Can you believe it? In the richest country in the world, people are forced to use their hard-earned vacation days just to see a doctor. It’s like a bad joke, but it’s the reality for so many hardworking Americans. There’s something seriously messed up with the way we’ve set up our system. It’s supposed to be the land of opportunity, but it feels more like the land of “fend for yourself.” Sure, if you’re a billionaire, life is pretty sweet. But for the rest of us? We’re left wondering if this is really what the American Dream is supposed to look like. It’s time we take a long, hard look at what we value as a society and start putting people first. Because at the end of the day, no one should have to choose between their health and a much-needed break from the daily grind.
All my vacation time I took this last year went to sickness, death, post-death assistance, and I took the last two weeks off to try and fix things around home that have been broken the entire year, and I felt guilty about all of it. USA! USA!
US Labor Laws suck shit compared to the 1st World EU countries. Whenever my German colleagues complained about stress, I always said, " work in the USA and you will return screaming."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft-Hartley_Act
Bullshit law from 1947 that outlaws solidarity between unions. It’s legalized criminality. It’s why I think it’s important UAW are lining all their contacts up for May 1st, 2028 and encouraging other unions to do the same.
I bring this up every time someone says they’re in favor of deregulation. Most of the time they actually aren’t.
I can’t be alone, I take my sick days at work if in anyway possible. I don’t have any time off to waste on feeling ill.
Keep in mind I only get paid sick days when the government mandates it.
This is one of the basic problems - mixing sick leave an vacation.
This thing where you have a certain number of sick days to spend, it often ends up as another kind of vacation. And then when you are out of sick leave, your vacation leave is just another kind of sick leave.
Here in Denmark, there’s virtually unlimited sick leave. If you’re sick, you take a leave with full pay. No “max 14 days of paid sick leave”. If you need to go to the doctor and you can’t do it outside working hours, it’s sick leave.
Then your vacation leave is for vacation. And sometimes errands, but with 25-30 days per year, there should be time for both.
Sounds very human. I am glad that you can be treated like that but feel sad I am not.
I even have a ‘good’ job but have very low financial security. I feel I have. Avery real possibility to be homeless in old age as my skills age out of the workforce and housing continues to become more expensive.
European here.
Lately at my work, we are actually being asked to submit a vacation plan for the next year at the end of the previous year. I basically had to sit down with my significant other and plan out exactly when we would take time off. My work demands this (and to a lesser degree, hers too) because people apparently have issues with using up their vacation days in the year they are valid for, and that is a real problem for the company, even a legal one. Theoretically, if there is a lot of work, and vacation time is not possible, the company could agree to not let the vacation days expire, but that means they have to put money on the side in case they have to pay out the vacation days, which is a lot of money uselessly bound that cannot be spent.
So yeah, 30 days every year, and when we’re sick, we’re sick. Some people take a vacation day to see a doctor, but most people just try to do that in the early morning or in the evening and maybe take some overtime hours for that.
I am not telling you this to gloat. I am telling you this to let you know your bosses are taking you for a ride. Demand more, demand better. If that doesn’t work, there’s always
I’m in Denmark, if I need to go to the doctor, dentist etc during working hours, it is usually counted as sick leave. This means full pay and no deduction in vacation time, and here we don’t run out of sick leave.
Although we do have a dury to try doing it outside office hours.
As a European, you should remember that it took 15 years to go from the guillotine to crowning Napoleon emperor with similar powers to the late king.
I agree- demand more, demand better. But don’t expect to solve your problems with a guillotine. It takes a hell of a lot more than that.
True, but sometimes it’s good to remind the bourgeoise that they should be scared if the mistreatment of the working class grows unacceptable to the latter, with no way to change things from within the system.
I get 11 PTO days this year. That includes sick days and vacation days. I love my job and company, but the time off sucks. I can go over that if I need to take care of myself, but it still sucks
Ouch. I give my nanny more time off than that. You may love your job and company but just remember that they do not care about you or your coworkers.
I mean, they pay for our health insurance, give hefty bonuses each quarter, and seem to genuinely care. The company is only 13 people, though, so we can’t really handle being down people all the time. Like I get their reasoning, and I can take more time off than that, but it’ll just be unpaid and people may get a lil pissed.
