Unlimited PTO is a curse. All it does is scare you into not* actually using it (especially in my line of work where you have a billable hour requirement and every day you take off is just one less day you have to hit your goal).
I hear you and everyone who has said the same thing. But that’s just not the case with me or anyone at my company. My boss just came back from a month long vacation. I’ve already taken 3 weeks and plan to take plenty more. We’re asked to deliver on our projects and we get stuff done. I’m not afraid of taking advantage of what’s promised to me which is outlined in the contract I signed. Again, your miles may vary.
For us, if we’re on vacation we won’t get staffed on new matters so coming back from vacation, we’re essentially spending 2-3 days either trying to get back into the matters we had to let go to go on vacation or searching for new matters. Or alternatively, we work on vacation to not miss a beat. It’s not ideal haha.
Unfortunately a simple “unlimited PTO” policy is fake pro-employee policy.
Overall, studies show employees actually take less days off under that policy, likely due to the uncertainty and stress over what is “really” the expectation, and how it will affect the employee’s job security.
Employees end up working over vacations more often.
Since there are no fixed days, employers don’t need to pay for unused vacation time periodically or when an employee leaves.
It plays out in a way that actually ends up harming the employee.
Every “unlimited PTO” policy should be combined with a minimum PTO policy. If you’re wondering if a company actually cares about its employees’ mental health, that’s how you know.
We had unlimited PTO at my old job and I thought it was awesome. I’d take day off when sick, whenever I needed a break or I would pad my “annual” time off to extend my break over one extra weekend. This felt pretty standard in both places I worked with this policy. There was no question asked and no direct human interaction to take off. If people didn’t take advantage of that it is kinda on them imo. Not to remove anything from your point about forced PTO mixed-in.
Exactly, we don’t have that problem where I work. Personally, I know I don’t take enough time off, but that’s my own fault. I also lost a lot of PTO over the years when I didn’t take it.
I’ve worked at a few places with “unlimited PTO” and I totally agree.
It sounds great in practice: “as long as your work is getting done, take as much PTO as you want!” In reality, it never works out that way because there’s never a “good” time to take a vacation; if you don’t have vacation days that you have to use, you won’t use them.
This isn’t always the case, but it seems to be the majority of companies where it’s used this way. My current job truly is unlimited PTO with an unwritten “TAKE YOUR GODDAMN TIME OFF” rule.
How much PTO do you and your coworkers actually take? Most of my friends and former coworkers I’ve known with unlimited PTO end up taking less than I do.
For comparison, I am also American and don’t have unlimited PTO, but this year I’ll be taking off a total of 7 weeks, not including sick time or holidays, though two of those weeks are company chosen. My sick time is in a separate bucket and is something like 15-25 days per year.
Yep. I have 2 weeks PTO and one of those 2 weeks has to be used all together so you have a week off. That’s the only way you can use one of those 2 weeks of PTO. 40 anytime hours and 40 hours you have to take all together. It’s fucking stupid.
the idea that sick days somehow impose a financial burden of the company is a blatant lie of criminal proportions. It is a justification for wage theft
I'm always amazed by how Americans in particular (sorry if you're not, I'm assuming) tend to go from one end of the spectrum to the other without any middle stops in common sense land. I once had a US friend go straight from "we have bad health care" to "we need a violent revolution" with no consideration to... you know, maybe good health care?
I mean, from my perspective it seems pretty obvious that you should only take as many sick days as you need, but you should take all the ones you need, to an unlimited total amount.
Like, that seems so simple. It's how it's always worked in the multiple countries I've lived in. You're sick? You call in sick. You need to be off for multiple days? You ask your doctor to officially declare that you're sick. The company is taking a hit? The government covers your wages during your long term sickness.
This works. We know this works. It's obvious this works.
Did you just say the government pays regular citizens?? Where I come from that’s communism. Governments are only supposed to pay corporations like the good lord intended.
