A more mundane rant: I hate PTO!

[meldroc]

Just for clarification, PTO is short for Personal Time Off, which is what they call days off in places where they combine sick days and vacation days into one pool.

Of course, I never get enough of them. I get fifteen PTO days per year. Some of you are saying "Why are you bitching, meldroc? You've got it lucky!" No, I don't have it lucky, and neither do you. I've got news. Nobody has it lucky here in the U.S. We're all getting horribly screwed, unless you're the CEO and can write off a month in Tahiti as a business trip. Go to Europe, and even the lowliest peons get 4-6 weeks (and that's just vacation, not sick time,) and frequently take the entire month of August off. Why can't I do that?

But the worst part is that when you're sick, sniffling, sneezing and coughing like I was all day today, by all standards, I should have called in, at least to keep from spreading the love with my coworkers. But no. I don't have enough PTO days for that. I only have two saved up, and I'm going to need at least three more so I can take that nice week off this summer, and every sick day I burn is a wasted vacation day.

Let me drop a hint for those of you who come up with these policies. This is the correct sick/vacation day plan for any company that even pretends to treat its employees humanely.

Vacation: At least 20 days per year.
Sick: As many sick days as you need, but if you're sick for more than a day or two, justify with a doctor's note.

If you're running a business, and you don't provide at least that to your employees, die in a fire!

I've never felt so chained to my desk as I did today.

[RoyGBiv]

1. I hear you ...

My company does that too. I get more than 15 days, but it still gets twitchy sometimes, and sick days are always "unexcused" even with a doctors note. Four of those in a 12 month period, and you start racking up points toward write-ups. After 8, you're terminated.

If you're one of those lucky people that never gets sick, never has an emergency or a flat tire or gets caught in an ice storm and refuses to endanger your life to make a few more bucks for the CEO, it's okay. But, if you live in the real world, it's a pain in the ass.

[EstimatedProphet]

3. Same situation for me too

I wonder if we all work for the same company?

[RoyGBiv]

9. Different companies ...

All the HR managers read the same friggin' book, which I'm certain was written by some idiot who has spent his life living in a cave with bears.

[EstimatedProphet]

26. Yep. Likely titles:

What Color is Your Parachute?
Who Moved My Cheese?
The One-Minute Manager

It's all McManagement anymore.

[rainbow4321]

2. My health care facility's policy makes no sense..

They give PTO and also sick time/days. If you call in sick, you get a "point" against you. Call in sick two days (or more) in a row, it still counts as one "offense" and you get a single point. If those 2 sicks days are not in a row for whatever reason, each day counts as a separate point.
We had an employee call in sick 5 days in one year..but he also worked 55 days EXTRA in that same year. What does management focus on during his annual eval?? The 5 days he called in sick. Not once mentioned his ***55*** extra shifts to help the floor out.

[meldroc]

7. You don't understand.

You have to remember - if you're a sick worker, you're a bad worker...

at least in the minds of the pencilnecks who come up with these sadistic policies.

You're a cog - to the CEO, the ideal worker is one that can be thrown away like a used Kleenex on a whim and replaced with another one.

[baldguy]

4. Average Number of Vacation Days Around the World Per Year

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922052.html

Italy 42 days
France 37 days
Germany 35 days
Brazil 34 days
U.K. 28 days
Canada 26 days
Korea 25 days
Japan 25 days
U.S. 13 days

Even workaholic Japan gets more days off than the US!

[Glenda]

5. i knew there was a reason I was tired n/t

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

6. This is as strong a case against outsourcing as I've ever seen. I'm guessing China might surpass us

at 14 in the near future.

MKJ

[cadmium]

8. Wow it looks like the World Cup ---- the more

time off you get the better your soccer team.

[catnhatnh]

11. Wait a minute...

...that makes Bush an Italian with superchargers.

[ikojo]

12. As sad as that statistic is...there are many in the US

who, for one reason or another, don't take all of their vacation days. I measure my available days in HOURS...I pretty much take them as I earn them.

About PTO...the one thing I liked about PTO when I worked for a company that did that, was that if I called in because I had a migraine, it was counted as a vacation day instead of a sick day; that way it was not counted against me.

[cadmium]

10. I dont hate it but we eventually got screwed when

we went to Earned time for everything sick/personal/vacation. We get a 4-5 week pot for all of it. I get 5 wks off total but that is decieving. All holidays are subtracted. It makes a combined vacation, sick, personal time of about 17 or 18 days per year. Better than most but not as good as it sounds.

[mondo joe]

13. I like PTO better than separate vacation/sick days.

Having enough, or being penalized for using PTO, is a different matter.

