If you want European pro tips:
- While in internship, slap your employer with “Oh hi, by the way, THIS is my union” and if the response is anything other than “Okay, cool! I’ll check their collective bargaining agreement for our next meeting” maybe start looking for next post, just saying.
- If you are in internship or whatever, and your employer has not asked anything about union details or whatever until last week, yeah, you might as well start preparing for disappointment.
Pro Tip to youngesters just getting into corporate.
Don’t let the company think they actually care about you. They don’t. HR doesn’t care. Executives doesn’t. Nobody doesn’t. You’re the only person that cares about you.
Also, work is just a business transaction. They need your service. You need their money. Do make friends, but not at your expense.
Americans and their attitude to their holiday allowance will never cease to amaze me.
Literally the only consideration I need to make on behalf of my employer is whether my days off will leave less than 75% of my department out. And as that never happens then I never have to think about it.
If you have holiday available to you, take it.
“Hard work” is one of the cultural norms that the Puritans instilled in our society. Our ancestors fought hard to form labor unions and to guarantee that we wouldn’t have to work 80-hour weeks, and yet here we are.
Not to say that people in other countries don’t work hard. They do. Many work harder than their counterparts in the US. But their governments have (very reasonable) limits on the amount of time their employers can expect them to work. (As well as minimums for time off, sick leave, etc.)
It’s a weird holdover of American culture that spending too much time at work and putting the company’s needs before your own is somehow virtuous.
It’s capitalist propaganda pushed across our media and culture. The whole bootstraps myth is tied up in all of American culture. It’s always been bull shit propagated by the owner class.
If your company can’t function without you, it’s time for a pay rise.
Tip for managers: anticipate how your staff taking PTO will impact your team and try as hard as possible to minimize any disruption. And realize that there are times when their PTO is going to be inconvenient and you’re going to have to deal with that.
Also stop using the acronym, because it’s too easy to forget what those letters mean when just the acronym is being used. Call it “Paid Time Off”.
We call it vacation in the rest of the English speaking world.
Vacation ≠ pto and it’s strange to equate them. There’s various non paid ways to take a vacation, such as a(n intended) gap between jobs, unpaid additional leave, or on a 3 day weekend. There’s people working in my job with 6 and 7 weeks of pto that still take unpaid additional vacations.
Where do you live? Where I live, we call it Semester…
Literally, the only place I have ever heard PTO used is in the US.
How are they taking unpaid vacations when they could be using PTO?
They use all of their pto, as well as taking more. Also, management allows people to choose if they want to use pto when taking a day off. All unused pto pays out at the end of the year and raises are in October – wait to use it and it adds a dollar per pto hour
I know people who are off even up to a third of the year
Power Take Off?
If you do it strategic like.
If your employer doesn’t hire enough bodies to make sure the work gets done when people call in sick or take PTO, that’s on them. Absenteeism can range between 3-5% on any given day, and can be industry dependent. This is something that should be factored into the amount of work that needs to get done per day on average when deciding on appropriate headcount. Companies that want to run skeleton crews because, “muh profits,” can find out when they fuck around. I was always taught that when it comes to things critical for your survival, you should always have them in triplicate. This is why I have an E-bike, analog bike, and bus pass; if one stops working, I have backups. Employers should have this mindset with critical tasks and headcount.
The Scrooge McDuck avatar lighting a cigar with a dollar note makes me think this was either satire to begin with, or the original poster has lost any and all contact with reality.
Business Bros love to run a boiler room enterprise that prints decals for the local dollar store and pretend they’re going to be the next Steve Jobs.
Personally, I’m so sick of people saying “it’s parody/satire!” That’s on the same level as fucking with people, then laughing “it’s just a prank, bro!”
There’s so many garbage takes and smooth-brained people believing the dumbest shit now, despite having all collective human knowledge at our fingertips… If your super funny satire is indistinguishable from these, it adds absolutely nothing.
I have literally been given a nearly identical speech about taking PTO, more than once…
This is why I use /s .
