Unfair in the workplace

[bcla]

I forgot, you can also get time off if you do not want to get married but do want a registered partnership (no idea what this is called in English), to put to paper that you are a couple without officially getting married.

Of course you would discuss with your work when you would do this. You do have to let the company know, it is not that you can't show up at work and then call "Oh getting married today, won't be in LOL." That you are entitled to get those day off, doesn't mean that it is without discussion or notice.

And I think it is a fact in a lot of countries that married or registered couples get (tax) benefits single people do not get. Same as parents have certain benefits childless/childfree people do not get. Not fair, but I have a feeling we are slowly moving towards more equality. We are just not there yet.

And being single & childfree has other benefits, I can travel in off season, I do not have to discuss anything with a partner, not deal with teachers. That saves a lot of stress

Life is never 100% fair or equal for everyone, but to me, that doesn't mean that others shouldn't get benefits I can't get /won't use. It is good some benefits exist. It doesn't hurt me when my colleague gets 2 days more in one year. We are equal the rest of our years at the company.

You can also turn the argument around. That when getting married does come out of PTO, a married person can argue that he/she gets less time off than a single person, because the wedding is an extra day off they can't use for a holiday or something else. No perfect solution here either.

At least in the United States we call it a registered domestic partnership.

There were some interesting wrinkles. Back when same-sex marriage became required nationally, one state automatically elevated (all) domestic partnerships to marriages, although there might have been an opportunity to decline. The tax benefits might have been different and may still be. The US federal government doesn't recognize domestic partnerships, so taxes are filed under different categories for federal vs state (when a state recognizes partnerships to be equivalent to marriage for tax filings).

https://sco.ca.gov/Files-PPSD/FAQs_Domestic_Partnerships.pdf

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

You can also turn the argument around. That when getting married does come out of PTO, a married person can argue that he/she gets less time off than a single person, because the wedding is an extra day off they can't use for a holiday or something else. No perfect solution here either.

As for fair that goes without saying. I commented because of the point of saying you get extra time for wedding, which would put couples who choose not to get married but may also have things that take time investments at a disadvantage purely because they didn't get married. Seems a tad like virtue signaling.

Hinging the perk on time needed based on marital status was more my crux of my viewpoint. All of our wedding stuff could be done after work or on the weekends, but building and closing on our house was a lot more difficult to do so. I never had to take off work to do wedding stuff but I did to close on our house. Or if you aren't buying a house the rental process and trying to find the time to get housing takes a lot of effort there especially when leasing agents were not available in the evenings.

I forgot, you can also get time off if you do not want to get married but do want a registered partnership (no idea what this is called in English), to put to paper that you are a couple without officially getting married.

That's at least better.

The rest of your comments are TBH like you're reaching for something. I know a few couples who have much more flexible schedules even though they have children than those who are single especially the ones working multiple jobs. And more disposable incomes as well. I had a very restrictive PTO availability that the vast majority of people I knew even ones with 4 or 5 kids simply because of how PTO was done (especially with the PTO bid the year prior). Being unmarried (and even when I got married) without kids absolutely has never meant I could just vacation whenever I wanted

 

[bcla]

As for fair that goes without saying. I commented because of the point of saying you get extra time for wedding, which would put couples who choose not to get married but may also have things that take time investments at a disadvantage purely because they didn't get married. Seems a tad like virtue signaling.

I took it as purely informational. It's apparently a legal requirement in the Netherlands, like family medical leave is a legal requirement in the United States. Looking up the rule, one can even get one paid day off to attend a wedding.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I took it as purely informational. It's apparently a legal requirement in the Netherlands, like family medical leave is a legal requirement in the United States. Looking up the rule, one can even get one paid day off to attend a wedding.

I wasn't saying the poster was virtue signaling, I was saying the country was as it was not affording any specific days for single people even if they too have things that take time but they are not married (or in a subsequent comment domestic partnership).

Personally I favor the "floating holiday" aspect that comes more and more with companies here. Normally the only restriction is must be used as a full day and often is a use it or lose it (unless state law prohibits it) so often companies push to use that as your first full day but it's whatever you need to get done or want to get done or just abutted to your vacation time.

 

[Minnesota!]

Reading this thread makes me EVEN MORE grateful for where I work. We have an incredibly generous PTO allotment (new hires start at 80 hours personal, 80 hours vacation). There is no need to explain to anyone why you are taking time off. You just put it on the calendar and....take it off.