But I don't see how any employer can provide unlimited sick time. It's not feasible.

[deadmessengers]

14. It sucks either way.

I was on a PTO plan until about 6 months ago. It worked well for me, because I didn't take sick days that I didn't need to take (9 days in 6 years), and was allowed to carry over any unused days. I got 15 days my first year, 17 the second, and that escalated to 22 over my first 5 years of employment there. When my employer was bought out by a larger company, I got a pretty nice check for my unused PTO days, so the fact that I didn't take un-necessary sick days ended up with a direct financial reward to me and my family.

Now, my new employer (the company that bought us out) offers a very generous sick-leave policy: short-term disability insurance kicks in on day one of any illness, no doctor's note required until day 3. They trust us to not abuse it, and the overwhelming majority of people there do not. It's a decent policy, and I don't disagree with it, but...

Unfortunately, there are people who do abuse the policy. The person that I back up at the office now takes off whenever he gets the freaking sniffles, leaving me to do both his job and mine for the day. He's an avid golfer, and thought no one would notice that he came back from his most recent "sick" day suspiciously tan. I have a BIG problem with people like this - the ones who have no work ethic whatsoever and could care less about who their slacking affects, because there's no direct financial or personal consequence to them.

So, you end up with 2 sides of a crappy coin: one is that people are afraid to take PTO because they don't know if they'll need it later, and the other is that slackers for whom a work ethic is a foreign concept will make it harder for the people who do choose to show up and put in an honest day's work. Sucks either way.

[meldroc]

17. I'll throw in the concession of requiring a doctor's visit if sick days get too frequent.

If we have to boil it down to a policy, let's say you get five freebies, that you can use whenever you want, no questions asked. After that, at the discretion of your boss, if there's the suspicion that you're using sick days to play hooky, then it's time to produce doctor's notes.

Far too often, I've seen the sick nazis making the policy - at one workplace, all sick days were considered unexcused, even if you had a doctor's note, and if you got more than ten of them, you're fired. That's right, being sick is grounds for termination. Fucking assholes.

[deadmessengers]

20. "discretion"

Your proposal sounds fair, but I just don't think it would be very practical to implement in the current political and legal climate. Here's why:

We live in very litigious times, and company HR policies are usually written to eliminate manager discretion to avoid lawsuits. The word "discretion" itself is pretty darn dangerous.

Let me give you a hypothetical example - let's say someone in a protected employment class (let's say, a blind African-American lesbian) is suspected of slacking off and taking BS sick days. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the boss in that situation, because I'm screwed either way. If I ask for a doctor's note, the chances are pretty good these days that I'm going to end up with a subpoena in my hands asking me to produce the records of how I acted each time any of my direct reports took sick days. If there's so much as one instance where I used my discretion and chose not to request a doctor's note from another employee NOT in that same protected employee class, I'm going to get my ass handed to me in court. On the other hand, if I don't ask her for one, I'm not only stuck with a problem employee but also I have a morale problem on my hands with the rest of my team believing that I'm playing favorites. It's a no-win situation for everyone but the lawyers - they'll make out like bandits.

Oh, and clearly firing an otherwise productive employee for being genuinely sick is completely asinine. It defies business logic - hiring and training new employees is a HUGE business expense, so why would you want to fire them if they're sick occasionally?

[Manifestor_of_Light]

15. It discriminates against females, for one thing.

I don't work any more and I don't menstruate either, but I used to have to go to work with horribly painful cramps, popping four Advil at a time, and still having the energy level of a wet dishrag. This went on for about four days, 13 times a year. That's 52 days a year. I have never heard of a company with that much time off available.

My ex's lawyer took my deposition and humiliated me for two hours over that point. He wanted me to explain my cycles, cramps, etc., and why I couldn't get a steady job. I had to pay HIM child support and he was the one with the steady job for twenty years at the same place. My female lawyer started screaming at him.

And why should I have to get a doctor's note that certifies that I am menstruating? It's a normal function. The only way they can tell I'm in pain is by how I'm acting. They can't measure it.

[deadmessengers]

18. I couldn't disagree more.

The women I know in the workplace would be positively APPALLED at the mere idea that they would need more sick days than men do because they menstruate. Stuff like this promulgates the antiquated and thoroughly discredited idea that women are somehow weaker and less capable than men. From where I'm sitting, that's complete and utter bullshit.

PTO policies don't discriminate against women. They do make it more difficult for people with chronic medical conditions (such as your painful menstruation), but men get those too. To suggest that a gender-neutral policy like PTO discriminates is just plain wrong. You can make the point that it's worker-unfriendly (as the original poster did), but it's sure as hell not discriminatory.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

22. I did NOT say women were weaker and less capable.

I just said I had a chronic medical condition that medical science couldn't do anything about, short of a complete hysterectomy.