The internet has weirdly forgotten about Poe’s Law. There are enough fucked up people in the world that you just can’t reliably determine if an outlandish opinion is satire or not.
Even when they are obviously satire, some idiots will take them to heart and repeat them everywhere as gospel.
Also the name “privilege log”
If I am the whole team, does the last bit still apply?
Typically you still have a manager that may not be on your team directly but they may manage you. I was an IT team of one at one point but the lead programmer to the company was the manager of my department " "
Sounds like a job I had once. Left that job after not even a year. Was not worth it for me especially since I was still early in career and was very obviously in over my head with little proper direction/leadership.
Well for me it was actually one of those jobs that helped me grow in my career. It was my first system administration job. And more important than that it was a Linux system administrator job so I learned a ton and grew a ton. It was one of the few jobs that I stayed at for as long as I did. The only reason I left was when they denied my raise to a decent pay rate. The next job I stepped into was the manager of a network operations center so it helped me grow all the way to that point.
I think for me, while I was definitely exposed to a lot of things I never touched in college, I don’t think I ever really got what I needed for me in my career. I really want to avoid any manager type role as much as possible and large part of that is I’m bad at being accountable for things. I don’t have good foresight and was never shown what to expect, for what to many, seems like normal things but I just take things as I get them. I work best when I’m told what to do and if I can do that as a SME who earns the dough, that’s enough for me. After my (so far) one gov job, absolutely do not want any part of being in management or manager/lead type role.
“timeless advice” motherfuckers when PTO stops existing 😯
I think both stances need more nuance. Yeah - if your company doesn’t hire someone that can fulfill your essential duties while you’re gone, that’s on them.
But when you do have someone who can cover your duties while you’re gone, it makes sense that you can’t all take off the same day. I work in municipal government for a small city, and my boss and I are each other’s backups. We’ve worked together for years, and we haven’t taken the same day off yet, but both take several weeks a year. Heck - tomorrow there’s an annual conference we both should attend, and we alternate each year who goes because someone has to hold down the fort.
If your company takes care of you and treats you with respect, most people will think of this sort of stuff and reasonably accommodate. Most businesses with this mindset of don’t take PTO are just running skeleton crews to boost profits at the expense of work life balance. They are typically the ones always guilting people about taking the very sparse amount of PTO offered in the US. I am union and my company treats us well, so I always think about my team without being asked. I didn’t when I worked for shitty big chains who took advantage of workers when I was younger.
I worked craft beer sales for a hot minute. Place was a disaster, so I was already looking for a new job anyway. Labor day rolls around, and I inform my bosses A MONTH OUT that I will be taking a week off at the end of August to go on vacation. They approve it, all is well, everything’s great, I get back to work. The week I leave, I remind them that I’ll be gone for a week, I won’t be available for work things, and that I’ll see them next week. They say cool, tell me to have a great time, and I clock out for the day.
9:01AM, the day I leave, I get a text. “Hey Dogiedog64, when are you coming back? We need to have a chat about some things.” I don’t bother responding, since I’m on vacation, and moreover, I’m driving on the highway. The day passes, I get where I’m going, but it’s past work hours, and I want to enjoy my vacation. THE NEXT DAY, they call me. 9:01AM. I miss it, they leave a message and another text to the effect of “Call us back. It’s important.” I don’t. I’m on vacation, they KNOW I’m on vacation, and it can wait.
6PM rolls around, and I get a text. “Dogiedog64, since you didn’t call us back today, we’re unfortunately going to have to let you go. Your performance wasn’t cutting it and we’ve gotten numerous customer complaints about you.” I know for a fact this was bullshit, as I had done the rounds before I left, and all my customers loved me and our beer, but hated our managers and distribution scheme.
Now, you may ask “what was the point of that story?” It’s simple: companies will find a reason to fire you for nothing, no matter how well you lay out boundaries or plans, so don’t bother treating them like they’re special. I lost my job, but I did nothing wrong; I set clear boundaries and expectations, with ample documentation, notice, and approval, and they STILL fired my ass.
