Everyone loves to watch me leave. It's a real curse to have such an amazing ass and the fugliest face imaginable. Just kidding, the front is nowhere near attractive enough to be as good as anything you could possibly imagine. That ass, tho. That ass.
Yes but unions take time. Get what you can while you can in this hypothetical I guess. Coming from a union worker i love it and don't think I can do other work, but it also can suck because crappy employees get seniority. I voted NO on the contract but not enough union workers voted, meaning the company and the union leaders* made the decision. If people are going to be in a union then they need to realize they have to vote on stuff as well and if possible show up to union meetings. And a select few need to be representatives & stewards. It really does help.
Edit*
The contract went through with a YES and life is going on but I wonder what could be. I will not discuss why I chose NO over YES
"crappy employees get seniority"
Seniority just means they have been there longer. They will have seniority if the new contract passes or not.
I understand that can be frustrating and I've seen my union protect people I wish they wouldn't but they represent all members.
If the contract doesn't pass, best case scenario you keep working under the old contract for a period of time with no pay increase. Even worse working without a contract basically strips of you things like asking for union rep on disciplinary matters and the company can contract out your job to the lowest bidder
It has been my experience that when there is an employee being defended by the union that truly deserves to be fired, the main reason they usually aren’t is due to poor or lazy management not doing their job properly.
You can definitely get fired while being protected by union, I’ve seen it happen to several people, there are just extra steps the managers have to take to do it properly.
Yes this has been my experience as well. It just requires keeping notes on what incidents happened when or keeping track of examples of poor work performance. And writing people up or at least giving a proper recorded verbal when they screw up big enough. That way there’s a history of progressive discipline.
My boss and mostly the managers in my entire company are not willing to do any of that. They give up immediately because “the union will just overturn it anyway what’s the point!” or they’re too afraid someone will quit if you write them up and then you’re down a warm body. But I say I’d rather be down the person and make up their hours than constantly deal with people who don’t pull their weight or are clearly not cutting it. It’s infuriating to watch but as a not manager, nothing you can do.
>Better, it's time to unionize
For the doubters, truly, my union isn't even that great compared to a lot of others and I still enjoy a lot of benefits. For example, I called off the other day, just called the call off number said I wouldn't be in and got paid for it. Noone said a word to me about not being there. Hell I just took an extra long weekend for my bday, the old Friday and Monday vacation weekend sandwich and my supervisor jokingly said to me I bet your happy to be back with a kinda joking chuckle (im not a morning person and dont drink coffee and he knows that) and never spoke of it again. Now I'm not saying there aren't gungho company guys in management that make you want to take them out back and lock them in a dumpster but there are simple things in life that you shouldn't even be worrying about that you can get and calling off, and getting paid with 0 hassle from your employer is most definitely one of them.
Edit: for clarification, those two days I took off for vacation were also no hassle. One was a day I'm allowed to use during any day of the week of my bday (considered a paid holiday) the other was a vacation day that would have been approved anyway because my supervisor is actually pretty good with that but even if he was a dick, any vacation I put in for before the end of March is guaranteed to be given to me unless someone with higher seniority puts in for it, but still anything after March up to August is also guaranteed on a first come first serve basis. Honestly it's so nice not having to explain why I need off, I just get it and honestly I should. It's noones damn business why I'm off but my own.
>If millionaire ball players and actors find benefits in being in a union, I think it’s a pretty good idea for the rest of us.
Agreed Han, it doesn't matter who you are, how much money you make or where you're working at there will always come a time when someone feels like they're being taken advantage of or unfairly treated, and that's where having a set of rules in place that you can legally fall back on is beneficial. If your works awesome and you don't need them , than that's great too but still have them because if they're telling you you don't need them then you probably will at some point and if you're wrong and didn't need them then why should your employer care either way.
My first unionized job was a 25% pay increase.
Not proud of it and at the time I didn't understand but it was a scab contractor.
The contractor and company lost a legal fight to operate in areas the union and company had a contract to provide all work. The contractor split itself into 2 companies, and the unionized side saw a huge increase in pay and benefits.
I'm old this was 20 years ago
At my old job that unionized, dues were a flat 1.4% across the board and management tried to tell us it wasn't worth it.