I hate to point this out but if they can afford hefty bonuses for you, the owner is pocketing the full income of the additional 14th employee that should be there for coverage.
I mean that’s obvious. That’s just how company owners are. This company respects me more than any other place I’ve worked. I got a 12% raise last year and honestly don’t think I deserved it. My really good health/dental/eye insurance is paid for by the company, as well as some life insurance and accident insurance. I’m treated exceptionally well, can work from home if I need to, I’m inspired to grow and learn, and I feel genuinely appreciated. I focus on the good things instead of the obvious capitalistic greed because it’d wreck me emotionally if I didn’t, ya know? I honestly love my company and I hope it does become toxic as it grows.
You missed my point. The company really can handle people being down a person all the time, there is enough budget for that, they are choosing not to. I don’t mean to say you should hate your job, in fact im glad there are lucky few that do. That being said, you continuously list the most basic requirements for living as if they’re doing something truly special for you (Insurance), or what is essentially a 5% raise + adjusting for the 7% inflation that happened throughout the year. I’m glad you’re in a position to only look at the positive things, but the positives are WfH (again, a basic right), learn and grow, and feel appreciated. And remember, you only need to convince 5 others to unionize for actual PtO.
Ohhh I see. I mean, I never expect basic shit out of employers because work in the US fucking sucks. As for the short staffed budget thing, I don’t really know how to respond. You’re totally right, and I can only hope for that aspect to change.
You mean that?
Meanwhile, here in Denmark any manager I’ve ever had insists that I take sick day when I’m sick. Not for my sake, for the company.
And i have virtually unlimited sick days, I don’t loose any money or vacation days by taking sick leave.
Also, if the place is understaffed because just one person is on sick leave, that’s a management decision. Why would anyone who cares about you, be pissed at you for acting sick while being sick…
I mean they don’t get actually pissed, it just inconveniences others but they understand that people get sick. I try to just work from home if I can if I’m sick. We plan on hiring more people when we move to our bigger office in the spring, so hopefully we won’t be short staffed again.
Dang that sucks, I guess I’m one of the lucky Americans that has decent (for American standards) time off options. This year I’ll get about 17 days paid time off and about 17 days unpaid time off
I work in IT, at a small MSP that’s growing insanely fast, so I get why they have the time off stuff they do. I’m not prohibited from taking off more than 11 days, but excessive time off unpaid is frowned upon because even being down one tech can fuck over everyone else. Hopefully that changes when we start hiring new people when we move offices in the spring.
You’re literally foregoing pay for time off so that the MSP owner can have a bigger paycheck.
You should be thinking about this each and every time you look at what you make for what you do. All they did was get an agreement signed (probably) and you’re doing a giant portion of the work. Their cut should be proportionally miniscule for the labor given… but instead I can promise that for every buck you make them with billable hours you are probably making 25 cents or less… and then they have the flat fee contract on top of it that they are pocketing as well.
I mean that’s 100% how for profit companies are unfortunately. I make enough to be comfortable and I’m respected and treated fairly compared to every other place I’ve worked. I’m not unhappy here, yet. And I hope I won’t ever become unhappy here, but company growth can change people. I’m out at the first bit of toxicity. Well toxicity that isn’t inherent to for profit shit. If that makes sense. Right now, they’re good people compared to every employer I’ve had and everyone I talk to about this place tells me to stay because this place is genuinely good. I just hope that the promotion they’re hinting at giving me next year isn’t just something they’re waving over my head.
I have plenty of vacation time. I could take over a month off of work right now if I wanted to, and still have enough left to cover any sick days.
The problem is that I work a night shift, which comes with a pay differential at my job. But that differential doesn’t get paid out when I use vacation time. So if I take any time off work, my paycheck that week is significantly lower. Which is the reason I have over a month’s worth of vacation hours, because using them means getting paid less so I never end up taking any time off. It’s a fucking trap that I can’t get out of and it’s been driving me insane. I Just need some time off, but I also need to pay the rent.
There’s always crime! Working the night shift brings all sorts of possibilities!
So you have vacation time, but not paid time off?
I believe they’re saying that they have paid time off, but it’s paid at the rate for day shift workers. Since they always work night shift (which has a pay bump) that means the paid time off pays less than they normally get.