So yeah. Take your PTO. It’s YOURS. Go on that vacation, leave your work life AT WORK, and have a good time. Your coworkers will be fine without you, and if the company collapses while you’re gone, they deserved to collapse anyway. Life is simply too short to spend it all slaving away for a company that hates you.
also it’s free to contact the local labor bureau or eeoe if you’re fired for taking a vacation, they’ll even help you with lawyers, mediators etc
If it collapses without you, then maybe it should be your company.
That sounds like cut and dry wrongful termination. You should have sued, if not for rightful compensation then to make sure that they think again before they pull the same shit with other employees.
This would be a case a law student would be able to win you in Germany, not that companies here don’t try it here anyway.
Is there an ending to that story? If I was in that situation, I would have ignored it all and then came back the day I said I’d come back and act like everything was normal, make up something about how my phone got broken or stolen or something.
At the very least I hope you tried to get unemployment or some such!
The ending was pretty underwhelming. I wasn’t employed long enough to get unemployment, and haven’t been able to get another job since. Now back at school pursuing a new degree.
Now back at school pursuing a new degree.
Careful with this one. Racking up even more debt generally does not make your life easier.
Good thing I’m not in debt then.
Always a good way to live!
Damn, what did your union say?
What’s a union? /s
What beer company?
A local one, in Baltimore. Won’t get more specific to avoid doxxing myself and others.
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the cowardice that allows shit like this to persist in your country
Its not cowardice to avoid sharing Personal Information on the internet. There’s a real possibility to be doxxed just by sharing which place you worked at, and were fired for what reason. Not everyone is comfortable doing that.
Oh no! Your job! 😒 it’s almost as if you don’t realize you already have nothing to lose.
Maybe, being doxxed is the bigger issue here. Perhaps, take a read in OPSEC and learn how digital fingerprinting and doxxing work.
🤣 yes, I’m sure this white dude in Baltimore who didn’t bother taking any action to fight back against the shitheads who fired him for taking a vacation from his craft beer job is involved in some very serious action requiring OPSEC.
I swear to god as soon as I’m proven wrong I’ll eat an entire tree on video and then delete my account.
As an immigrant, I thank the god and fates I didn’t end up in America. This level of guilt tripping and toxicity is astounding.
It would be if it weren’t satire.
Poe’s Law. Many, MANY people would unironically agree with Priv’s comment.
majority even if you are on linkedin
What is? That the US has the smallest amount of vacation days available in the developed world?
Look at the account making the statement and tell me it’s actually serious.
Well, I hope so. I heard many stories from other cultures about toxic work environment in their country, and prefer the work culture here in Ireland.
It varies greatly by company. My current company is pretty chill, but my previous was definitely not chill.
Yeah I have been given an almost identical speech about taking PTO at more than one place of work. So if this is satire, all it is doing is just saying something that really happens.
It certainly happens, and I highly doubt it’s unique to the US.
Our policy is to let the team know in advance when you’re taking it if it’s a long leave (a week or more), that’s it. If that’s not possible, whatever, we’ll figure it out.
yeah, you put in for it early enough for your management to have the time to properly prepare for your absence. However what this is saying is that you should shoulder this responsibility at the cost of your entitlements, rather than the company doing the work of preparing for you to use your entitlements.
Yup. As a manager, give me about twice as much notice as you plan to take off, and I’ll figure out the rest.
I get both sides of this argument. Some businesses have certain periods where it’s extremely busy followed by an ebb in work. Accountants for example may be balls-to-the-wall at year end, but that period doesn’t justify hiring somebody who might otherwise have their thumb up their ass and nothing to do most of the rest of the year. I’ve also had IT jobs that resolved around projects in this way., and there are always a certain number of SME’s that you kinda need at launch.