We have PTO available for volunteering (8 hours/year), school activities and conferences (16 hours/year), parental leave (16 weeks for mom or dad), bone marrow leave, military leave, bereavement leave (2 weeks for immediate family, 1 week for parent/sib/etc., 3 days for any one else), caregiver leave (4 weeks off to provide care to sick parents, kids, spouse).

Sounds like a lot of places need a complete overhaul on how to attract, retain, and treat their employees... it goes way beyond asking a reason for the use of your PTO.

 

[bcla]

I wasn't saying the poster was virtue signaling, I was saying the country was as it was not affording any specific days for single people even if they too have things that take time but they are not married (or in a subsequent comment domestic partnership).

Personally I favor the "floating holiday" aspect that comes more and more with companies here. Normally the only restriction is must be used as a full day and often is a use it or lose it (unless state law prohibits it) so often companies push to use that as your first full day but it's whatever you need to get done or want to get done or just abutted to your vacation time.

I've had a variety of methods, but one was where holiday pay came from a combined pool of hours.

The worst was when I was pressured to keep working every day because of milestones. I ended up maxing out after my company capped the PTO accrual at 200 hours. I didn't necessarily pay attention because of direct deposit, but later I found that it was listed as 200.01 and then 200.02 hours because that was some bookkeeping thing. HR said there was nothing that could be done other than maybe informal vacation time with the manager or I could actually donate the time that was lost to the cap for a charity.

Sucked when I worked a contract job that was hourly. I was encouraged to only report 8 hour work days regardless of how much time I put in. And no vacation time although I think at a certain time I accrued sick pay by law but never used it. I was legally considered a W-2 employee of the contracting company. I never paid attention to any other kind of leave policy. Probably also a lot of caveats to taking leave based on being paid by the client.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

Reading this thread makes me EVEN MORE grateful for where I work. We have an incredibly generous PTO allotment (new hires start at 80 hours personal, 80 hours vacation). There is no need to explain to anyone why you are taking time off. You just put it on the calendar and....take it off.

We have PTO available for volunteering (8 hours/year), school activities and conferences (16 hours/year), parental leave (16 weeks for mom or dad), bone marrow leave, military leave, bereavement leave (2 weeks for immediate family, 1 week for parent/sib/etc., 3 days for any one else), caregiver leave (4 weeks off to provide care to sick parents, kids, spouse).

Sounds like a lot of places need a complete overhaul on how to attract, retain, and treat their employees... it goes way beyond asking a reason for the use of your PTO.

I'm with you. One of the greatest perks of working in higher ed is the incredible amount of flexibility I have. Yes, I don't have vacation days, but my union negotiated very generous accumulation of sick time to the point where I could take an entire semester off and still have time left over. I get the summers off, a week at T'giving, a month at the holidays, and a week in March. If i need to get to campus late, I come late. If I need to run to the pet store in the middle of the day between classes, I go. No one has ever dared question how I use my personal time, nor would they, because even though I technically "report" to my Dean, they really have no power to fire me.

All that said, while yes this is cushy, I had to go through 12 years of education (undergrad + 2 grad degrees) to get here, and I'm about to go for another grad degree. So we earn our stripes.

 

[Karin1984]

People here familiar with Ben Askins? He makes video reacting to worst bosses (and some good ones)
It is shocking how many bosses think they own every minute of every hour of their employee. That they are entitled to dictate the employee's life.
Even more shocking is how bosses communicate.

One about bereavement

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7286152194997374240

 

[Uncle Coaster]

Reading this thread makes me EVEN MORE grateful for where I work. We have an incredibly generous PTO allotment (new hires start at 80 hours personal, 80 hours vacation). There is no need to explain to anyone why you are taking time off. You just put it on the calendar and....take it off.

We have PTO available for volunteering (8 hours/year), school activities and conferences (16 hours/year), parental leave (16 weeks for mom or dad), bone marrow leave, military leave, bereavement leave (2 weeks for immediate family, 1 week for parent/sib/etc., 3 days for any one else), caregiver leave (4 weeks off to provide care to sick parents, kids, spouse).

Sounds like a lot of places need a complete overhaul on how to attract, retain, and treat their employees... it goes way beyond asking a reason for the use of your PTO.

Your company doesn’t consider parents or siblings as immediate family?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I've had a variety of methods, but one was where holiday pay came from a combined pool of hours.