I also interpreted it as you said, and also how the other commenter did.
Where I live, you get vacation pay based on your work pay. To me, if my vacation pay weren’t based on my work pay, it wouldn’t really be vacation pay to me.
I’m just burned out doing stupid shit at work. I usually have like 1 real hour of work per day, max. The rest is all horseshit. I don’t need to be there 2 days a week, I don’t need to be at my fucking computer at all, for the most part. It’s all bullshit meetings, bullshit spreadsheets, bullshit emails.
That’s what I’ve come to realize too, I’m burned out by the bullshit not the actual work, if anything I want something more challenging as long as it means less bullshit.
Would you say that what you’re currently doing (meetings, emails, …) could be done by AI anytime soon?
And would it make sense to you?
No. It’s so niche. No one would ever train an AI to do my job. There is no data available for such training.
I know all of my leave is relegated to medical care. Recently I got to stay home while hubs and some friends went to new Orleans because I didn’t have enough leave to go too. I’m pretty frickin burned out by now
No judgement intended but your comment had me thinking “damn, how often must Americans get sick that this is such a problem?” Then I checked myself and realised I have been taking healthcare for granted, and it’s not health that we’re talking about really but time for being a human - collapsing when you just can’t and helping dependents or family when they do the same. This inhuman profit-driven system in your country is attempting to erode what it is to be a human. We’ll have to fight, unfortunately, but they will never win.
Tough. I hope you can find some time for you.
Minor improvement I heard of was implemented. A company let employees use sick time for doctors visits, because it is preemptive to employees getting sick and actually resulted in less employees on lengthy sick leave. For example finding cancer before it turns into a major issue, because employees don’t have to weigh PTO time off for childcare or selfcare.
There are steps companies can do to improve their employees lives. One miniscule pool of PTO as a catch all doesn’t cut it anymore. There is too much demand on our time outside of work.
Wait, using Sick Time for doctor visits isn’t the norm? Damn, I guess I’ve been spoiled by unions my whole career.
My doctors specifically ask if I need a work note to take as sick time.
My job takes my word for it, but I always take the note just in case,
… you guys have vocation times?
I encourage my subordinates to take advantage of their salary job and work a few hours in the AM, deal with their personal medical BS, and check their email at the end of the day to see if anything urgent needs to be addressed. I’d rather they work a little bit then take the whole day off. Save that time for a real sick day.
While I do agree the flexibility is good, it’s actually one of the reasons why people feel burned out, they always feel connected to something that caused them daily stress.
I’m pretty strict on “take your lunch, take your breaks, log off and stop checking email when you’re off-shift” I’ve burnt out once before and don’t need my team members going through that.
Other people at my company are always connected, responding to emails at 10pm. I’ve made people aware that my team doesn’t work that way and to call me if there’s an off-hours emergency before calling team members.
Oh boy, how dystopian.
Agreed, but you can’t not play the game and dead progressives don’t vote.
This is a dumb take imo. I work a salary job and I usually end up taking many extra “days off” per year by just working a couple hours, if that, and ducking out for a doctors visits or other errands. I also just call it a day a few hours early on occasion, when I’m feeling done. It all adds up.
If I’m minority sick, I’ll absolutely just sit here and be unproductive on my computer as I peruse my phone, chat with friends, and wiggle the mouse between emails. Take advantage of the system as much as you can, because you know they are too.
I don’t know what to tell people who clock in and out, or who are closely monitored for work hours tbh. I wouldn’t work one of those jobs, and if I ever found myself in one, I would be searching for a new job tirelessly which I felt respected my efforts and my contributions.
if I ever found myself in one, I would be searching for a new job tirelessly which I felt respected my efforts and my contributions.
Glad you have that privilege
Privilege? It often takes me a year or longer, hundreds of applications, and at least three to five in-person interviews to finally land something. What’s privileged about working that hard for something so basic as a job?
3-5, and you’re picking benefits of said job. Most are locked down so they cannot choose to quit.
Yeah, our system sucks and political violence is taking hold. So, you know … good, I guess.
I have to use all my vacation and sick pay to cover my lost hours during the slow season. I have y been able to take a proper vacation since 2018.