At the other side, I’ve known employers who basically ran the bare-minimum amount of staff for a team/project (or less and worked the rest to the bone) and getting them to sign off on holidays for any reasonable length of time was near impossible. Those are the types that would try to call you from the middle of open-heart-surgery if they could, and yeah anyone in this situations should be looking for a new job. The hard part being that getting the time to do proper job hunting was often also similarly difficult because of work, and bills still needed to be paid.
I take the other members of the team into consideration. It does make sense since I work with them fives days a week, don’t want to make shit harder for them, within reason.
Exactly! Not taking your PTO will create pressure for your coworkers to also pass over their PTO or work longer hours.
Don’t set a bad precedent.
I think what the guy above you meant is that he’d take PTO but try to make sure it’s not 1) At the same time as everyone else, or 2) at an anticipated super busy period.
Where I come from, legally, we have to plan our PTO out for the year in Jan/Feb. Good managers will make exceptions and let you take spontaneous PTO with two weeks notice usually.
This means that if you have a team of 8 and each wants to take 2 weeks in the summer, usually max 2-3 people would have overlapping PTO. Everyone gets PTO in the summer, but you don’t leave a single guy doing all the work. Usually anyone who has pre-existing plans would have higher priority over specific dates than anyone else.
The system works most of the time. You’re happy because nobody is going to guilt you about taking PTO, your coworkers are happy because nobody is left alone to deal with the entire team’s workload, and the bosses are happy because work continues at like 70% and if there’s an emergency, there’s someone to handle it.
Not taking it? I’m talking about picking when to use it, not if you are going to use it lol ofc you use the time off
During a previous assignment, I was told that during the summer period I was going to be swamped with work, and I was asked, because I don’t have kids, not to take a vacation in that period.
So I didn’t and told them that I would take my vacation after the summer holiday period, in October. I told them this in May.The summer period comes around, and it was the slowest period I had ever encountered. There was literally nothing for me to do. Meanwhile the project manager and a number of other people in my team, who had small kids, did take time off in the summer period. By the time it was October, the work had picked up again, and they complained that I was going to be on vacation in that period. The manager called me not a team player. I just told them that I held the fort when they told me to, and that I had communicated this vacation well ahead of time. They had had their relax time, now it was time for me.
I agree, I don’t want to make things harder for my team members, but within reason. And what they asked of me wasn’t reasonable.
Yea, no. At my last job every project was constantly late because they kept over promising and clearly didn’t have enough people for what they committed to. I couldn’t even get a department meeting once a month for an hour because everyone was always “too busy”.
These projects always need everyone to commit to it like it’s a personal passion project because their goals are unreasonable. If they can’t handle someone being away for a day then the manager clearly cannot plan and/or the enployees need better training(in my case half of them were simply stubborn and ineffective on top of the questionable management). Sure, don’t take a week off right before a reasonably set deadline if the work’s not done but otherwise do whatever.
I had someone call me yelling because I was going to finish the job in exactly the amount of time I said it would take me, but I started a day late due to technical errors which made another project go over by a day(and that day I still stayed late to make sure things were done!). If you can’t take a day off then you also can’t be sick, and if managers don’t account for THAT obvious possibility then they are fucking stupid and awful managers, zero exceptions.
I mean the “sure don’t take time off just before a deadline finishes” stuff is the sort of thing I was talking about.
That’s a given for basic respect. If someone has to be told that they’ve got a different problem entirely. At that point we’re talking about the right to your PTO anymore.
Yes but a good manager will arrange a replacement for you after you inform them that you’re putting in the PTO. It shouldn’t fall on your shoulders.
If they can’t find a replacement then they should hire more people and try to overstaff every single day so that there’s always someone to cover. That’s what my workplace does, and because of that there has never been an issue with me taking PTO whenever the hell I feel like it.
I don’t think that works with us for smaller, few days off leave since you need to move around heavy equipment. Or if you’ve been the one in charge of stuff.
I mean they cold move around heavy equipment and get people to rope someone in on what you were in charge of, it just gets too complicated. So that’s why time off is usually figured out by people.