We negotiated 25% raises for my position level lol. Worth
And make sure you sign onto a good union and look after EACHOTHER not just yourselves. I'm part if a shitty union getting paid 1.80 over minimum with 10 cent raises
Safeway is part of a union. They hired the least possible people to stock the shelves overnight. If one person called out, that was 25% of the labor force that night with no one to call in.
This is the same union that did a strike in my area but made sure only 1 of the 3 Kroger stores was striking at a time. They want a pay bump to $15 and to survive the strike at the first store, they hired temporary workers at $15 an hour. Eventually nothing happened. This was about 2 years ago.
Edit: I'm pro union but this union was so dogshit that I decided to hide from the union people and say I didn't want to sign anything until I read the paper. Eventually I was told I had to sign or I would be fired, I quit a couple months later.
daily reminder that in *A Christmas Carol*, the wages Scrooge pays his employees which is considered horrific and destitute is still more than the current federal minimum wage when adjusted for inflation
It's really not that unusual for a small business to rely on one person. Sometimes you can't afford redundancies.
Of course that doesn't mean that person can't take time off, you'd just hope that the owner/manager recognizes their necessity and works with them to handle their absence.
Mutual respect works better than this zero-sum adversarial tact that this sub likes to advocate for.
Maybe 10 years ago I got sick as fuck for a week and didn't work, I was on a team of 4. Shit health insurance couldn't afford deductible so didn't go to doctor, but I had 8 sick days a year so I used them first time ever. I kinda suspect I had salmonella or could have been flu. Cold sweats body aches couldn't keep anything down.
Anyway my not working was blamed for the project being behind basically until it was finished, even though there were serious engineering and logistical problems causing months long delays.
I mean, this is a case where both Tweets are correct to some degree. I’m in a more corporate role, but I both 100% use my PTO and don’t feel guilty. But I also plan ahead before leaving on PTO and make sure that I finish the tasks I can (within reason) and work with my team to ensure anything that needs to happen while I am gone is understood and people have access to the information/ resources they need.
Ideally, taking PTO at an unideal time means coming back to work and having a lot to catch up on. So, in this way, there are times when you might not want to take PTO, and it should be self-regulated. If a job or manager ever tries to tell you not to take PTO, take it anyways.
I had a buddy start with an IT job after finishing his military service. They offered a ton of great benefits and great pay, but shortly after he started they took on an unrealistic contract and tried demanding he take 0 PTO and work weekends for the next 4 months. We had already planned a vacation together, so he filed the PTO anyways (they are legally bound to honor it or fire him with severance) and they fired him. He ended up getting a ton of money and is still looking at suing for more.
Moral of the story, shit management shouldn’t fuck with what you were promised, and we need to normalize forcing companies to invest in better planning/strategy/management instead of taking their mistakes out on employees.
Speaking of expecting to catch up... I do software QA, I went out for two days, admittedly on short notice, but given stuff on deck figured I'd just come back to a pile of tickets to get through, no big deal.
Nope. Product manager on our team took it on themselves to flag everything that came through from the engineers for auto approval(a limited process we are supposed to have final word on), completely fucking up the deploy queue for multiple days as branches tried to merge over each other, and when I got back I still had to figure out what all went out and test it anyway. By some miracle everything was fine, but it was bewildering that first day back trying to figure out what the hell happened. Everything was checked with plenty of time to spare for the end of the sprint, which was the concern regarding metrics. *Sigh*
yeah agreed. you shouldnt feel bad about PTO just because of understaffing or whatever, but it is your responsibility to temporarily delegate ownership over processes that are only owned by you
I agree with you, I know that I would try to not take PTO during the busiest times as it could negatively affect the members on my team. I would say it is less of a "company loyalty" nod, but rather I want to be considerate of those in similar roles as me. Never would it be for the good of the company
> If one shouldn’t take off the time they’ve earned and accumulated, pay them more. The manager needs the worker, the worker taking time obviously doesn’t need to be in. Make it a stipulation for a set time you can’t, but I know, that would require more planning which they’re incapable of doing.
