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In Europe, there are companies that offer unlimited paid time off. In practice apparently people take less time off than when they have a fixed amount of leave because they feel a responsibility towards their coworkers.
In my opinion, entrepreneurship is a high risk/high rewards game. Employees getting sick is part of the risk, and if you can’t handle that you shouldn’t be running a business.
I know in the US it’s incredibly easy to let people go, in the end if specialist workers get scarce, not accepting sick days will ruin your business. In Europe not accepting sick days is simply not an option.
I am convinced treating people well prevents things like burnout. And preventing burnouts and churn gives you a competitive advantage.
I’m a school bus driver in the US. Not only do we not get unlimited PTO, even for our paid holidays we don’t get paid for them unless we show up for the workdays before and after the paid holidays. This is so that we don’t attempt to stretch the long weekend that a Friday or Monday holiday provides by taking extra sick days before or after. I was a programmer most of my working life and I never encountered any time-off like this, but the other drivers say this is common in “blue-collar” jobs.
TBF our bosses have absolutely no flexibility in terms of the work that has to be done. A bus route needs to be covered or else 100 kids don’t make it to school. We have standby drivers but not an unlimited number of them. The day after the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, about a third of our drivers called in “sick” and the transportation director had no choice but to cancel multiple routes. I was more pissed at our drivers than she was – we’re almost all in our 60s and 70s (and a few are in their 80s) and have no business drinking ourselves into massive hangovers. I’m actually surprised nobody died.
I would like to add - fuck those managers that try to make scheduling issues around your sick days your problem. Over the last few years, I’ve heard of more and more jobs where the manager expects you, the sick person, to find coverage for your shift in order to call out. That is, you’re expected to call around your coworkers and find someone who will work your shift for you… yes, even if you’ve got no voice or are busy puking your brains out. Somehow, this practice has become prevalent in some jobs in the US. I worry about the younger workers who accept this as normal. It is not normal, and should never be normal!
The manager is paid to manage the employees - including finding coverage when someone’s sick. If you ever find yourself in a job where a manager tries to make you find your replacement before “permitting” you to call out, GTFO out of there! It’s a fucked up practice and sane employers don’t pull that shit.
(For all the Europeans reading - yes, this is real. Yes, we need better labor laws.)
Guillotines, even for the low level tyrants.
Caskets with flesh-eating worms for them!
Labor conditions in the USA are so fucked up. Join a union, you need collective action to make changes.
I’m a school bus driver in the US (Teamsters union). Our monthly dues are about $90 and we’re finding it difficult to get new drivers to join because of that. Our district is surrounded by non-unionized districts where they make about $8 less an hour and get none of the benefits we get, which include subsidized health insurance and a pension after ten years. We’re OK for now but if our union membership ever drops below 50% of the drivers our contract will be voided and then we’ll find out how shitty it is to not be represented by a union. But I can’t get the new drivers to understand this; the anti-union propaganda for the last fifty years hear (really, for a lot longer than that) has just been too overwhelming.
They make $8 more per hour, but are getting hung up on $90/month union dues? They do know that the difference alone would pay for that in like 12 hours, right?
I dunno if school bus drivers are public workers or not… If they are, the Supreme Court ruled a few years back that they don’t even need to pay full dues, even if they are part of the collective bargaining unit and are receiving all of the benefits of contract that was fully negotiated by the union.
It’s annoying, but it’s there. If they’re public employees, they don’t even need to pay full dues
They make $8 more per hour, but are getting hung up on $90/month union dues? They do know that the difference alone would pay for that in like 12 hours, right?
They actually are so bad at math that they don’t know that.
I dunno if school bus drivers are public workers or not… If they are, the Supreme Court ruled a few years back that they don’t even need to pay full dues, even if they are part of the collective bargaining unit and are receiving all of the benefits of contract that was fully negotiated by the union.
Yes, they get the benefits of the union-negotiated contract even if they are not in the union themselves. But as I mentioned, that contract is negated if the union membership drops below 50%.
This perfectly shows what’s wrong in this country (and many part of the world).
People not paying the dues still get the benefits. Personally they save money by not being a member, while benefitting from those that do. But if enough people think like that then the benefits vanish. Our society is just propped up by the majority (sometimes just a few) that understand that and do things for the collective good. But the portion of people doing that is decreasing as we become strangers with people around us.
Exactly the same thing happening everywhere. People are individualistic, they see benefits if they’re the only one doing something. But they don’t see how if everyone does what they did, everyone will end up in a far worse situation.
I wanted to explain this with an example to some people and they just blew it off saying it doesn’t make sense. The example is below:
If you had a button in front of you that gives you a million dollars if you press it (but only once in your life), but takes one dollar from everyone in the world. Now it might be very tempting to press that button. And if you do, you’re +1million dollars. Problem is, if everyone else also press their button, then you’re -8billion dollars. Even if 0.1 percent press that button you’re negative. But if we give this button to everyone, people will press it. And we reach a cycle where even the people that didn’t press it in the beginning will press it once they lose significant money because that’s the way way to at least recover something for themselves. So everyone loses.
