I know this couple who contracted COVID during the pandemic but refused to report it and take sick days. He - because his workplace was offering bonuses for employees who weren’t taking sick days (don’t remember if it was monthly or annually) and he didn’t want to miss on that. She - because she already took all her sick days as PTO, without actually being sick.
I can’t help but wonder if that’s really what sick days are supposed to be…
Perhaps Americans need to learn to call them wellness days and not place some arbitrarily low limit for amount of days on them. Ten or twelve to start a year seems reasonable. Americans are bizarre.
The Americans that are in power here. Sure. Why do you guys insist on pretending that we approve of it? Unless you’ve personally gone out and solved at least one injustice in your country then you really can’t talk. Shit is hard and a lot of us are trying.
Unless you’ve personally gone out and solved at least one injustice in your country then you really can’t talk.
Lol because that’s how injustices ever get solved: by one guy.
Man, I’m an American but this “you need to be a guy who personally solved government” take is so American it’s rolling coal in a F-150 with a tattered flag flying from it while blasting rounds from two ar-15s.
I mean… Isn’t that literally what they’re doing when they generalize all of us as being ok with this bullshit? The person I replied to. Yeah, it is. So why come at me if that really bothers you? Kinda hypocritical
Isn’t that literally what they’re doing when they generalize all of us as being ok with this bullshit?
No, not really. You not understanding the difference is also pretty American.
In some other countries, the people actually do address problems with the laws and make reforms. One of the main reasons we cannot is because our country is run by oligarchs and/or kleptocrats.
Having industry write government policy isn’t a universal, and shouldn’t be expected knowledge about a country that brands itself as a “democracy”. In fact, many of our own citizens don’t even know the reality of how this country runs.
So, people outside of the American system don’t know how difficult it is for “the people” (as a group) to actually wield power within it, especially if they have bought any of our propaganda about us being #1 at democracy or whatever.
They likely weren’t calling for some “rugged individual” / Superman character to fix the government. Such notions are laughable within some other countries. Instead, a lot of countries have successful protest, voting, and labor groups that help shape policy. The US just hasn’t meaningfully worked that way in a long time (though I’ve been pretty happy with recent developments in labor organization).
I appreciate the insult right at the top there. Lets me just save time and move on after two sentences so thanks for that at least.
I don’t know what’s insulting about that but I’m glad I saved you a brain wrinkle. 🫡
Edit: I’d like someone to explain to me the online phenomenon whereby people who roll around being gruff assholes are also permitted by the audience to be pearl clutchers who faint at the slightest perceived insult two posts later.
Yes, but also setting the norm where it should be is something. We should expect these things. If your business is screwed because one employee calls off with an hour notice, you don’t have enough redundancy. And this isn’t just menial positions either. If Elon gets horribly sick, they postpone or have someone stand in for him. That should apply all the way down the company.
You can save on labor in the short term. You’ll pay for it another way long term, either by losing overly stressed staff or by having someone too critical call in sick at a bad time.
You can save on labor in the short term. You’ll pay for it another way long term, either by losing overly stressed staff or by having someone too critical call in sick at a bad time.
Or anything else. Perhaps they’re involved in a car accident and cannot get into work even if they’re not injured, perhaps someone critical dies unexpectedly, or they get head-hunted by another company and leave without giving you warning since they obviously don’t need the reference.
So many bad things can happen when you only have a single point of failure. Companies will pay for multiple internet lines but refuse to hire additional staff. One of those things is not like the other.
That’s true except a lot of managers have zero power over how many people they’re allowed to hire. So, again, setting norms isn’t something that we can just do. As individuals, we’re hobbled by the wealthy/corporations/government (which are all the same thing at this point of we’re being real) at just about every turn. If they don’t like something they just pay lobbyists and it goes away. To the detriment of the average US citizen yet we still manage to get dunked on constantly as if we’re not getting dragged through the wringer. As if we’re just ok with everything.
You’re taking this too personally. Setting norms isn’t something done by a manager and is absolutely just public perception. Happens in middle school constantly. Kids come in with a new, unusual haircut. First kid in earshot brands it as cool or lame. The norm is set.
This isn’t much more than saying American PTO policies are shit. That’s not an attack on you. It’s an attack on people who are okay with the status quo.
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Actually we’re from one of these few countries that don’t happen to be the US.
Florida?
