My doctor told me the best way to heal my back was to take a few weeks off work. She didn’t understand why I was laughing my ass off, till I reminded her that most people don’t get paid time off. Doctors kinda live on the moon in terms of what the rest of us can get
You seriously haven’t heard us complaining? Most people get something but a few weeks is unheard of. I think most people I know who even get pto have a little over a week/year between personal and sick days
Yeah, I heard that. Never hard that most don’t get any time off. You’ll notice I asked rather than calling bullshit, since I didn’t think it was impossible but thankfully it was just hyperbole based on what you say.
You really don’t get any. You have to be well established in your career to be allowed to use it. You can’t really say “I’m taking a day off next week” and expect your job to not look for a reason to punish/fire you.
Many of us are well aware but at this point so numb to the awful and insanity we just shrug and make a shitty joke
It’s not like we can do anything about it
And before you bring up unions, those only work when your coworkers haven’t been brainwashed that unions are evil and your company isn’t master level at squashing unions without ever getting caught…a union of one is just unemployed… And unemployment just makes all of it so much worse
Well, keep in mind that even if a job gives us PTO, any sick days we use come directly out of our PTO. So if you only get 10 days of PTO a year and you come down with the flu then bam, that is most of your PTO gone. It gets worse, even if we have the days and want to take a vacation, they don’t have to let us use it and often it is very difficult to use our PTO.
I wonder if the people downvoting you are misunderstanding your comment as saying “nobody should be allowed to call in sick for any reason, ever”.
The concept of sick days is ridiculous. Being sick isn’t predictable, so employers obviously shouldn’t be allowed to artificially limit the days you’re allowed to be. It’s a broken system that allows for such things in the first place. If you’re sick, you’re sick, and your employer has to accept that. If they don’t want to take that risk they should employ a robot.
It took forever to get a corporate job but both corporate roles I’ve had provide decent PTO. Current job has 3 weeks PTO+ accrued sick time. The pay isnt good but at least I get time off.
Other people I know in more corporate roles have similar pto but without the accrued sick time.
The only time I didn’t get PTO was when I was working minimum wage jobs.
From a European perspective, 3 weeks isn’t good. 24 days is the legal minimum where I live. 30 is standard.
I got lucky and found a job with 42, and sick days aren’t counted against those.
It’s honestly hard to take them sometimes. Not due to pushback from the employer, but because you have to find 42 days without fixed appointments.
But if you don’t take your PTO, you are forced to by your team leader, otherwise the company can get in trouble.
Some places combine sick time and vacation into “PTO”, others the accrual is so pitiful you’re lucky if you get a week’s worth of time off in a year.
My fiancé’s place of work is both of these things. She got really sick in August and burned through her PTO in a week, then had to go to work despite still being sick
I’m not even American, I’m Canadian. Things are a shit show here too. I didn’t get PTO, vacation pay or sick days until I joined a union. So this was before then.
I remember my second job was working part time at a hospital for a while, which are run by the government, and I still had no PTO or any sort of protection or benefits.
Thankfully for BC, John Horgan’s NDP mandated that every British Columbian gets five paid days off, no matter if they are a gig worker or a kid doing their 1st job at the mall.
RIP Horgan ⚘ You did so much for the working class. The NDP removed MSP premiums, slashed insurance costs (I get annual rebates now), mandated sick days, took the tolls off of bridges, made contraceptives free, and made period products free in every school.
(He passed away last week)
It exists but it is usually pretty slim. Usually works out to be 2 weeks a year or something, which if you have a family and go to regular doctors appointments as advised, by the time your done… No more time for an actual vacation.
The average person is supposed to go to the dentist twice a year, the doctor once, a dermatologist once, the gynecologist once. If Anything is wrong, like a cavity… you need another trip. So we are up to at least 6 half days off there.
So let’s say another 3 for the kids. 2 dentists, and 1 physical whether it be for general health or for sports. (Vaccinations? All that jazz). Now any parent would know we are undershooting these numbers by a lot, as we haven’t talked at all about a kid getting sick yet.
Parents/Grandparents need a ride to the doctor once or twice, assuming you divy it out over multiple kids. Maybe one breaks a hip and needs physical therapy your fucked.