I feel like this is how a lot of business models are working right now, they give you that button, and ask you $1000 for that button. You take it, you make a million. The world lost 8 billion into the void. You recover your 1000 and a lot more. And then someone else does it, you’re still positive. More and more people do it, the business is the only one making money. But as 1000s of people do it, you start to panic, then you get all the people that took advantage of it together, try to bribe the business so they stop selling the button to more people.
I once listened to a presentation by a guy who had this really elaborate plan, based on everyone doing their jobs absolutely perfectly, with nothing going wrong at all. If anything skipped a beat, anywhere along the way, the entire house of cards would come down.
I asked what would happen if someone didn’t accomplish their objectives, and he said they would. But what if they didn’t? They will. That’s when I said, you aren’t taking the human factor into account, and he said that the solution is to “fire the human, and get a new human.”
Meanwhile, “Nobody wants t’ werk!!!”.
Okay, cool. What happens while you’re training that new human? Trainees will operate at substantially less efficiency than expected while learning and may for a while afterwards too, depending on complexity of the work. What happens if one of those humans gets hurt or sick?
Dude really was a moron, wasn’t he?
What happens while you’re training that new human?
My managers always had a simple solution to this problem: pretend that new programmers fresh out of college require no on-the-job training at all. Or for bonus points, pretend that they’re even better than the guys who have been doing this for decades and pay them more.
Nah, new humans aren’t trained in this day and age anymore. Managers just say to use AI instead. We can see this with the high unemployment rate of graduates.
Dude really was a moron, wasn’t he?
A leading hypothesis is management are fucking stupid. Throw them back into the trenches. Let them do some actual work for a few years
Throw them back into the trenches.
The problem there is that eventually you don’t have trenches any more.
It’s easy to tell which managers were promoted from within and which were external hires with no hands on experience.
I don’t think hands on experience is necessary, but you need to have a comprehensive understanding of the work being done by people you oversee. That becomes increasingly difficult as your position moves you from the front line, which I think is one reason upper management and executives often seem like aliens compared to the rank and file and lower management.
He’s not the only one. The Neo-Feudalists really think they are the only human species that exists whilst everyone else is a Neanderthal Serf
Called off work on Friday because I accidentally fucked up my back Thursday night and woke up unable to move without excruciating pain. My boss left me on read. Didn’t even fucking reply.
The only two people who I am putting any stress on by calling out sick the morning of a shift is the scheduling manager who has to find someone to cover, and the person they get to cover if they happened to be off that day and now are being asked to come in. And I could always cover that other person’s shift when they call in sick to make up for when they covered for me.
Any extra slack the already scheduled people get told to pick up is on the manager if they do not find anyone else to come in, and that is entirely on those in charge of staffing the place.
I guilt myself enough as it is. My boss tells me don’t worry about it and that I need rest like everyone else lol. I’m lucky, I both have my dream job and a boss that actually goes to bat for me. I wish everyone could have the same.
Shit, If a client is even just a little rude to me my boss will basically threaten to pull their account and force them to apologize.
Honestly, one would think the boss is someone with the skill and know how of at least 2 of his subordinates. Not the survivability of 5 toddlers in a trench coat
Exactly, too many times it’s just because of nepotism or attrition.
The only thing you do by keeping things running through heroic effort is to send a message to management that they can lower the priority of dealing with the issue.
Managing upwards (getting management to make decisions in your favor) means that you can’t let yourself be the reason they don’t feel the pain of a problem like poor staffing. Sure, you can step in and save the day if you really, truly, need to build up your reputation as dependable/hero, but it’s a thin thin line.
One thing I often do as well is try to look at people in other departments and their general attitudes towards time off, vacations, having to leave for Dr’s appointments, that sort of thing.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to live in a constant crunch time situation, feeling like I need to take lunch at my desk, and put off things I need to do for me.
Especially while other teams are having regular team building outings during work hours on the company dime, one guy takes a long lunch and to go to the gym, and two others were clearly taking the video call meeting while out walking their dog.
Everyone deserves consideration of the fact that they are human, and everyone deserves the kind of flexibility that often is only for business side “important” people.
Overtime solves this issue pretty effortlessly. They call you and offer a shift of overtime to cover someone that’s unexpectedly absent. If you’re willing to sacrifice your normal time off, you get time and a half in exchange. If you’re not, then either another person will or the manager/foreman on salary handles it. That is, after all, one of the reasons they’re paid more (and on salary.)
It’s true and i agree but it’s still my coworker suffering the consequences.
Meh, they should take days off too then, don’t be an apologist. Pitting against fellow workers is not the way.