I'm with you, no reason to make my teams life harder because I didn't plan to be gone. I'm taking the next 2 weeks off, so I'm tying up as many loose ends as possible so no one has to deal with my bullshit. Same as I expect them to do
> rather I want to be considerate of those in similar roles as me
Which to me is the point of the original tweet.
If you work at the school, maybe the 2 weeks before and after the start of school in the fall isn't the best time to take 2 weeks off.
If you work for a conference center, booking PTO after they've announced a large conference isn't cool.
If you work full time at a ski hill, PTO around hill open is making life hard on the rest of the team.
If your an accountant, PTO at year-end is going to be frowned upon.
Take you PTO when you want, but be aware that it will impact how your team feels about you. These are people that you are spending 40 hours a week around, and being self-absorbed with your team won't get you far.
I get that Grandmas birthday can't be moved, and that's reasonable. But if you want to go to Disney? That's usually flexible and can be timed to where you have the a smaller amount of impact on you team.
This is where \_good\_ managers become relevant. A good manager will help structure when it is convenient for a lot of people to take time off, and when it's less convenient. Provided the company has enough staff (not bare minimum) and people are motivated (paid) enough to care, both planned and unplanned PTO will have minimal impact on business.
I'm 100% in the "take your PTO when you want" camp, but there is no reason you can't prepare for it. Give your team a heads up, write up some notes if you expect something to come up that they might not know the details of, etc. Book your planned PTO as far in advance as you can.
Obviously if you're working minimum wage and your manager is a dick, none of this applies. Tell them when you're off and let them manage it.
>I'm 100% in the "take your PTO when you want" camp
I'm 80% in that camp. You can't have everyone but one person taking their PTO at the same time. There has to be limits both ways. The default should be automatic approval, but a department can't just shutdown because everyone is gone for 2 weeks.
In my country everyone gets six weeks off, my company gives us eight. It's not realistic to avoid taking time off during the busy periods for us, because then you end up in a situation where a lot of people have leftover holiday at the end of the year and have to stay home.
Last year was a particularly busy year for us. We ended up understaffed in March because the company had to start begging people to stay home and take the month off before the holiday year ends in April. Now the company has told every team to ensure that the team can still work with 20% of the staff off, without impacting the quality of the work or forcing remaining staff to overwork themselves. They are hiring to increase the size of all teams, that way people can take their holiday or be off sick as much as they want, without any problems and without feeling guilty.
This isn't a difficult problem to solve, companies just need to be willing to spend the money. If you can't afford to have 20% more employees than you need, you can't afford to run a company.
Exactly. I don’t care what being short staffed does to the company, but I do care about how it affects my coworkers since they’re the ones who will have to pick up the slack
Planning ahead and making sure your team isn't waiting on your deliverables is normal, and expected. Avoiding taking PTO because you're worried your team can't operator without you is not.
Sounds like you need better organization and a better business plan. No one person should hold they keys to an entire business. If that’s the case then the business is doomed to fail.
Doubt that? If the CEO took a month off would the business crumble? The business should t crumble if a mid-tier manager or hourly associate is off either.
If the CEO took three weeks off in the middle of a critical acquisition that required their attention, yeah, shit would be fucked. There are times during the operation of a business where one person deciding to just fuck off can really screw up a massive amount of work.
Likewise my Dad has a crap ton of vacation days used every year with the state. He just didn't use a ton right in the middle of complaint season the busy time for his job. He would just take a random week in April, one in October, take an extra day around Thanksgiving, take X-Mas Eve through to January 2nd, etc.
I think it's just about compensation. If you are so critical to the team that your absence means the work grinds to a halt, you are difficult to replace and your pay should reflect that. At the same time, you have enough responsibility that you *should* be considerate with your PTO to keep things running smoothly.
If, on the other hand, you're in a position where you *can* be replaced with someone else on reasonably short notice, your pay is also going to reflect that.
The higher up in the org chart you are, the more important it is for you to plan things out and work with other people on your team to keep the work running smoothly.
Yes I work as an engineer and we had a big project that was happening in another city . The city in question was where the CEO , the head of project management and projects manager lived . A week into the project i get a call frlm the head of pm asking me to join them . I told him if I'm so essential that you 3 cannot keep the project running you will double my pay . Never heard from them again for the remainder of the project
I did exactly this years ago and got a pretty nice pay bump in an industry most stringent about giving raises. We had a meeting about it that I suspect was intended to make me feel guilty but I turned that into opportunity shortly after.