What the he’ll are people doing that they get sick so often? I’ve used 3 in the last 8 years and one of those was a funeral. Granted I can work from home when I have a cold or whatever but I have coworkers who seem like they’re out every other week.
congratulations, your immune system doesn’t suck.
between migraines and colds, I’m down to just 1 sick day left. that’s despite wearing a mask, washing my hands, etc. the last cold just laid me out for a week. migraines (which at less than 3 a year are too rare for the Dr to give me meds) come with visual sparkles that make working on a computer pretty impossible. most cold meds also make me incredibly sleepy, so I can try to work through it - or I can sleep and get better faster. this was a bad year. last year I barely needed sick days, hopefully next year will be more like last year. Masks help. work from home, avoiding the public, helps. but my immune system is just kinda crap, so I just work through what I can, and call in sick when I can’t.
He - because his workplace was offering bonuses for employees who weren’t taking sick days
Good god is that illegal in Europe. Employees are entitled to sick pay if they’re sick, if no reason other than to ensure they don’t come into the office and get everyone else ill as well. Also employees are actually required to take holiday pay, last year I got called into a meeting and got told I had to take more holidays because I wasn’t taking enough.
She - because she already took all her sick days as PTO, without actually being sick.
Again illegal in Europe, PTO and sick pay are independent of each other. There’s no limit on the number of sick days you can have, although if you go beyond a certain number you do require a doctor’s note, but as long as you have that you’re golden. In theory this is abusable, but because everyone gets PTO anyway, and actually get a decent number of days, there isn’t really the incentive to do that.
It’s bizarre the way the United States operates.
Employees are entitled to sick pay if they’re sick, if no reason other than to ensure they don’t come into the office and get everyone else ill as well.
Two jobs ago (in the States) my employer was extremely stingy with any paid time away from work.
I got six days. Total. (Not counting holidays.)
Six days for any and all purposes that one might need to not be in the office.
They even had the gall to say they offered sick days, “because you can use your PTO to stay home when you’re sick”.
Fuck that.
I came to work no matter how sick I was. I knew exactly how much I made in a day, and as soon as my boss or anyone else would complain about how I shouldn’t be there, I’d ask them if they were willing to pay me my daily wage to go home. Because I only got six days, so fuck me if I was going to use any of them for anything other than my own enjoyment. If I was sick, I was miserable and less productive anyway, might as well get paid for that, and not burn any of my precious PTO.
On one occasion, I was so sick my boss actually agreed to send me home and pay the rest of my day without taking PTO…but of course the stingy bastard couldn’t just give people more sick days.
Also employees are actually required to take holiday pay, last year I got called into a meeting and got told I had to take more holidays because I wasn’t taking enough.
Huh. Similar thing in post-Soviet with vacations. If you are not taking vacations for too long, employer will get nervous, if you are not taking vacations for two years, employer required to send you to vacation no matter what.
Also what is holiday pay? Quick search says that it is extra pay for working during holidays. Well, here holidays are non-working days, so working during them counts as overtime.
Overtime is 1.5x the hourly wage in the U.S. This is federal law.
Holiday pay is usually 2-2.5x the hourly wage if the company requires people to work on set holidays. If it’s a day off, then it’s paid as PTO. This is not required by federal law but some states have requirements.
Shitty companies that view employees as costs, don’t pay Holiday pay. Around 20% of the workforce.
Good companies that view employees as assets have policies to keep employees. Like my companies most recent e-mail about the holiday schedule.
We will be closed from December 25th to January 1st. This is considered holiday pay and will not be deducted from your PTO.
Fo some reason have zero issues with recruiting good staff and keeping them.
Huh. I always assumed holiday pay was also 1.5x. I haven’t had many chances to earn it. I’m pretty sure it was at my last job. I haven’t found out about my current job yet.
In the US for every employer I’ve seen, holiday pay is usually 8 hours of straight time (assuming you have an 8 hour shift) plus 1.5x for the hours you worked. So if you worked your normal 8 hour shift you get 2.5x pay. But it’s not. If you worked less then 8 you get 8 hours straight plus 1.5x the hours you worked. It’s also common that if you worked 40 hours before the holiday that straight time becomes overtime. Usually only applies to Thanksgiving/black friday. And occasionally Christmas when it falls towards the end of the week.
Needless to say this varies among employers. If you have a union you likely get double or even triple time for hours worked on a holiday, but likely still the same straight time pay for the day itself. Legally the company doesn’t have to pay anything extra for holidays for time not worked.
Here regular overtime is at least 1.5x for under 2 hours, 2x for over.
Holiday time paid at least 2x or 1x if employee chooses to add day to PTO(which in practice I never heard anyone did).
Both are in federal law too.
Also what is holiday pay?
It’s literally you just being paid even though you’re not working. Employers are required to do it in Europe. The pay is the same rate as if you were working but it’s got a different name for tax purposes so companies can differentiate between employees being compensated for working and employees just being paid to be off.
Also you have what are called “unsociable working hours compensation” Which means nights, and weekends. And “unsociable working dates compensation” which means national holidays.