We don’t believe that the government will let us have good Healthcare without revolution at this point. One side violently opposes it and the other dangles it like a carrot on a stick for votes, with no intention of actually providing it because if they actually improved things somewhat they’d lose a precious bargaining chip. This song and dance has been going on for as long as I’ve been alive. We’re losing hope here.
See? But that's the thought process that I find baffling. Because I can't find an American who doesn't claim to be dissatisfied, so... how do you land in that mix of conformism, where you don't think you can take political action of any sort to address it, but also extremism, where you think the logical endgame is full on armed conflict?
How do you massage a whole continent-sized country's psyche into just sitting there and taking it right up until the point where you start shooting people? I'm not even French and even I can see the glaring hole full of mass protesting right in the middle of that crap.
And hey, not to spoil any big secrets, but the US is literally the only democracy that hasn't rewritten its constitution fundamentally since its creation. You guys know that's allowed, right? Go argue for a proportional system or a parliamentary system or something. I mean, you guys could try doing something at all before deciding that it's full-on purge time.
Because if we try to change anything, we run the (very high) risk of losing our jobs, then our homes, and ending up on the streets. If you have a way to get over 300 million people all on the same page for a general strike, who are all willing to risk losing their income, please let me know.
I mean... as the other guy says below, if you're considering revolution surely a general strike is a notch below that level of commitment.
But also, I've lived through multiple general strikes. I don't know what to tell you, a party and a bunch of unions called for them, people followed them at will. Some changed stuff, others didn't. Nobody lost their jobs or homes, among other things because it's illegal to retalliate against a strike. Because, you know, we had strikes about that.
We're not even a particularly old democracy, we were an outright fascist country less than a century ago. My dad remembers running away from fascist police when he was in college. I don't know what to tell you.
In the US there are only two parties of any real significance. General strike is something neither of them would ever call for. Only about 10.1% of US workers have a union.
Nobody lost their jobs or homes, among other things because it’s illegal to retalliate against a strike.
In the US, strike retaliation, while technically illegal, is very rarely enforced. When it is, the penalty is … they have to undo the thing they did and were penalized for. No fine, no concession, no additional monitoring, and there was always the (very good) chance they’d get away with it.
Sadly, in a country where guns are common and unions aren’t, armed revolt is just more imaginable than a general strike.
I’m American and it’s never made much sense to me, either.
Afaik it’s fundementally 5 forces.
Severe distrust of the established institutions, including the democratic process.
Long-drawn, multi-generational unrest ever since late globalization and the decline of unions.
Anti-labor propaganda and institutional complacency.
Increased alienation and in-fighting among the population. Got much worse ever since the MAGA repubs cropped up. We’re fighting against 40-50% of the population for basic shit. (Have you seen our paralyzed congress?)
Finally, this unwillingness to be the first to bite the bullet. Inevitably, the first people to start off these grassroots movements are going to get the shortest end of the stick. They are people sacrificing their free time and economic security for a movement that begs others to do the same.
FWIW, I do recognize all of those from the outside looking in.
I also recognize that you have so few protections that action is riskier than it is here, where protesting can't be legally retaliated against and there are actual labor protections in place that make effecting change easier. Which in turn is part of the expectation that the government should proactively help you when you need it.
But still, it does seem like there should be a middle point somewhere where you get rid at least of point one and you tip over point three, right? That seems like it'd happen way before stuff gets really violent.
But then, culturally you guys fantasize about violently confronting the government since day one, which I guess is what happens when your foundational myth is also a colonial-revolutionary myth.