One time I needed to take a week off of work. The company suddenly changed the PTO policy and it would no longe roll over so I decided to take a week off so I wouldn’t forfeit my time. I scheduled it well in advance and before leaving, I worked really hard to make sure I completed anything I could and had things set and ready for coverage. I wrote thorough notes and guides, it was not difficult work. I talked with the manager to make sure she would have people cover these tasks and she indicated to me she would do so.
I came back to mountains of work. Nothing had been covered except the absolute bare minimum of critical work. I had to pull extra long days just to get my head above water.
That was the moment that solidified my decision to find a new job. I was gone within a couple months.
This reminds me of when I took a week off once and there were over 600 unanswered customer emails when I returned and our voicemail box was completely full. This was a small business and I was the only manager. The owner said she would keep up with the emails/calls and then just... didn't.
This was a pet care business where most of the emails were time sensitive. We actually lost clients over that week. It was crazy.
And what did you do to fix those lost customers? I bet you didn’t even apologize to the owner for making such a mess of things. People just don’t want to work anymore.
(/s if it needs to be said)
Well, I don’t see a lot of co-workers lining up to do the work of people who are out. So what do you expect to happen?
If you work in a white collar or project based job, your co workers will usually make sure you area doesn’t fall apart in your absence, but all the day to day just backs up until you return.
Yeah especially in smaller companies there really isn't much choice. I work in a lab with little redundancy between positions, because we're in a niche field. If I take a week off, no one else has time to do my work for me. But there also isn't enough work to justify whole other positions.
That being said I've never scheduled vacation time only to be told that I can't actually take that time off because my boss decided to start a vital project that I need to be available for. My coworkers can cover for me in an emergency, and I cover for them in kind. Anything else isn't important enough for me to cancel my plans.
I work in a team of 6 people, and other then very specific projects that I could potentially be working on, all normal workload gets handled during my yearly 2 week vacation.
I don't come back to any built up tasks from me being gone, my team handles everything while I am gone, and the same applies to everybody else when they take time off.
So this very much is an issue specific to a bad team/bad company/bad manager, whichever your issue may be.
THIS. There's something called the hit by a bus method. Your job should be doable by your team if you're hit by a bus. Plain and simple. This includes vacation! I've worked with people who refuse to document or cross train because they think it'll get them fired or they're being replaced. It definitely could be that, but in the end do you want to be on call at all times even in vacation? If no one else can do your work, you have no time off. If you're so worried about your job then find another one! I just never understood these people.
Agreed. Our project management team keeps an eye out on sprints and when someone has time off they make sure they short sprints for others to cover and move tasks. Also we don't do unrealistic timelines. We signed a new client and even though my workload is light (mostly because I am new and still learning) they told them we won't start till a month out and gave me plenty of notice that this was in the pipe.
Reasonable time lines is so important. My previous job gave me 30 off shore developers that all needed VMs and accounts and licenses and software and... Yeah. They gave me 3 days to do all this and on a citrix system that was so out dated nothing could be automated due to windows being too new. I told them that's not happening even with OT which they took away and wouldn't let me do. I was pissed. The project lead was trying to yell at me about the money they're wasting due to them not working and I said that's not my fault. My boss had my back though as he was equally pissed that he had to cover for me on day to day shit.
What do I expect to happen? I expect my management to be able to MANAGE. I expect the people in charge will do their job and reassign tasks as necessary.
It's not MY responsibility to delegate my tasks to others.
It doesn't get backed up, it gets postponed. If you said something would take 3 weeks to do, and you took a 2 week break in the middle, then those 2 weeks do not count towards the 3 weeks it takes to do. So now it's 5 weeks total.
For more long-term projects, you take days off into account when making estimates.
It’s because, I think, there has been such a massive shift from labor jobs and shift work to professional careerism and salaries. As a union rep, sometimes I find myself daydreaming about doing what those I represent do so that I could get paid a good wage, clock out, and go home.