Unsociable working hours is usually 1.5x base rate, and unsocial working dates is 2x base rate. So a night shift over the Christmas period would be both so it would be 2.5x base rate. So in other words if you work for 1 hour, you get paid as if you’d worked 2 hours 30 minutes.
The United States operates a different system and companies can get out of it sometimes which isn’t really possible in Europe.
And how much of their workplace ended up sick because of that?
My coworker refuses to “waste” any days he has unless they’re for a vacation… This selfish p.o.s has gotten me sick 3 times in the last year alone, one of the times I missed Christmas with my family because of him… So I have to waste my time so that he can have more paid vacations…
You should recontextualize that for them: “when you come in sick, you are reaching in to my wallet and taking the money I should be owed, and may need, for stuff like ‘oops my entire gallbladder needs to be taken out or else I’ll die’. All because you want to be teacher’s pet: you should be handing money out like its candy (through cashapp or venmo or whatever) when you come in sick, because that’s only fair, and paying the company money from all the productivity lost by making everyone else sick. If you don’t have that money to hand out, maybe you shouldn’t be coming in sick.”
Or, y’know, if they’re so gung-ho about everyone having shared misery: maybe it’s time to advocate for a union.
That would work on someone who gave a shit. This guy cares only about #1. He laughs about the times he was thrown in prison in Guatemala for telling his superiors to fuck off when they asked him to do his job when he was in their military lol
Sounds like it’s time to form a union with everybody else to force him to stop endangering everybody else’s wallet then lol
Is he the selfish one or is it the companies fault for having a shit PTO policy?
This starts in school with awards for perfect attendance
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.
Dont know about other kids, but seems like I had strep throat and conjunctivitis at least twice a year. Thankfully I did NOT have perfect attendance.
Maybe its an award for children with especially strong immune systems? Cool.
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.
Whoa what, is that a US thing or something?
It’s fairly common in the US to have award ceremonies at the end of the school year, and perfect attendance is an award that’s usually given.
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.
The real fucked up part is to them it IS Kool-aid, and they know it tastes like piss to the rest of us. They don’t care.
I’m baffled that people are able to see their doctor quickly enough to get a note for proof that they were sick and need time off.
Where are these easily accessible doctors?
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.
It’s unreasonable to ask a doctor’s note for one day, and the cultural standard is not to, but it is legal in Germany to ask for one even for one day.
In pretty much all the lower paying jobs you have to, because they cultivate basically American standards of suspecting any worker is just lazy.
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.
In the United States.
I can get into urgent care in an hour or two and my GP will have all the info when I get in to see her.
Teledoc works for a lot of it right?
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).
My work recently changed their policy, we get 48 hours sick time a year. If you use it it’s counted as an occurrence against you. Three occurrences in a rolling year and you’re put on disciplinary action.
Here’s your new benefit …but you better not use it.
You can’t make shit like that up.
Man, it makes me sad when I hear shit like this. Guessing you’re from the US?
You guys hiring? That must be a fun one when prospective new hires get the benefits package information.
That’s probably not something they’d be willing to share with you until you’re hired, similar to salary I’m guessing.
What? Are you saying that people aren’t informed of their salary or benefits package until they’re actually hired?
A lot of jobs these days will actually list compensation packages on the job descriptions.
American here. Have unlimited PTO. It’s definitely not the norm but it does exist. I came from a company with only 2 weeks paid time off (total).
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.
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.
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.
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 think you mean “scare you into not actually using it”
Sorry, yes
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.
You represent an extremely small portion of this country.
Most people have to still go to work sick, spreading diseases and wearing their body down at the same time
Your stock values depend on it.
The sad part is 2 weeks PTO / year is considered very generous in usa
In post-Soviet countries 4 weeks PTO/year is bare minimum required by law
what does ‘post-soviet’ have to do with country laws?
Because post-soviet countries tend to have strong labour laws because while they were soviet country they already had them.
i wonder from what statistic do you draw this from
“Unlimited” is for the employers’ benefit, not the employees’.
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.
Well, media controlled and owned by business. What do you expect? 😅
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.
I’m in this comment…
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
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.
Yep. I’m not getting paid anymore but I won’t be fired. Ain’t America grand?
We finally found out what they think WSJ stands for: “Work Sick Jabroni”
I’m more towards “Wake-up Silly Jackass”People being put on PIPs or straight up fired because they used sick leave for a few days and proved it with a doctors note is wild.
“You better improve your sickness prevention plan… or else”
The boot has now been completely incorporated in the throat.
has boingboing gone down the pipe?
America is something else entirely.
Yeah, even the mindset that you being sick is your personal problem. If you get sick, you should be able to be away as long as you need, without being worried that you become homeless.
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.
EDIT: added “insatiable”