Okay, so, I’m going to ramble a lot because this is something that causes me a lot of anxiety and stress, but I’ll try and explain this, there are a lot of Americans who support better practices and would happily vote for politicians who claim to support them, and then often do, but the politicians often go back on their word, or at the very least, are stopped by the rest of their party or the opposing team (yes, team). Why do politicians go back on their word, or only attempt to follow through when the vote is stacked against them? Because often the things that will improve the lives of Americans are things that will go against corporate interests. Don’t be fooled, Democrats are bought and paid for by corporations too, the things the implement are usually things that will have little to no corporate cost. However, the moment you start talking about things like higher corporate taxes, taxes on the rich, public healthcare, etc, they act like they have no idea what you’re talking about. They basically serve the purpose of not being Republicans, while the Republicans serve the purpose of not being Democrats.
Okay, but at least Democrats aren’t running headlong towards fascism, right? Yes, however now you have the issue where many states have the votes rigged in favor of one party, typically republican. I live in a state that should have a significantly higher number of democrat representatives, both in the state and federal legislature. However, because the voting districts are gerrymandered to hell, it means Republicans get a significant advantage. Then, you have the issue where republicans are intentionally making kids idiots because they know it increases the chances of them being future republicans. You have the problem where your only choices are the politicians the Democrats or Republicans put in front of you.
You could try and start a new party, but remember that for every vote you capture, that’s possibly one less vote going to the only major party who doesn’t want a 4th Reich; because you probably won’t be capturing any republican votes. You have to be certain that you’re going to capture enough votes to beat the Republicans and the Democrats, otherwise the Republicans will probably win and try their damnedest to implement Project 2025. To steal a phrase, “if you’re going to kill the king, you’d better not miss”. Everything has to go right, which means it won’t.
So protest, right? Well, that only kinda works. The moment a protest runs into corporate interests, it hits a brick wall. You can be sure that every corporation will immediately start funnelling money into shady political groups who’ll use it to spread FUD and manufacture bad actors so the protest loses public appeal. You can try and upgrade the protest to a riot and commit property damage, but that’ll only make you look bad and you’ll struggle to find support from people. That means the likelyhood of a protest going well and having any real effect is pretty slim.
So… What else can you do at that point? These people have more money than God. Something like the top 40 richest people in the world have enough money that they could likely completely and permanently fix many of humanity’s global issues, and still have billions to play with. Yet they don’t.
Over here you have a hard limit on how much money private citizens and corpos can contribute, no donation can be anonymous. You can't even sell merch or collect cash donations if you're a political party.
But a more interesting point you made is the perception of protests. You picture them as... well, US protests. You get a cute little march with people giving cops flowers and then it escalates to "riot", which is already on the other end of the going straight to violence spectrum I find so weird.
The escalation point of a protest in my mind is a strike (which, weirdly, your relatively rich media people just successfully and very publicly did, and are still doing). The next step after that is a general strike.
Sure, I hear that there is likely not enough public support for that in the US. You seem to see that as part of the system that prevents nonviolent action from being useful, but surely the lack of support discards the option of violent action as well, right? When you talk violent or revolutionary acts you also need public support. If people aren't willing to put real pressure in other ways you're also not going to round up the capitalists using sticks and handguns any time soon.
I'm not surprised at the sense of powerlessness, I'm surprised by how the notion that violence solves the powerlessness is so prevalent.
Chicken and egg problem. In order to ban political contributions, you would need to elect enough polititans who will vote for that against the corporate interests mentioned. Not just a majority if polititians either.
Because the high court has decided that political contributions are “speech”, it would take a constitutional amendment to end them. That means 2/3 of both the upper and lower houses. Then, it has to get a majority in 3/4 of the state legislatures as well before actually taking effect.
For reference, in the last 41 years it hasn’t been possible to do that for an amendment saying women have the same rights as men, something that runs into far less corporate opposition than ending bribery political contributions.
Yeah, no, your constitutional system is broken beyond repair.
That's not up for debate. Like I said above, every other democracy has done a new Constitution or a full on rework at some point. Americans are pretty unique in getting hung up on their foundational moment like that.
I mean, SC precedent can be altered eventually, but even the really obviously flawed design of the court in general is a constitutional issue with obvious improvements available.