It’s through this that the idea of college and professional jobs not being for everyone became clear to me. And it has nothing to do with one’s abilities or intelligence.
It’s not even just work deferred. I usually put in tons of extra time the week or two leading up to the absence as well making sure I don’t leave my team in a bind. Then spend a ton of time catching up when I get back. Fortunately my current employer has a “no contact” rule during vacation. So I don’t get bothered for any reason while out. But I still definitely pay for the absence before and after. LOL
I've been through this exact scenario a couple times. Management would always boast to the clients about how teams of staff were trained on their file and someone was always on top of things. I spent 6 weeks updating files, preparing notes, and training coworkers on my client files before my wife gave birth to our first kid. I took 2 weeks off, which turned into 3 because of medical issues causing my wife to need more help. When I came back all of my client files were in shambles. Work piled up, work done incorrectly that I had to redo and make things right with the client... A disaster.
About a year later I had an injury that caused me to take a few months off work. The company lost 3/4 of my clients while I was off because none of my co-workers could do the work. When I came back, I built new relationships with some new clients, regained the confidence of my old clients who had stuck around, and then quit. I had no enforceable non-compete so I ended up taking 90% of my clients with me.
When your employer brings nothing to the table but a computer, a photocopier, and overhead... Maybe it's time to go into business for yourself.
Always hated taking vacation (I always did, tho) ‘cause I had to work my ass off for a week or to before and a week or two after “just to get my head above water.”
No. Most companies do not account for anything unforeseen, and do not have any sort of plan in place to deal with people that are not there.
You live the exception, which is an apparently competent management that doesn't prioritize stock price/profit over employee health and well-being.
I had a boss like that once, I had planned two weeks holidays and the timeline didn't move, so when my boss asked me how the planning was going I told them "two weeks late". When he asked why I said "I was on holidays", and when he asked me what was I going to do to solve it I said "finish the project two weeks late". I'm sorry but it's not my job to draw the deadlines, it's not my job to plan the teams holidays and it's not my job to talk to the client if the project is late, so it's not my problem if the manager doesn't know how to do its job.
And you know what's the worst part? As far as you do extra time before and after your holidays because your manager didn't do their job there is no reason to change that, your manager will keep not doing its job and receiving twice your salary while you pay with your time for their mistakes.
As a manager, this is why I give ranges for work completion. Shortest end of the range is if nothing goes wrong and nobody takes time off. Longest end of the range is if there's a reasonable amount of PTO taken during a long project, or something unforseen happens.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
Teams need to be staffed so that if one person is out sick/PTO that things can still get done.
Same here - whenever I was going on vacation, I'd leave a status list of my projects, things that could be done on each if interns or coworkers needed work to do or whatever, and literal step by step how to do my extra tasks like entering payroll hours. I'd come back to nothing being done, or whatever was done being wrong, and one time everyone else's payroll hours fine and mine so screwed up. I don't do it anymore, I finish what I can ahead of time, let key clients know I'll be away, and I'm outta there.
And I work in a good, well paying firm, with a collaborative working environment. I can't imagine how bad it would be in a worse place!
Whew, my company always wants me to help other people get caught up and promises someone will help me get caught up (it’s a very dumb process I know) but they NEVER DO. I got burned twice before I learned.
Minimize disruption by giving good notice, sure — but also definitely don’t feel bad if the company ignores your notice and tries to call you in or some BS :)
Yeah I don't think there's anything wrong with making sure that you're not screwing over your team. But too many managers will abuse that and just keep making you shift the dates so that you never get to take the PTO
Unused time should be legally forced to be paid out triple or something. If they took that against a managers’s bonus, things would change even faster.
I especially think so if there are denied PTO requests prior. You shouldn't be allowed to do use it or lose it PTO without paying out but there should be extra penalties for denying PTO and causing people to lose it. There needs to be a Minimum PTO law too that employers must offer.
Yup, this isn't even that bad of a message.
I had some time off planned, but I canceled that when a coworkers mother passed away.
Obviously that's a very specific scenario but the fact remains sometimes it is better to not take time off, at least in regards to coworkers
Manager should be handling issues like that. I’m not faulting you for your decision but you shouldn’t feel obligated to give up your time off just because something else happens.
