Where I live taking all your days is mandatory, by law. The company gets punished if you don’t, so the HR guys actually remind you to do it. There is a small flexibility (you can take part of your days in next year Q1) but you cannot swap your days for money, nor ‘give them’ to another employee.
Did I mention we have 25 workdays of paid vacation, by the way? ;)
Where I work we’re only allowed to roll five vacation days forward. Any days not taken above that are paid out at the end of fiscal from the budget of the director, so there is a rather firm rule against management declining vacation requests unless absolutely necessary. Come February, emails are generated every couple of weeks reminding managers to follow up up with employees who have more than a week remaining, so it’s used by March 31.
Where I live you are legally allowed to take as many days as you want forward. But you are allowed to take all of them at once if you want to, so most companies force you (they are allowed to do that) to take your vacation within the year, since otherwise people bunch it up and then leave for half a year of paid leave.
There was a guy in the newspaper a while ago who never took vacation for decades and ended up taking all days before retirement to retire a few years earlier.
My dream
Late last year my company switched to “unlimited PTO.” Ironically this happened just before I had saved up 120 hours (specifically vacation hours separate from sick days or anything else) to go visit my fiance abroad without question. A couple weeks ago HR sent out a message to the managers that “unlimited” (which includes sick days, bereavement, etc) basically means 25 days at max, but we should “encourage” around 15 days.
When I brought up that “Unlimited PTO” was gonna be real bad news for us, my coworkers didn’t really believe it, but now some of them are getting pushback or outright denied on trips they had planned last year. If you are applying for a company that says “unlimited PTO” ask exactly what that means. And if they say “manager’s discretion” ask what the HR recommendation or policy is to the manager. It’s meant to be a profit-increasing tool to get new recruits to sign on, as well as ensuring that they can cut you off from taking days off when they feel like.
My ex was so happy when they went to unlimited PTO, but she’s overworked as it is and nobody does her job when she’s not there, on top of her boss just dumping her work down on her. So she has to do extra work on the day before and after, so she just quit taking days off until HR told her she needed to take 4 days off in the next 2 weeks and that just meant 8 days of busting her ass, and she was livid.
“has to do extra work” … that is a question of priorities, isn’t it.
She should just do less. Sounds like she’s a good worker, they won’t fire her. Standards are lower than we tend to think
She has ADHD like me. She won’t stop and she gets taken advantage of.
It sounds more like work addiction, though.
You don’t know ADHD, then.
Tell them to quit busting their ass for a company that despises them. If the company just keeps throwing work ontop of overworked employees, task prioritization kicks in and I start asking for priority lists to determine what has to be done and what can slip. When I get told that it’s all important and nothing slips, I just respond with ‘hire someone or tell me what has to complete or can be missed, or I’ll use my best judgement and choose what I work on’. You have me for 40hrs, maybe 45 on a bad week. If you give me 60 hours worth of work in a 40 hour week, I’m going to let 1/3 of what you give me burn. It’s your choice what gets burned lol.
I loved the day that a shit manager said he’d fire me for that, and he really did not appreciate the combo response of “don’t threaten me with a good time” and “lol you don’t have the manpower for your work as is and are getting hell from upper management, you can’t afford to lose me”. Was very satisfying to quit with no notice a month later while he was talking shit about replacing me. Heard it took a few months to find that replacement too.
This. A company paying for 100% effort shouldn’t expect 150%.
And most companies don’t even pay 100%.
any company that advertises unlimited PTO just don’t bother applying. you’ll never get that PTO and there’s nothing to pay out when you quit. add to the fact that they’re clearly saying “we prefer to hire idiots”
This. Imagine a company advertising “Unlimited wages (manager’s discretion)”. Would you seriously think that’s a good deal?
“Unlimited PTO (manager’s discretion)” is exactly the same thing.
PTO = Prepare The Others
That sounds like a whole lotta not my fucking problem.
I went on 4 weeks of medical leave for surgery. I’m on week 3 rn. 3 days after my leave started, I learned it was an absolute shit show without me and work was piling up because there weren’t enough people to do the big tasks and the many tiny little things that I do. I get told on the daily by my two work besties that they can’t wait for me to come back because of how awful it has been without me. Apparently even the big boss was saying that my presence is missed and that I do so much more than he had realized. I just try to keep myself busy so boredom doesn’t kick in.
I’m also on sick leave.
The last friday I worked they told me I had to learn someone else’s job in the next week since she was going on vacation.
That is simply an impossible task.
And somehow they didn’t think of that before, since vacations are planned months before?This is me at home knowing they have to deal with their own fuck ups:
This is the problem with the idea that we should always be giving 110%. Companies should have enough people to deal with staffing issues. Wtf are they going to do when you die? Just fold the company and fire everyone?
- General, we need 10000 soldiers to take that place.
- Don’t worry. We’ll send 1000 and tell them “if you don’t do it we have another 100000 soldiers to do your job”
Right? I don’t give 110%. I just do my job. I heard that we’re looking to hire another person because management finally realized we need it
This is the lesson most fail to learn in their career: management will get by in the least amount of manpower required, and scrambling to keep all plates spinning just shows management you have the power to do so, even if you’re only doing it half assed because some wide tie says it needs done.
I learned a decade ago that going above and beyond makes ‘above and beyond’ your normal. I will regularly sandbag at work when necessary to allow tasks to build up (along with keeping my sanity as intact as reasonable) while still getting core tasks completed. Because running myself at my peak all day every day will make me start prepping my Hemingway retirement plan, and who wants that.
Sounds like someone is due a raise 😅
I asked for one and was laughed at and essentially told that management doesn’t intend for me to get any kind of meaningful raises or advancement. I’m browsing for new jobs.
Good for you on leaving, and good luck with the search!
Ask again when you get back, now that they know just how necessary you are. And if they still choose to say fuck you, don’t work as hard as you keep looking. After all, you’re still recovering 😉
Exactly lol. I might also have gone into premature menopause because of my surgery, so I’m feeling absolutely awful and am in no mood for bullshit
From what I’ve heard about menopause is the reduced patience and tolerance for bullshit has uses