Note none of this has included a single day that is ever considered to be a vacation, just half days and rushing around and trying to get back to work.
If somehow you get through all of this, what many people do is take their last couple hours of free time to fly to where their in laws are to celebrate Christmas or some shit. Which is why there is so much animosity surrounding the holidays. It is the last time that someone may have to spend to relax, and they end up spending it with others who all don’t want to be making large extravagant meals, putting up and taking down decorations nor spending money they didn’t have in the first place, to waste time figuring out some gift they feel obligated to give to someone that yes they care about, but really is obstructing their last few moments where they could actually take a vacation and relax.
I was the IT guy for a company in Georgia (USA). Despite the fact I was the only IT guy and handled our SQL databases/Exchange/AD/firewalls/etc (all the way down to punching down new phonelines for headsets going back to the dialer), I recieved 0 days PTO (sick time or other). I was paid $15.50/hr and dealt with insane shit that made me question my morals, but when it’s do thing x or not feed your son, you’ll do some stuff.
Thankfully I don’t work there anymore, but yeah, if time off isn’t mandatory, a lot of companies don’t offer it.
Sick time allowance is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard as an European, if you are sick you are sick until you are not sick, it’s not the company that decides when you are cured.
Unless I’m actually off on a medical leave, then maybe not. IDK.
All I’m trying to say is that my employer is actually not bad. Almost every other job I’ve had, has been some variation of bad.
Also, on medical leave, you qualify for EI where I am, so it’s kind of paid. Honestly not worth the hassle for a couple of weeks, but anything taking months or more, it’s better than a kick in the privates.
I knew that there wasn’t any nationally mandated PTO, but I assumed that most of you had some in your contracts individually or union…FFS America, what are you doing!!!
In NZ we get 4 weeks/year and 10 days sick leave. Most companies have allowance for a couple of mental health days also, some even pay those days.
There is also bereavement leave, of up to 3 days. Parental leave of 26 weeks, your employer has to keep your job open for you to return to after the 26 weeks.
In Europe I don’t think sick days even have a limit, at some point you need to actually prove you are sick and are not just saying it, but as long as you have a doctor sign off on it you can be sick as much as you like.
Often used when people have long-term illnesses or injuries that take a long time to recover from
Those sick days are totally separate from holiday pay. So I can be off for 2 weeks with an infection (with a doctor’s note) and then take a week holiday, and they can’t say boo.
The problem is the restrictions on when you can be considered sick during your vacation.
a) you need to inform the company on the first day of sickness
b) if you are still sick after 5 days after informing your company, then you are entitled to get your remaining vacation back.
As the 5 days first start counting from when you inform your company ~ well you see where I am going? Unless you wanna be known as the one who tells their boss every time they get the sneeze… it is only gonna be relevant if you get a serious illness during your PTO…
Yeah, I actually am not sure what folks are talking about. Even in the most soul crushing places I’ve worked, the bosses still (reluctantly) give PTO. I’ve worked all over the USA from retail to military to Mom n pop shop etc, PTO has never been “do I get PTO?” It’s “how much PTO do I get?”
Most companies have PTO of some kind, but there’s not a lot of real enforcement and whatever rules there are vary state-to-state, a situation I’m sure is about to get much, much worse with an administration coming promising to gut or destroy federal agencies.
Most established companies usually only offer a week or two of PTO a year, and this includes sick-time and sometimes holidays, so if you want to take Christmas and new years off, some companies force you to spend your PTO days on it. Many times if you don’t use your PTO it just expires at end of the year and doesn’t accumulate, they wouldn’t want anyone saving up and taking a few weeks off while being paid. Most Americans manage to swing a handful of 3-day or 4-day weekends a year, and that’s the extent of our down-time or escape from work.
I used to do IT for a hospital and the doctors were the most coddled mfers I’ve ever dealt with in my life. I would regularly get calls in the middle of the night or the weekend to fix one of their dictation software. Like… Just type, ffs.
While working at the hospital I met many a young doctor. Extremely smart when it comes to their field, but they seem to lack the most basic common sense about something as easy as rebooting a computer.