But again, a new Constitution seems like a much lower bar than... you know, The Revolution.
i think a lot of us feel the problems are so entrenched, and any lower bar to change so inaccessible, nothing short of violence will create any significant change.
given how difficult it would be to (for example) change our constitution or end corporate political contributions through non-violent means, what’s left? every part of our current system is self-reinforcing on the national level.
it doesn’t help that the sentimental commitment to “our founding fathers” is equivalent to something like religious faith (see - christofascism, american nationalism) and/or national identity (because we don’t have any other).
Someone already addressed your comment about political contributions, but…
But a more interesting point you made is the perception of protests. You picture them as… well, US protests. You get a cute little march with people giving cops flowers and then it escalates to “riot”, which is already on the other end of the going straight to violence spectrum I find so weird.
Because anything in the US that isn’t giving cops flowers gets escalated by cops and bad actors. Stick a few people in the crowd with molotovs and now the cops have an excuse to start swinging batons and shooting people with beanbags.
The escalation point of a protest in my mind is a strike (which, weirdly, your relatively rich media people just successfully and very publicly did, and are still doing). The next step after that is a general strike.
A lot of people don’t have the money to strike right now. Additionally, corporations have a lot of sway with local governments and sometimes building managers/landlords. They’re comfortable and entertained enough that it doesn’t feel urgent enough to risk being jailed, fired, and possibly evicted; and they don’t have the money to risk everything going south (and it probably would). I’ve seen other people make this comparison, so you mighta heard it before, but it’s like boiling a frog. If you do it slow enough, the frog won’t realize it’s dying. It’s honestly dystopian as fuck.
Sure, I hear that there is likely not enough public support for that in the US. You seem to see that as part of the system that prevents nonviolent action from being useful, but surely the lack of support discards the option of violent action as well, right? When you talk violent or revolutionary acts you also need public support. If people aren’t willing to put real pressure in other ways you’re also not going to round up the capitalists using sticks and handguns any time soon.
I think part of the hope is that if you go straight to violence, it’ll put pressure on people to pick a side, effectively shaking the fence or knocking them out of their “frog daze” to make them wake up to the reality they’re slowly being boiled alive.
Another part is that it might give them hope that they can actually change things, motivating them to join the cause. When you watch protests regularly escalate to violence because of cops or suspected plants while resulting in little to no improvement, you become jaded and hopeless. Look at how much effort it took to get states to start taking cop brutality seriously; and that was something a majority of Americans probably agreed was a huge issue that needed to be addressed sooner rather than later. Yet it took a hell of a lot of effort and a mini rebellion, and we still have issues in many states with police brutality.
Finally, violence against your oppressors, or the thought of it, gives you a feeling of power. When you feel powerless for long enough, the thought of finally having enough power to destroy the people responsible for the state of the world is, quite frankly, intoxicating.
These aren’t the only reasons people might have for wanting violence, I’m sure America’s culture of rebellion and violence is another part of it, but I think those are probably some of the more common reasons.
Political violence as a power fantasy does ring true to me. This entire thread has been a mix of "but there's nothing we can do", which seems pretty obviously less true than the average American seems to think, and "violent revolt would be needed", also probably not true.
There seem to be two intertwined fantasies: powerlessness as a balm for maybe a bit of class guilt, and a power fantasy of becoming a radical revolutionary once shit hits the fan. "Yeah, I could do something now, but it's futile, so I better carry on. But just you wait because when the revolution comes I'm so there", and so on.
That I can wrap my head around and seems to fit best with the stuff above. I mean, it's a pretty universal feeling, I think. It's definitely not US-exclusive, but you guys are really good at it, and it compounds with a bunch of other things that got mentioned in this thread, too.