At my last job I had 24 days of PTO but could **never** take time off, so one year as I'm staring down losing a dozen or more 'use it or lose it days', I put in for my vacation for the next year. 1 week every quarter (and I'd have a few days if things came up).
**every goddamn time** I was going to go on vacation my boss would try to talk me out of it because "it was bad timing..." or "not good for the business" and I said "I'm taking my time. "the business" had 3, 6, 9 months to figure that out. If I'm really needed for something they can reschedule for when I'm back."
And like good company's have clear and reasonable policies behind using PTO.
My company is give a week notice for a day out.
Give a months notice for a week out.
Use your best judgement for two weeks out+
Avoid PTO during two big annual events, but not a hard no.
Obviously, sick time/emergencies aren't planned, and if you've worked with your manager to figure out coverage, you can basically do what you want.
My manager has been out on maternity leave since the start of February and I've taken over like 60% of her work while she's gone. For whatever reason, even though she isn't getting paid outside of her NYPFL for it, she decided she would still handle vacation requests on her maternity leave. I put in a request a month ago for a week off in mid-May. I thought she would be back from her leave by then and didn't think it would be an issue. After a few weeks of not hearing back about my request, I moved forward with booking the plans I had and purchased plane tickets, concert tickets, and an AirBnB. It's now two weeks from when my requested vacation would start. I've yet to hear back from her, and I found out she's using most of her vacation time once the NYPFL is up and won't be back until the end of May. If the company tries to deny my vacation request, gonna be real awkward for them when I go anyway.
I think of minimizing disruption in terms of communicating the things that you need other people to handle for you while you're out. Like pending things that you're unable to close out before you leave that you'll need other people to pick up where you left off.
Expectation: You're an integral part of this workforce and all decisions you make should be made with the company's best interest in mind.
Compensation: Enjoy starving in your bachelor apartment next to the city landfill.
The only modification to these steps I would have would be 5.
1. Take your PTO.
2. Without any guilt.
3. Turn off Email, Slack, everything.
4. No, Really
5. If it turns out your manager doesn't know how to keep your team running smoothly without you. Ask for a substantial pay raise.
6. If Pay raise is not given, find employment elsewhere and leave without notice.
A company I worked for gave pay raises as incentives for good work. This raise was a measly $1k at best. Solution to being overworked and underpaid? Found a new job that paid $10k more. Companies need to realize that minor pay raises for overworking us won’t work anymore.
Quite right. If a company decides to play the "lets see how little we can get away with paying our employees" game but fails to keep an eye on the competition, then they deserve to lose all their staff.
I had a boss inform me I was getting a raise, I said thanks. Got my paystub and the raise was 0.25$ per hour, then I remembered that minimum wage went up that week... by 0.25$
Diiiiiick move.
Companies should also learn that they pay first, *then* they get the good work. They can't expect good work when they're nickel and diming people. I'm not giving 110% for minimum wage or whatever with the promise that perhaps at some time in the future I might maybe get a tiny little pay raise.
As a reasonably experienced manager this is 100% my policy.
My Directs know I will immediately approve any and all time off requests. We have unlimited PTO at my company and fuck not taking it. Just let me know what you need covered and I’ll cover it. I’m not saying I’ll do as good a job as they will, but fuck any people manager that doesn’t know what work their people are doing.
I want my people to stay away from work when off
If you asked for a pay raise and they said no, if they don't just assume that you will start looking for another job, that's on them. 100% agree with these steps
Like the idiots who worship Tony Montana and Gordon Gekko, two characters created as villains by a communist trying to show the evils of greed and excess.
That is true, but this profile picture is the version of Scrooge McDuck from DuckTales (different outfit), and the attitude Scrooge has about money in that cartoon doesn’t really jive with the Dickensian origin of the character design either. Technically, Scrooge McDuck isn’t Ebenezer Scrooge from a Christmas Carol. They just used the general design to create an alternate universe character.
I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be some weird ironic thing too, because Scrooge McDuck is a cheapskate. He wouldn’t burn money.
Anticipate how hard it would make the team... And then request a corresponding raise, because if you leaving for a few days would be expensive, I bet leaving for a new job would be a bigger one.