So what percentage of men would be disabled 52 days a year? And how many women of childbearing age would be disabled 52 days a year? I'd like to know.

Some women never have cramps. Some women have them every single period, like I did.
In fact, in one of my medical charts, it said I had been "overtreated" for cramps. That's what male doctors put in your chart when you're desperate for a solution so you can keep functioning and going to work.

In some Asian countries, women of childbearing can get one or two days a month off for their periods. Would you think that was a stupid idea if you were female and had cramps? You'd think it was a good idea if you had that problem, and that the employers were being considerate.

You don't know how demeaning it is to be cross examined under oath, with a court reporter present, taking down every word, at your deposition, and being asked to go through your personal calendar and tell opposing counsel every time you menstruated in the past year. You just don't know how abusive that is. It happened to me because I was married to a bastard with a bastard lawyer.

Hell, my whole family's gotten sick because my SO's boss, at a medical school, had a horrible virus, the doctor told him to stay home. He went to work anyway and breathed on my SO who came home and got sick and made me and my child both sick as hell later. It was truly the sore throat from hell. That's why people go to work sick and infect more people, because of these unfair policies. I think this guy was just stupid, since he worked at a med school, had a Ph.D., and the doctor told him to stay home until he got well.

[Clark2008]

23. Actually, they do discriminate against women, but only during

one life event - pregnancy.

When one is pregnant, one has to have more time off for doctor's office visits and, if the doctor says, "Off your feet or risk the baby," then there's that, too. And this is well before any maternity leave. Sure, my company gives me time off for this sort of thing, but once my hours are used up, then it's unpaid.

It doesn't make me weak - it makes me human. But, men don't get pregnant, so they don't have to waste all their PTO on this.

But, I agree about the menstrating.

[meldroc]

25. More correctly, it discriminates against those with medical problems.

Granted, women certainly have a huge share of medical problems, and misogynistic bosses may use this as an excuse to fire female employees, but there are lots of people out there with everything from allergies to migraines to bad backs to arthritis to who-knows-what that might need more sick time than others. All of them are getting screwed.

[SheilaT]

16. I've come around to thinking that

those who take the sick leave as it accrues are the smart ones. Very few companies reward a worker for not getting sick.

I worked for ten years at a job where we accrued one sick day per month, and when I left I left behind more than 100 days. I can no longer recall the exact number. I would never do that again. There was never in all those years so much as a "Thank you" from management. And I actually am a very healthy person, so it wasn't as though I was showing up ill.

What management does not understand is that how they treat the employees is how the employees will treat the clients or customers, or how hard they'll work to manufacture the product. What goes around comes around is very true.

[SharonRB]

19. I love having PTO instead of separate vacation and sick days

I rarely get sick, so this gives me more available days off than I'd have if I had a separate sick bank that I didn't use and then lost those unused days. Right now I get 19 days to use however I want to and there's no penalty involved -- that number goes up every few years. I always wind up not taking all of my days and those days not taken add up over the years. We can carry over 25 days from year to year and anything over that, we get paid for in January. It's a nice little savings account for me, as I usually have at least an extra two weeks give or take that I get paid out for in January. When I retire I'll get paid out for those 25 days that I keep carrying over. It's also nice to know that cushion is there should I ever get a lengthy illness.

[meldroc]

21. I'd be more tolerant of PTO if I got a hell of a lot more of it.

I only get 15 days a year. That's it, for both sick and vacation days. That leaves me so little time off that I might as well spend my sick time at work if I can drag my ass out of bed at all, so for all intents and purposes, that's 15 vacation days. On top of that, I'm only allowed to carry over 5 days past the end of the year. If I have more than that when the year's up, it's gone. Use it or lose it.

And people wonder why I say I'm chained to my desk...

[meldroc]

24. Dammit! Burning a precious PTO day today...

I should be using this PTO day on a beach somewhere, but instead I'm spending it in bed, feeling like death warmed over, coughing, sniffling. That's one less day I could be spending in Alaska. :mad:

Fuck PTO! And fuck stingy-ass bosses who think 10-15 days is enough.

[ileus]

27. I blew 2hrs of PTO yesterday....

The great thing about PTO is you can go in and work Christmas now...

[mdmc]

28. Thanks for the OP

I like where I work. I make a little money (12 per hour - 9$ less then living wage in the area) but my bosses are great and I get to help people.

I get PTO, and my bosses are good about letting me use it.