Historically speaking, the most successful leaps forward have come about via methods that were branded as “terrorism” while they were happening. If we had restricted ourselves exclusively to what you call “constructive”, we would have never freed ourselves from the shackles of monarchy, or in the case of the American Civil War, the much more literal shackles of, well, shackles. Violence should be a last resort, but keeping off the table entirely is just naive.
Now, this? This is a crucial difference. As I was saying before, the foundational revolultionary myth of the US is a lot, and it sure looks like it sets the stage.
I mean, that statement is absurd on the face of it, seeing how... you know, the UK exists and it's ostensibly a democracy (a social democracy, even, by some definitions) and so are all the other colonial powers and a lot of the independent colonies, major liberal revolution or not.
It makes no sense, but you still said it as a fact. It's still bipartisan enough that you didn't picture it in your head as a bit of conservative historical fantasy mythmaking, you put it out there as a verifiable thing you can just say. The opposite notion is naive, even.
That must leave a mark, right? The indoctrination and warped perspective of the relationship with government, progress and change that mindset must give you HAS to be a part of this.
the american population, however, is deadlocked in their opposed visions of what progress looks like, and leadership is not strong enough to do much more than continue to consolidate and protect their own power and authority.
again, change at the lower bars you have proposed is very difficult indeed, and requires shared vision that is very hard to come by here. it doesn’t help people to feel change can be obtained through current systems or non-violent strikes that a) financial constraints are so much harder to overcome than in previous decades (i.e. trying to strike could mean inability to feed or house yourself or to afford needed medical care) and b) what change we managed in recent decades has been rolled back (roe v. wade) or is under attack (civil rights).
i hate that my comment is so negative and i don’t want to discourage any fellow americans from trying to create positive change. i’m just sharing my own voice and why it’s hard to imagine success short of revolution. i feel like advocacy and voting are all i can really do right now, and they are honestly not very effective.
I work in Spain, we don’t have sick days. If the doctor says we are not apt to work, we take a leave intil the doctor says so. Indefinitely. No maximum. As long as the doctor says.
This limit thing is so weird. Yeah, you can use them as vacation of you are healthy but that’s an abuse and then when you need them you will be vulnerable without days. It’s better to have infinite days, to be used only when you are actually sick, as stated by your doctor.
Right right, if your leave is longer than a year the permanent inability (incapacidad permanente, diferente a una discapacidad) cards pop up, since chances are you will never be able to be able to return to the same work you did, like an ernia for a driver and so on.
In any case, people taking a year long leave is kind of rare and it’s practically limitless compared to the 2-30 days the other mentioned countries get.
(edit - i live in the us) i can purchase extra insurance for short-term and for long-term sick leave.
right now, i have ten days of paid time off for whatever reason per year (no explicit sick leave) and i pay about $650 a month for insurance which covers very little for myself and my kids until i have spent at least $6000 on any one of us or $15000 for all of us together. i make about $50k a year before tax and insurance.
and our compensation package (paid time off and insurance) is considered pretty good for my area.
i could buy better insurance and short and long term leave, but this would cost about half of what i make. unfortunately, half of what i make already goes to rent.
I’m in the US and I get 3 paid sick days a year. Anything more and I don’t get paid PLUS I get a point. After 8 points I lose my job. We come to work sick unless we are in the hospital.
Most Americans still have their hears shoved so far up their asses that they think all of Europe is a freedomless third world region where the governments silence all criticism and doctors still use leeches or something. Just completely delusional and in denial.
Of course most Americans haven’t even left their own state, never mind gone to Europe to experience it themselves.
Most Americans still have their hears shoved so far up their asses that they think all of Europe is a freedomless third world region where the governments silence all criticism and doctors still use leeches or something. Just completely delusional and in denial.
do you actually believe this or are you just trolling
Looking around places I’ve lived, and frequent, Many were in the 60% for level 3 literacy (much higher than average). But the countries around them were often below average sub 40%. Cities seem to be an exception and seem to have very low level 3 numbers.
i mean… i would like to go to europe, but where on earth do i find the time off work and the money to do it?
that americans are not better traveled is not entirely the fault of their attitudes. it’s easier for your average european to travel internationally for a number if reasons, both practical and systemic.
edit - for many americans, international travel is a privilege.