You need to stop thinking in twitter posts and start thinking in terms of reality.
TIL feeling bad for my coworkers makes me an apologist
In my opinion, at a healthy workplace, someone taking time off shouldn’t be noticed
In a “healthy” capitalist environment, they take note of who can leave without any bumps in the road and lay them off
I used to have this boss who would get mad if anyone asked for 2 weeks off. She would say, “if you think the business can survive without you for that long, why do we pay you? Don’t bother coming back then”
That boss was a short-sighted moron. (I assume we all can see that). I hope that role is as high up the food chain as the Peter Principal will allow them to go.
1). Hiring is expensive, scouting, ads, interviews, and paying HR do process their onboarding and benifits. The rule of thumb Ive see previous managers use is the total cost to hire someone is 2-2.5 times their annual take-home. Not to mention the effectivness of a new hire learning the role costs the company real resources, time and effort to bring up to speed.
2). Your PTO is part of your compensation, and can be used within policy as you see fit. Failure to allow its appropriate use could be viewed as wage theft and there are very powerful leagl avenues (depending on location) to take if the case is big enough to bring against the employeer.
Within policy does a lot of heavy lifting.
It’s generally very simple (by intent) for the employer to deny PTO requests “within policy.”
The issue arises when multiple people all get sick at the same time, which is much more common than random chance would have it due to how contagious cold & flu (and COVID) are. A workplace that can handle half the staff gone for a day without falling behind is gonna struggle to find stuff for people to do when everyone is there.
This is reason for having more lenient sick policies, not less. Generally only symptomatic people are contagious (COVID being an exception). Even mildly sick people should be encouraged to stay home until fully recovered to lower the risk of spreading it to the rest of the office.
That can help, though the office isn’t the only transmission vector. Schools, grocery stores, restaurants, public transit, etc. are all major vectors. Families with early school-age children especially tend to get sick a lot, as young children learn and play in close proximity but don’t tend to follow good hygiene habits.
There’s also just the issue that in any environment with multiple people, it only takes one infected person to infect everyone else. Different people have different tolerances for illness as well as varying severity of symptoms. Someone with mild symptoms may come to work/school anyway and the whole room gets sick.
Have you never been in a position of management? You think absences should never be noted or logged?
You might need to reconsider this.
also, by going to work sick, you are unnecessarily endangering your coworkers, your customers, and yourself.
What do you mean you “deserve” sick days? Aren’t you legally given those?
For instance, I can call in two days a month and say “I’m sick, staying home, not working”. If I’m not that badly off, then I can call in as much as I want (within reason) and say “I’m sick but working from home”. At any point, I can say “I’m sick, going to hospital”.
Few American employers provide actual sick days. Instead you can pull from your pool of paid time off (which doubles as vacation for many jobs, although some do have a separate vacation pool that can only be used for scheduled time off) or just have an unpaid absence.
No. We are not given those.
The people who we trust to secure those rights for us that you take for granted are useless unless they’re blocking progress.
No. I don’t get any sick days at all for any reason. There are two kinds of leave at my job: scheduled, and unscheduled. If it was preapproved 2+weeks in advance by you submitting a slip and the boss signing it and then getting back to you, then it was scheduled. Anything else is unscheduled, and technically I can be disciplined for it.
That fucking sucks mate.
Unpopular opinion here: this is true for some jobs but the more responsibility you develop in your career the more unplanned absences will be noticed.
Yes, you “deserve” sick days as well as all the other supports employees are entitled to in a modern well managed organisation, but quite obviously if you do important stuff then on some days you just won’t be around to do those important things.
Like this guy Jason Call for example, I presume that if he’s elected is supposed to show up to congress and debate or vote on new legislation. How would you feel if he just didn’t do that because he was… you know… off sick? What if he was genuinely unwell a few times when important legislation was passed and then another occasion comes around and he feels like he’s coming down with something? He should just be able to take the day because his manager should have just hired more people right? No. Sometimes you’ve just got to grind it out.
There will be times in most professional jobs when taking a day off because you’re unwell is going to let the team down. In my experience, you tell the team what’s going on and see what can be done to reduce what’s required of you. For example if you’re meeting with an important client or whatever then maybe others can help with the prep and you show up late and leave early.
Congress is one of the worst possible examples. They could easily delegate their vote on days off if that were allowed.
If your absence would break the company, then they need to be compensating you accordingly and have a backup plan.
I’ve worked heavily in the upper eschelons of BOH for nearly two decades now. I set very very clear boundaries. There are emergency protocols should shit break while i’m on leave.
Scheduled leave is a different proposition entirely.
I didn’t say someone’s absence would “break” a company, I’m really pointing out that if you have a lot of responsibility in your work then there will be days when your unplanned absence will effect team.
