d accrue before using it, would be that you might not work there long enough to accrue it, in which case they’re still claiming your PTO even though you left before the redemption date..
One of the things I really liked about working for government was that the time-off request system didn't balk if you asked for more than you currently had (although it would flag it for you). It was just assumed that as a government employee, you would make up the required leave credits before you left. If your boss was agreeable, sometimes you could even plan to make it up after you came back (for small deficits), which could be the difference between returning to the office on a Monday or having to make up a few hours the previous Friday.
Just talk to your manager or HR on this one. No need to complain on reddit.
Blasphemy
JuSt TaLk tO yOur MaNaGeR or Hr Dude just complain about me to your therapist instead of posting it on Reddit lol
Sorry but this policy is completely normal and reasonable. You literally just have to tell them your plan.