The worst was when I was pressured to keep working every day because of milestones. I ended up maxing out after my company capped the PTO accrual at 200 hours. I didn't necessarily pay attention because of direct deposit, but later I found that it was listed as 200.01 and then 200.02 hours because that was some bookkeeping thing. HR said there was nothing that could be done other than maybe informal vacation time with the manager or I could actually donate the time that was lost to the cap for a charity.

Sucked when I worked a contract job that was hourly. I was encouraged to only report 8 hour work days regardless of how much time I put in. And no vacation time although I think at a certain time I accrued sick pay by law but never used it. I was legally considered a W-2 employee of the contracting company. I never paid attention to any other kind of leave policy. Probably also a lot of caveats to taking leave based on being paid by the client.

My husband's old company maxed out PTO accrual as well once you maxed out you just stopped accruing until you got below it. Most often that was when people when out to field assignments because you really couldn't use much PTO when you were out there. As a result though it wasn't uncommon for people to come back and in between projects or just once they were done take several weeks to a month off from work. Back in 2015 my husband was home for 2 1/2 weeks in between projects right around Christmas time. He took all of that as PTO (well minus the days that counted as weekends and Christmas Eve/Christmas as well as New Year's Day) but that would have never been possible any of the places I worked to take that much time off at once.

He also could bank up to twice his yearly allotment. When he left that company in early 2022 he was getting 6 weeks of vacation per year (the max the company would give) but had stored up 10 weeks of vacation. Thing is though is for a lot stuff he didn't have to use PTO because the workplace was quite flexible.

I remember when I was young working at JCP, though I technically accrued vacation time I wasn't eligible to use it and most of us who worked there weren't. So when I left I just got a payout of the amount accrued what piddly amount it was.

 

[bcla]

My husband's old company maxed out PTO accrual as well once you maxed out you just stopped accruing until you got below it. Most often that was when people when out to field assignments because you really couldn't use much PTO when you were out there. As a result though it wasn't uncommon for people to come back and in between projects or just once they were done take several weeks to a month off from work. Back in 2015 my husband was home for 2 1/2 weeks in between projects right around Christmas time. He took all of that as PTO (well minus the days that counted as weekends and Christmas Eve/Christmas as well as New Year's Day) but that would have never been possible any of the places I worked to take that much time off at once.

He also could bank up to twice his yearly allotment. When he left that company in early 2022 he was getting 6 weeks of vacation per year (the max the company would give) but had stored up 10 weeks of vacation. Thing is though is for a lot stuff he didn't have to use PTO because the workplace was quite flexible.

I remember when I was young working at JCP, though I technically accrued vacation time I wasn't eligible to use it and most of us who worked there weren't. So when I left I just got a payout of the amount accrued what piddly amount it was.

I guess mandatory time off during Christmas is pretty common. And it can be fuzzy when there isn't enough banked PTO/vacation to cover it. At least one employer of mine said they'd "advance" the time and future accruals would be credited against the vacation "debt". I saw something from the State of California noting that it was legal, but if someone is no longer working, they can't dock it from any last paycheck nor from severance. They have to attempt to collect it separately.

The contract job could be really bizarre. I actually worked over several holidays even with barely anyone in the office and where I didn't really have much to do. However, I didn't have any holidays or vacation time so the client just paid for me to be there. I did take Christmas and New Years Day off (maybe Thanksgiving and the day after) to be with my family, but then spend several days in the office with very few people there other than front desk security. I don't even think the cafeteria was open.

 

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

As for fair that goes without saying. I commented because of the point of saying you get extra time for wedding, which would put couples who choose not to get married but may also have things that take time investments at a disadvantage purely because they didn't get married. Seems a tad like virtue signaling.

Hinging the perk on time needed based on marital status was more my crux of my viewpoint. All of our wedding stuff could be done after work or on the weekends, but building and closing on our house was a lot more difficult to do so. I never had to take off work to do wedding stuff but I did to close on our house. Or if you aren't buying a house the rental process and trying to find the time to get housing takes a lot of effort there especially when leasing agents were not available in the evenings.

That's at least better.

The rest of your comments are TBH like you're reaching for something. I know a few couples who have much more flexible schedules even though they have children than those who are single especially the ones working multiple jobs. And more disposable incomes as well. I had a very restrictive PTO availability that the vast majority of people I knew even ones with 4 or 5 kids simply because of how PTO was done (especially with the PTO bid the year prior). Being unmarried (and even when I got married) without kids absolutely has never meant I could just vacation whenever I wanted

This makes no sense. People get maternity/paternity leave. If you don't have kids then you don't. If you're lucky enough not to have anyone die then no bereavement leave for you. Fair isn't equal. What an odd point of view.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

This makes no sense. People get maternity/paternity leave. If you don't have kids then you don't. If you're lucky enough not to have anyone die then no bereavement leave for you. Fair isn't equal. What an odd point of view.