Scheduled or unscheduled leave (annual vs personal in Australian parlance) is utterly irrelevant
There are emergency protocols should shit break while i’m on leave.
Sure, and you should be compensated appropriately for that responsibility.
And you should be able to take sick leave if you’re sick.
You seem to have completely missed my point.
Of course people are compensated for the roles they perform, and yes people are able to take sick leave.
My point is, most professionals will encounter situations where they don’t want to take a day off because there’s a big deadline or a meeting or something.
It’s not bad management it’s just the nature of having responsibilities and wanting to be good at what you do.
No ones missing the point. You’re ascribing a value we don’t hold.
If i’m too sick to work it doesn’t matter if there’s a big meeting or project. I’m too sick to work. End of.
I pretty much just don’t believe you.
Anyone with significant responsibility will consider the consequences of their not being present when they take leave. As I said in another comment, if this Jason Call guy got elected and just didn’t show up for an important vote in congress because he had the sniffles, would that be appropriate?
If there are protocols for others to follow that describe what you would do if you were present, then with the greatest respect I don’t think you have very much responsibility.
Oh wow, you’re in deep.
Good luck.
Mmm. That sounds like a you problem.
For someone with an .au account you seem remarkably ill informed as to workers rights in a functioning country, or the concept of boundaries.
Btw, last time i took annual leave it was a grand total of four hours before my phone started blowing up. I referred my employer to the protocols I’d written and left them.
He did not, in fact, get elected. He is a Green Party candidate and he typically comes in 3rd right behind the Republican in the primaries, or has his last few losses.
There’s also a real limit to how many staff a given schedule can support. You don’t hire people that don’t have any work that they’re needed to perform.
Put yourself in the shoes of that example person. You were hired but as long as everyone else is healthy and functional, you’re always superfluous. Your hours will be cut repeatedly to avoid wasting labor costs, but you’ll still be expected to be available. If you’re instead on call, you will be expected to be available for all days you agreed to be on call for - you can’t work a different job or get wrapped up in personal things that you can’t set down or pause.
There’s a difference between a full staff and a skeleton crew staff. But in both cases, a sudden unplanned absence like illness or injury will require someone to work extra hours or the business will have to do without that person. A fully staffed property, like a hotel for example, might have two desk agents that typically work together for the same shift to ensure customers never have to wait too long for service. The job can be done with just one person, at cost of customer experience, and that’s what you’ll see from places running a skeleton crew.
What you won’t see, however, is there being a third staff member who is there purely to cover for one of the other two. That’s already handled by the supervisor (if one exists) or manager.
In those cases they’re supposed to hire the full staff and schedule them all. Scheduling only the bare minimum of people every day is a recent phenomenon.
Please read what I wrote.
Please elaborate
I literally explained it to you in the post you originally replied to.
A fully staffed property doesn’t mean that they can cover unplanned absences without either someone else taking on extra hours or less work being done.
You don’t hire people that you don’t need, and I provided real world examples of why few people would ever want to be hired as a “just in case” staff member.
I didn’t think it was that complicated. What needs to be further explained?
Huh. Now, I for one enjoy coming in for extra hours because MONEY but I realize that few people enjoy their jobs as much as I do D:
Hell, few people enjoy MY job as much as I do!
I work overnight dispatching at a towing company.
(I discretely sabotage certain predatory practices while I’m there, teehee~! ;3c )By the way, this also applies for “unforeseen problems” which “made the project go behind schedule” and “now we’re going to work extra hard” (meaning overtime without pay).
It’s up to management to not only account and prepare for Known Unknowns (problems known to happen but not if, when and how severe - for example employee sickness), but even have margin for Unknown Unknowns (problems that nobody expected).
In fact, half way competent managers will do enough analysis and research upfront to transform many otherwise Know Unknowns into Known Knowns (we know this will happen) and Unknown Unknowns into Known Unknowns - sometimes things are only “totally unexpected” because the necessary upfront research and preparation hasn’t been done.
Managing this is literally the core job of low-level and mid-level managers, so if they try and dump on you the responsibility for it or try and extract from you out of contract work to make up for it, they are literally acting in the most selfish personal upside maximizing way possible and just covering their own incompetence.
It is not up to you to make sure an incompetent asshole gets a bonus for doing a shit job and overpromising.
This is literally they kind of situation where, unless you’re for example reciprocating equivalent leeway from said manager towards you in the past (say, the kind that’ll actually quietly let you go home early if you’re having a bad day), you absolutely have the moral high ground to leave it to them to sort it out with whomever THEY are accountable to (be it a client they made deadline promises to based on a plan that would only ever work in the perfect zero-problems situation or their own manager).
I know this doesn’t happen often in practice, but I absolutely cover my teams time off (for what ever reason). Our clients don’t pay us enough to have extra staff standing around when everyone is healthy, so I’m the coverage plan. 😕