They’re also messier than my 13 year old kid. Their private offices always look like messy dorm rooms
Hi, I’m a young doctor who was raised by competent parents. My office is tidy, and I know how to use basic computer programs. I just installed a new SSD yesterday on my home desktop and I can type 100 wpm. I realize that’s not very impressive, but just FYI we’re not “always” totally incompetent and immature.
As someone who currently works in Healthcare IT, the dictation thing is so true … It’s literally the end of the world to them if they can’t dictate, and have to use their fingers and - gasp, a keyboard! The horror!
It’s ridiculous. I’ve watched them use it and it’s definitely slower than I can type and I’m not even a great typist. Especially considering their EMR system has a tool to create macros for things they need to type out and they can just fill in the blanks. They don’t have time to type but they have time to throw a tantrum and not do anything while dictation isn’t working.
A grim reminder that here in Europe things can get worse and worse, but people will always just complain and take it. There will never be an uprising or a revolution or anything. Humans really are pathetic, huh?
My doctor told me the best way to heal my back was to take a few weeks off work. She didn’t understand why I was laughing my ass off, till I reminded her that most people don’t get paid time off. Doctors kinda live on the moon in terms of what the rest of us can get
WTF really? I know workers get fucked really bad in the US, but do most people not get time off at all?
You seriously haven’t heard us complaining? Most people get something but a few weeks is unheard of. I think most people I know who even get pto have a little over a week/year between personal and sick days
Yeah, I heard that. Never hard that most don’t get any time off. You’ll notice I asked rather than calling bullshit, since I didn’t think it was impossible but thankfully it was just hyperbole based on what you say.
You really don’t get any. You have to be well established in your career to be allowed to use it. You can’t really say “I’m taking a day off next week” and expect your job to not look for a reason to punish/fire you.
I hope you realize that’s utterly insane.
Many of us are well aware but at this point so numb to the awful and insanity we just shrug and make a shitty joke
It’s not like we can do anything about it
And before you bring up unions, those only work when your coworkers haven’t been brainwashed that unions are evil and your company isn’t master level at squashing unions without ever getting caught…a union of one is just unemployed… And unemployment just makes all of it so much worse
Well, keep in mind that even if a job gives us PTO, any sick days we use come directly out of our PTO. So if you only get 10 days of PTO a year and you come down with the flu then bam, that is most of your PTO gone. It gets worse, even if we have the days and want to take a vacation, they don’t have to let us use it and often it is very difficult to use our PTO.
The concept of sick days is fucking ridiculous
I wonder if the people downvoting you are misunderstanding your comment as saying “nobody should be allowed to call in sick for any reason, ever”.
The concept of sick days is ridiculous. Being sick isn’t predictable, so employers obviously shouldn’t be allowed to artificially limit the days you’re allowed to be. It’s a broken system that allows for such things in the first place. If you’re sick, you’re sick, and your employer has to accept that. If they don’t want to take that risk they should employ a robot.
It took forever to get a corporate job but both corporate roles I’ve had provide decent PTO. Current job has 3 weeks PTO+ accrued sick time. The pay isnt good but at least I get time off.
Other people I know in more corporate roles have similar pto but without the accrued sick time. The only time I didn’t get PTO was when I was working minimum wage jobs.
From a European perspective, 3 weeks isn’t good. 24 days is the legal minimum where I live. 30 is standard.
I got lucky and found a job with 42, and sick days aren’t counted against those.
It’s honestly hard to take them sometimes. Not due to pushback from the employer, but because you have to find 42 days without fixed appointments.
But if you don’t take your PTO, you are forced to by your team leader, otherwise the company can get in trouble.
Ahh, workers rights… Sounds dreamy
Some places combine sick time and vacation into “PTO”, others the accrual is so pitiful you’re lucky if you get a week’s worth of time off in a year.
My fiancé’s place of work is both of these things. She got really sick in August and burned through her PTO in a week, then had to go to work despite still being sick
I’m not even American, I’m Canadian. Things are a shit show here too. I didn’t get PTO, vacation pay or sick days until I joined a union. So this was before then. I remember my second job was working part time at a hospital for a while, which are run by the government, and I still had no PTO or any sort of protection or benefits.