You’re right, it is a great privilege. I’ve never left the U.S. either. But I’m also not a fucking dumbass MURICAMAN that thinks a $5000 bill for a broken arm and 3 sick days a year is something to be grateful for.
I’m able to see that my country is super fucked up and that mlst of Europe seem to do most things better.
But it’s also a misunderstanding of how the US is governed and regulated. It’s setup more like Europe than people realize.
And yes, we’re fully aware of how much most of us are getting screwed on worker’s rights for time off. People in other countries don’t think we’re aware but we are. The question becomes, how do you fight for more rights? Our politicians absolutely suck. That’s the main issue. The two party system doesn’t work but we can’t agree what to do about it.
That’s an option but it would have to be something so heinous, to push us to unite, I couldn’t fathom it. Nothing, so far, has pushed us to that point.
Think about how many mass shootings we’ve had and that still doesn’t unite us. The issue is more complex than our European friends understand.
Yep. And that’s the American value system. Having your entire population under the veritable yoke of slavery and that isn’t enough to make you collectively revolt.
My last job had no sick days. I would get no pay for the day and a point, and at 6 points you’re gone.
The job I have now ALSO has no sick days, but at least the attendance policy is so lax I can literally skip 2/3 shifts and stay employed. Still no pay, but it’s a bit less shitty than my last job.
The bar is so fucking low I don’t think ground penetrating radar could find it.
Here specifically it's three days off (each time, not total) and then you need to get an official doctor declaration to stay home longer (which makes sense, if you've been sick for several days you should see a doctor anyway, and it's free, so why not).
And if the doctor says you're too sick to work, even if it's due to your mental health then you're off for as long as they say, with a compensation scheme that involves both your company and the government dealing with the cost for certain periods and so on.
In countries that do not exploit workers, if the doctor writes you a sick leave, you are at sick leave for that time. If doctor writes you 6 months, you can be away 6 months with full pay. In general company pays some initial weeks, and the system pays the rest.
So there is no max or min.
Also in many countries if you are in your paid vacation, and you get sick, you move for sick leave, and those days do not count as used vacation.
No. If you have paid time off it is part of your compensation package. A better way to look at it is if you work 52 weeks a year and your employment includes a week of PTO, then you are effectively due 53 weeks of pay and any time you take off is subtracted from that number.
Where I work (not California) this time is “use it or lose it” so no. Our comp is 52 weeks a year and we can take up to 3 weeks (not consecutive) of that off for whatever if scheduled or unscheduled for sickness. 1 week if you are new.
Still yes. The point is that PTO is part of your compensation package. If you don’t use it you are not receiving that compensation. Put it another way: if part of your compensation package is a company vehicle (just like everyone else in the company) but you work from home, are you going to consider that fair compensation?
I get 5% extra per year saved of sick leave on my pension, up to 2 years, adjusted to percent of the year left of sick leave. But my job is fun and people tend to want to work.
I don’t know if that’s reality though. Part of my new job’s compensation package that I negotiated in was unlimited days off. I’ve already taken a vacation I wouldn’t have been able to with my previous job. I know better than to abuse the privilege but the trade off of not getting it paid out on exit is already worth it for me.
because I am a big gobshite, I always mention this. They ask for feedback about benefits in most companies, I always say, “yeah you say unlimited time off but I’m not allowed to take 365 consecutive days?”
two separate companies have changed it to “flexible time off” because of my inability to keep my trap shut
Why do we even hold up the charade of calling WSJ by name when it’s obviously just fox news (in ownership and content) with the lightest of filters for outright insanity?