Well I never qualified that it didn't apply to other types of leave in my opinion, I singled out the wedding day and day of wedding based on the unusualness of encountering that. However, do you know of a company here in the U.S. that gives leave based solely on getting married? As in they carve out a day specifically for the duties involved in getting married? I personally don't. Maybe there's a company that exists. But it is interesting (to me) to zero in on that life milestone.

On the other hand in terms of other leave adoption for instance often comes with legal requirements beyond getting a license as well it should. Maternity and paternity leave also involves giving birth for the woman and/or taking care of the child for both (unsure if maternity leave includes couples that do surrogacy but I should hope so) and we're still far behind on maternity and paternity leave. Quite a lot more involved in bringing a child into the world. I'll give you bereavement leave but count that as part of trying to give people grieving time and the time sensitive aspect as generally you don't know the exact moment of someone's death to plan out things like a funeral home. But getting married? A lot of that is on the couple. A courthouse wedding nets you the same time as an all out wedding in Netherlands. Don't get me wrong it's an interesting perk but one I think puts at a national level quite a bit different.

Meh I'm cool with being in the minority here

 

[Lord Manhammer]

People here familiar with Ben Askins? He makes video reacting to worst bosses (and some good ones)
It is shocking how many bosses think they own every minute of every hour of their employee. That they are entitled to dictate the employee's life.
Even more shocking is how bosses communicate.

One about bereavement

https://www.tiktok.com/video/7286152194997374240

Thems there is capitalism, kiddo. It astonishes me how many people are willing to work for a boss that treats them less than human.

 

[RedAngie]

Every place I've been involved in, including my own would fire you if they found out you called in drunk.

I’m not sure if my company would immediately fire anyone for such an excuse, but, yeah, it would definitely put you in a very bad light at performance review time.

Just say you’re sick; no need to elaborate. As for the pet dying, “a family emergency” is the best reason if you don’t want to say you yourself are sick.

 

[RedAngie]

The best and probably the most honest excuse for a sick day was when one of my team needed a day off because she had a tattoo appointment with a difficult to book in-demand artist.

 

[bcla]

I’m not sure if my company would immediately fire anyone for such an excuse, but, yeah, it would definitely put you in a very bad light at performance review time.

Just say you’re sick; no need to elaborate. As for the pet dying, “a family emergency” is the best reason if you don’t want to say you yourself are sick.

I don't know about "calling in drunk". That would seem unlikely unless someone is really still drinking alcohol until early morning. Maybe nursing a hangover?

Besides that, I would generally not call in anyone these days. I would have email addresses and just send in a message that I'm not feeling well. Or perhaps some other messaging tool, a text, etc. where I wouldn't have to tip off anyone. I've never had a manager or HR question beyond that, although I've never lied and given a false excuse.

 

[Minnesota!]

Your company doesn’t consider parents or siblings as immediate family?

Nope, and honestly, not sure I would, either. I mean, maybe when I was younger/not married/no kids, but I think of my immediate family as who lives in my house. I'd bet there is flexibility if you live with/depend on the person that passed.

When my dad died on a Wednesday, I took the Tuesday before then through the whole following week and it was covered. Plus I had random "I can't deal with life today" days for months afterwards where I would call in - all fine and covered.

 

[bakerworld]

Where I worked sick time didn't exist. Even my husband's old company went away from separated sick and vacation and lumped it into PTO. Now he still had an old bank of sick time but it very rarely could be used and was more restricted than it was before it merged.

I worked for a non-profit where I went from FT to PT and HR said I couldn't use my Vacation because I was under 20 hours so not entitled to use my Vacation. Then they sold to a for profit and suddenly I had this huge check. They had to pay me for my vacation. Hahahaha.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I worked for a non-profit where I went from FT to PT and HR said I couldn't use my Vacation because I was under 20 hours so not entitled to use my Vacation. Then they sold to a for profit and suddenly I had this huge check. They had to pay me for my vacation. Hahahaha.

Sweet! Nice to get that bonus of paid out time off, hopefully you took a nice vacation with it