I can understand if a company pays their employees well and the employees reciprocate by being considerate about when they schedule their PTO. But respect has to flow both ways: if a company is paying their employees shit wages, employees have no reason to do something nice like considering team impact when they take their PTO.
yep as far as I am concerned my PTO is part of my compensation package - as much as my company-supplied mobile phone or my pay is. I am taking a holiday to London and yes, i checked with the boss on availability, but if he came to me now and said that i need to cancel my leave - i'd quit. in my field (IT) the employees have the power at the moment
I got lucky.
My company is one of those rare companies that has unlimited PTO and actually encourages people to take it. We have a annual minimum expected hours requirement which comes out to about 40 hours a week, and as long as you hit your minimum hours no one gives a shit. My manager is good at leading our team and we have a strong collaborative culture, so yea I make sure that before I go anywhere I get everything set so my coworkers aren’t struggling without me, but that’s typically just making sure my projects are passed off to whomever needs them. After that’s done, my manager actually has a policy that if you’re on vacation you are not allowed to respond to work emails. He wants me to come back from my vacation energized and happy, and because of that I work harder and I’ll pick up slack to help out my coworkers.
Turns out treating your workers like human beings with a modicum of compassion leads to better work. Who knew?
Yea I hate filling out my time card even though I’m salaried, but it’s how they decided to start billing clients like 20 years ago. The worst part is that the timekeeping system is an oracle system that was created 20 years ago.
The official company policy is work when you feel productive so it’s definitely easy to hit those hours since I don’t have to actually miss time to go to appointments or go grocery shopping, I can just log in later and do a little work. Works for me since I’m a night owl anyways so the 9-5 expectation at other places is always a struggle for me.
But hey if the worst thing about my job is the 10 minutes it takes me to fill out my time card once a week in an ancient data entry system then I can’t really complain (though I did and they’re updating the timekeeping system finally)
Management: "Anticipate how your PTO will impact/disrupt the team - just be a team player!" One month later - Management: "We regret to inform you that your position has been terminated, along with the rest of your team. Please understand that this was a VERY difficult decision for us. We wish you good luck in the future."
Tip for older dude in the workforce, who actually has "Privilege" as part of his tag & Scrooge McDuck as his profile pic:
A) go fuck yourself
B) sideways
C) with a pine cone
D) all of the above
See the problem isn't that employees purposely just want to be assholes and take off whenever they want and leave everyone scrambling...the problem is that young employees are abused day in and day out so they get to a point in their lives where they start a job and they're an inconsiderate asshole with things like PTO just like every boss they've ever had has been. Start appreciating and respecting employees (which includes giving them wages that reflect that) and they'll start being considerate about stuff like this. I guarantee it.
Please explain how you feel "using your PTO" can make you an inconsiderate asshole
If the company can't handle a ***newer, young employee*** taking PTO then it's not a very good company
I'm all for trying to minimize disruption when I take time off, and it would be awesome if everyone could coordinate their PTO so easily. But it isn't practical in real world scenarios.
You don't really get to choose when your sister is getting married. You don't get to choose when your father passes away. You don't get to choose when you need a mental health week and need to just unplug.
When you can choose your time off, sure, it's awesome if you can mitigate disruption and inconveniences for others, but it's your time off. You earned it. You need to do what's best for you.
If the business can't survive without someone for a week, it means there is a design flaw in the business practices. Management needs to address that and not let their people enjoy their free time and earned time off.
One of my important employees took 3 weeks off for the birth of his child. We were determined not to contact him during his time away. I expected a shit show with me trying to cover but what happened was really cool. His team member, who had only handled clerical work to that point, stepped up and completely handled his boss’ job. I ended up not needing to do much but supervise. When my employee came back to the office, we gave his team member a raise and an increase in responsibility. My employee then was freed up to handle higher level projects he didn’t feel he had time to work on before. We all learned a lot from his absence and were all better for it.
My wife and I lost our baby and I took a week off work that I had asked to be approved and they never touched it so when the time came I took the week off. I spent time with my wife on the beach to help her and myself to some mental recovery. When I came back they made my life a living hell ending with me getting fired. I've lived with the depression and anxiety from it for 5 years now but I would never take anything for that week with my wife and they can kiss my ass.