I’ve noticed anything labeled “business” or “finance” or “money” is just as ridiculous, if not more. They really are drinking each other’s piss and thinking it’s Kool-Aid.
In Germany, you just go to any physician and tell the receptionist, you need a day off. The vast majority don’t ask questions. And if they do, you say you got a stomach bug.
I’m pretty sure that’s not right, they cannot require a doctor’s note unless it’s over a certain number of days off. If it’s just the one day it’s unreasonable to require a note.
As long as there is no consistent pattern of absences they should just accept that you are ill and leave it at that, (although if they’re feeling particularly petty, they can insist on a return to work interview). They are absolutely not supposed to ask for a doctor’s note for a single day off because it’s an enormous waste of everyone’s time, and of course if you are ill, you shouldn’t be moving around trying to get a doctor’s note.
I use urgent care for this, because my GP is impossible to get an appointment with quickly. I wait maybe an hour to get seen and get a note, and medication if necessary.
We have an app to our occupational health care provider and you just basically slide a DM to a doc if you need a note (3 days or more of sick leave iirc).
In this thread: Americans bragging that not only have they never used a sick day, they used their lunchbreak to go back and wrestle the bear for their severed arm which they then reattached with staples they paid for themselves so they could put in a full afternoon of work.
A friend was working for a pool construction company and I really wanted the job so when they finally took me on I pretty much immediately had a piece of rebar go through my calf. I asked the homeowner for some duct tape and kept working… Lol it was my first day and I wanted the job.
Obviously I didn’t get called back… Seen as a liability I suppose lol
Really sums it up tbh. No one gets through school without needing a sick day, but they offer children a worthless piece of paper for being obedient enough to risk everyone else’s health.
I had serious respiratory immune issues (technically still do) and I actually got in “trouble” with the principal once for missing too many days. He basically tried to intimidate me to admit I was slacking off and skipping out. I laughed and suggested he call my dad and his tone immediately changed.
This was in Canada too. That principal was a worthless sack of turd. He stood in the middle of the hallways between classes and tried to impose this grumpy, mean, “hard ass” attitude.
btw, some of the federal funding that public schools receive is tied to attendance. so in addition to whatever cultural pressures are in operation in schools, they REALLY want students there every day for financial reasons as well.
Yeah, well fuck them. I used up my one week’s worth of sick days and all of my PTO and am now on FMLA because I’m dealing with an illness that is causing me to miss work. What the fuck am I supposed to do? They told me to go on FMLA.
I had to use FMLA leave a couple years back when I was out for a planned surgery that took about 4-6 weeks to recover from.
Technically, I think FMLA really only ensures you’ll have a job to return to. They legally cannot fire you or lay you off if you’re on FMLA.
FMLA doesn’t offer any paid time off, though, so most employers require you to use your accrued time off (both sick time and vacation time) concurrently with your FMLA leave. Once that runs out, you stop getting paid.
Bro there’s still so many idiots at my workplace working their life away for a stupid card that says “best performer of the month”. I got no problem with that but the issue that I have is they make life hard for guys like me. I know and they know that they can’t afford a shitty 4 bedroom house so why the fuck slave so hard. I really don’t get it
Assuming America it’s because there is a pervasive mentality that the poor here are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires and that through their hard work, they will be restored to their millionaire status. It’s fucking disgusting that companies take advantage of this naivety and sad to see people falling for it. These people grind themselves to dust for a pittance and the reality of the situation rarely hits them.
Wall street is the psychotic, insatiable, dehumanizing tail that wags the dog, one petulant tantrum-a-minute to the next, and the next, and the next… perpetually.
God forbid anyone in a corporate position of power try and do anything that isn’t indecent and corrosively myopic, else the stampeding Dow Jones zombies go on a goddamned short-selling rampage.
But then people have been saying this for ages now, and still here we are.
I remember a story about a CEO who decided to pay ALL of his employees well. As I remember, all of his middle management left in a huff because they no longer had their higher earnings to hold over their subordinates and feel superior, all of his friends ostracized him and he essentially became a pariah.