Thankfully for BC, John Horgan’s NDP mandated that every British Columbian gets five paid days off, no matter if they are a gig worker or a kid doing their 1st job at the mall.
RIP Horgan ⚘ You did so much for the working class. The NDP removed MSP premiums, slashed insurance costs (I get annual rebates now), mandated sick days, took the tolls off of bridges, made contraceptives free, and made period products free in every school. (He passed away last week)
I hope your province gets it together.
As an american Paid time off almost sounds like a myth
It exists but it is usually pretty slim. Usually works out to be 2 weeks a year or something, which if you have a family and go to regular doctors appointments as advised, by the time your done… No more time for an actual vacation.
The average person is supposed to go to the dentist twice a year, the doctor once, a dermatologist once, the gynecologist once. If Anything is wrong, like a cavity… you need another trip. So we are up to at least 6 half days off there.
So let’s say another 3 for the kids. 2 dentists, and 1 physical whether it be for general health or for sports. (Vaccinations? All that jazz). Now any parent would know we are undershooting these numbers by a lot, as we haven’t talked at all about a kid getting sick yet.
Parents/Grandparents need a ride to the doctor once or twice, assuming you divy it out over multiple kids. Maybe one breaks a hip and needs physical therapy your fucked.
Note none of this has included a single day that is ever considered to be a vacation, just half days and rushing around and trying to get back to work.
If somehow you get through all of this, what many people do is take their last couple hours of free time to fly to where their in laws are to celebrate Christmas or some shit. Which is why there is so much animosity surrounding the holidays. It is the last time that someone may have to spend to relax, and they end up spending it with others who all don’t want to be making large extravagant meals, putting up and taking down decorations nor spending money they didn’t have in the first place, to waste time figuring out some gift they feel obligated to give to someone that yes they care about, but really is obstructing their last few moments where they could actually take a vacation and relax.
This is completely unsustainable on a societal level.
I was the IT guy for a company in Georgia (USA). Despite the fact I was the only IT guy and handled our SQL databases/Exchange/AD/firewalls/etc (all the way down to punching down new phonelines for headsets going back to the dialer), I recieved 0 days PTO (sick time or other). I was paid $15.50/hr and dealt with insane shit that made me question my morals, but when it’s do thing x or not feed your son, you’ll do some stuff.
Thankfully I don’t work there anymore, but yeah, if time off isn’t mandatory, a lot of companies don’t offer it.
The minimum for New York is 40 hours of sick time a year that has to be earned. This had to be fought for.
Sick time allowance is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard as an European, if you are sick you are sick until you are not sick, it’s not the company that decides when you are cured.
Same here in Minnesota, although that only started in 2024
Move to a developed country and find out that most people get paid leave.
Canadian. Most people here do not
I’m Canadian. I mostly do.
Unless I’m actually off on a medical leave, then maybe not. IDK.
All I’m trying to say is that my employer is actually not bad. Almost every other job I’ve had, has been some variation of bad.
Also, on medical leave, you qualify for EI where I am, so it’s kind of paid. Honestly not worth the hassle for a couple of weeks, but anything taking months or more, it’s better than a kick in the privates.
I knew that there wasn’t any nationally mandated PTO, but I assumed that most of you had some in your contracts individually or union…FFS America, what are you doing!!!
In NZ we get 4 weeks/year and 10 days sick leave. Most companies have allowance for a couple of mental health days also, some even pay those days.
There is also bereavement leave, of up to 3 days. Parental leave of 26 weeks, your employer has to keep your job open for you to return to after the 26 weeks.
Source
Side note: we are full, don’t come here. Actually we get left off maps, and we like it like that.
In Europe I don’t think sick days even have a limit, at some point you need to actually prove you are sick and are not just saying it, but as long as you have a doctor sign off on it you can be sick as much as you like.
Often used when people have long-term illnesses or injuries that take a long time to recover from
Those sick days are totally separate from holiday pay. So I can be off for 2 weeks with an infection (with a doctor’s note) and then take a week holiday, and they can’t say boo.