Yeah, Dan Price, just went to look it up. Apparently, he had to resign after some allegations against him, which turned out to be false. Something smells off about a man paying employees fairly suddenly getting trumped-up charges that never got properly investigated before being referred to the prosecutor’s office literally the day after he announces the pay stuff.
Interestingly enough, I just put forth the argument in another thread that dismantling the stock market would address a lot of systemic problems. I’m glad it’s not just my own thinking.
Great article in terms of calling out the sentiment, but their analysis is really dumb.
Just to be clear: the idea that sick days somehow impose a financial burden of the company is a blatant lie of criminal proportions. It is a justification for wage theft — the most common and most costly form of burglary in America. Sick days are part of an employees’ compensation package; therefore, sick days are just another form of money owed to the workers. If a company is spending the money that it legally and contractually owes to a worker
Not only is this not accurate whatsoever, as companies are not required to pay you for unused sick time (thus making it not wage theft - also it isn’t wage theft to complain - but the money isn’t contractually owed at all).
What makes this truly bad though is that employers that do pay out for unused sick time see way fewer incidences of “sick time as general PTO,” and workers actually get their full comp, and should be a standard across all employers. They literally skip over the thing that would be better for workers and employers, in their analysis.
If a worker wants to trade pay for time off, that should be their right. They should also be paid for the time off they don’t take, as it is indeed factored into employee comp on the corporate level.
Sick days are part of an employees’ compensation package
Not only is this not accurate whatsoever, as companies are not required to pay you for unused sick time
If the employment contract states “paid sick days” then your take is entirely wrong.
What makes this truly bad though is that employers that do pay out for unused sick time see way fewer incidences of “sick time as general PTO,” and workers actually get their full comp, and should be a standard across all employers.
Great, so we’re back to incentivizing people to not take the time to get better and creating an even more toxic environment for “pushing through”.
The whole idea of paid sick days is to create a burden free environment so that people can take the time to recover without thinking “I really need this extra bit of cash, I’ll just suck it up”.
A lot of Christians have a pretty vague understanding of the bible, or the religion as a whole, usually jusy what will let them justify whatever they need to be justified.
This should be expected, to be fair, since Christianity is a cultural inheritance. You’re not expected to know much about it other than what your priest tells you, if the Christian even goes to church to begin with.
As an actual Christian that reads the Bible and goes to church, I wish more people who called themselves Christian actually followed what the Bible says. It’s a big problem in the US
Patently false. Most atheists have read the bible as much as most “Christians”. Some of the most-common “causes” of atheism are: never was pushed/encouraged to believe, skeptic/scrutinizing personality, or being annoyed by what “Christians” say or do. All of these reasons and more for being an atheist are good and valid-- I’m just arguing against this bad-faith (no pun intended) crap that you are arguing, and that some other atheists say.
I'd agree that it's not a leading cause. To your list though I'd add that some people are pushed too hard to be believers, and reject it, or grew up in an area where people are just flat-out obsessed with religion and it ends up putting their hypocrisy in view.
Depending on your point of view, those could be partially or fully extensions of my list points; but yeah, there are plenty of good reasons to be an atheist. I myself am an ex-Christian agnostic theist. My churches were Baptist, and… yeah, none of that crap anymore. xD
What’s even the point of deciphering the Bible when you can make it say what ever it is you like. Why not just start with what you want to believe and patch together Bible verses that support it?
That’s my main problem with the culture. If people want to believe random supernatural stories written long in the past and use that as a basis for their morality… uh, okay… I just don’t like how they rely on other people to do their reading and interpretation.
What kind of company doesn’t insure against sickness of their employees? When I mentioned I was sick a lot, my boss at the time laughed and told me the company gets an insurance payment if I’m out, so not to worry. Fyi, I’m in Europe.
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