Plus, you took vacation days but got sick during the vacation? Get a doctor’s note, and you get your vacation days back to use later.
Surprisingly, a lot of people don’t seem to be aware of this when you point it out to them.
Unless you get a serious illness during your PTO it doesn’t really make a big difference
Who on earth doesn’t want extra vacation days if possible?!
The problem is the restrictions on when you can be considered sick during your vacation.
a) you need to inform the company on the first day of sickness
b) if you are still sick after 5 days after informing your company, then you are entitled to get your remaining vacation back.
As the 5 days first start counting from when you inform your company ~ well you see where I am going? Unless you wanna be known as the one who tells their boss every time they get the sneeze… it is only gonna be relevant if you get a serious illness during your PTO…
Some companies here have unlimited sick leave, but it is not common.
Some double the national minimum of 10. Others have 15 days.
But most just allow for the minimum.
Oh you sweet sweet summer child. Here in the US we traded unions and labor protection for an extra $20 a week and rugged individualism.
Yeah but without the extra money
You’re getting an extra $20?
I have a corporate job with a very large company. Interact with CTO and other executives occasionally.
If I take off, I don’t get paid. And they can fire me whenever.
And the state they operate out of doesn’t have unemployment money left to pay when that happens so you better have money in the bank.
At least I have basic health care I can’t use that I pay $300 a month for.
Yeah, I actually am not sure what folks are talking about. Even in the most soul crushing places I’ve worked, the bosses still (reluctantly) give PTO. I’ve worked all over the USA from retail to military to Mom n pop shop etc, PTO has never been “do I get PTO?” It’s “how much PTO do I get?”
Lol, we don’t do contracts for most positions, either!
What kind of hellscape are guys running over there.
Most companies have PTO of some kind, but there’s not a lot of real enforcement and whatever rules there are vary state-to-state, a situation I’m sure is about to get much, much worse with an administration coming promising to gut or destroy federal agencies.
Most established companies usually only offer a week or two of PTO a year, and this includes sick-time and sometimes holidays, so if you want to take Christmas and new years off, some companies force you to spend your PTO days on it. Many times if you don’t use your PTO it just expires at end of the year and doesn’t accumulate, they wouldn’t want anyone saving up and taking a few weeks off while being paid. Most Americans manage to swing a handful of 3-day or 4-day weekends a year, and that’s the extent of our down-time or escape from work.
Removed by mod
That’s American problem, I suppose. In the UK and even the 3rd world country like mine, we were paid at least 2 weeks off when working full-time.
Sadly I’m Canadian. And we’re as fucked as the u.s when it comes to worker rights. Thankfully I’m in a union now
I used to do IT for a hospital and the doctors were the most coddled mfers I’ve ever dealt with in my life. I would regularly get calls in the middle of the night or the weekend to fix one of their dictation software. Like… Just type, ffs.
While working at the hospital I met many a young doctor. Extremely smart when it comes to their field, but they seem to lack the most basic common sense about something as easy as rebooting a computer. They’re also messier than my 13 year old kid. Their private offices always look like messy dorm rooms
Hi, I’m a young doctor who was raised by competent parents. My office is tidy, and I know how to use basic computer programs. I just installed a new SSD yesterday on my home desktop and I can type 100 wpm. I realize that’s not very impressive, but just FYI we’re not “always” totally incompetent and immature.
As someone who currently works in Healthcare IT, the dictation thing is so true … It’s literally the end of the world to them if they can’t dictate, and have to use their fingers and - gasp, a keyboard! The horror!
It’s ridiculous. I’ve watched them use it and it’s definitely slower than I can type and I’m not even a great typist. Especially considering their EMR system has a tool to create macros for things they need to type out and they can just fill in the blanks. They don’t have time to type but they have time to throw a tantrum and not do anything while dictation isn’t working.
To heal your back, just take 2 weeks off to starve. Yes that will help.
Less weight for your back to support.
If you’re lacking paid leave, maybe have your union take it up on your behalf?
Unless…no…
A grim reminder that here in Europe things can get worse and worse, but people will always just complain and take it. There will never be an uprising or a revolution or anything. Humans really are pathetic, huh?
What are you actually talking about?