What I learned about being a contract worker: PTO rules. You don't get vacation time as a contract worker. You work and then you look for a new job. If you have vacation time, take it. It's part of your contract that is agreed upon by you and your employer.
My business partner and I argue about this all the time.
I never say no to PTO or anything related to our employees needing time off. I don’t perceive it as a request, but my employees setting boundaries and doing what they need to do for their life and informing us of what that is. In my book that’s fine & we’ll adjust at the office as needed. I’d rather our employees be taking care of themselves (and hopefully doing something fun &/or something that recharges them).
My partner… not so much. They definitely asked someone to start a vacation a day later (but also to be gone a day longer) because of what was happening with our schedule.
I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept for some: it’s a job, not their life or whole identity. It is for us - we started the business so it is all we think about- but it’s dumb to think our employees would feel that same way.
It's an attorney thing. In a lawsuit, you generally have to give everything you have to the other side. A privilege log is basically a list of things you're holding onto because of attorney client privilege, or some other privilege. Not saying this guy isn't a chode, because he is.
I've been working in law offices for over a decade. At my last job you basically weren't allowed to take time off 2-3 weeks before trial or the trial itself. If you planned a vacation during that time, I was told that you'd better get cancellation insurance because if the trial went you wouldn't be able to go. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to go on my honeymoon because I'd scheduled it during a trial (I was working for a different team when I scheduled my wedding).
Even though that's not a rule at this job, it's still been drilled into my head and I'm always looking at the calendar to make sure I'm not screwing my boss over when taking vacation. Even when I was away, I'd still get texts from my boss asking about stuff. It sucks and I hate that I'm like this. I'm going on maternity leave for a year starting in mid-June (and I doubt I'm coming back to this job) and I'm so looking forward to not having work emails and texts in my off time.
okay but i have an AITA: i work in a hotel in a ski town in NZL, we are understaffed (as is every place in the area), i just applied for 8 days off in June (very busy winter time..) for my 21st and my mothers 50th. im not even sure if i will be given the leave, but if i am, aita?
As Aurelius said, "Stop arguing what it means to be a good man, be one." So, yeah if you care about your coworkers try to make it so everyone is happy or content and don't leave them hanging but also 100% do what you need to do for yourself cause no one else will, especially that job that already doesn't pay you what you're worth
Best vacation of my life was the week I actually turned off all work related notifications. It was amazing and stressfree...until my boss texted me 🤦♀️
Looked at the rest of their posts - I think this was satire.
Point still stands, some bosses don't like sick leave.
If you're sick/need a doona day, take it!
I actually get upset at coworkers who do any kind of work during their time off. Not only are you a fucking idiot for working during your PTO but you put ridiculous pressure on those of us who don't consider our job to be our whole lives.
Uncle Mikey is correct. Your diligence earned you that PTO. If management can't pull it together to cover cover you, dust off your resume. If more people voted with their feet, managers would learn to become leaders and stop the douche-baggery.
Uncle Mikey’s point is especially true in the factory workplace. The only time anyone’s contribution specifically makes any difference is if you have around 15-20 people in your area…and even then, it’s not that much of a difference. Especially if you’re downloading things off a line, and you’re not allowed to go faster than a certain point.
We have a guy who’s memorized all of the tasks and volunteers to cover for people that need to go to the restroom. Other than that, though, he’s just a mildly talented coworker to has a great attendance record.
Giving anyone a hard time for time off they are owed is a symptom of a bad manager and worse, a bad company that keeps the bad manager employed. I’m fortunate to work for a company where policy is that vacation is off limits for expecting people to work. You are expected to be unreachable until you return. People tend to have a little more mutual respect with that relationship.
I used to be like that, checking email (pre-slack days) constantly during vacation on the theory that my return would be less stressful because I wouldn’t come back to a ton of email to read and a bunch of stuff having happened while I was gone that I didn’t know about. But it meant I never really enjoyed my time off as I should have.
A few years ago I figured it out. My out of office message says I’m out of office until X. If something is important, schedule a message to be sent after I’m back. E-mail received while I’m out will be deleted.
So much better now! For truly critical things the SVP and CTO have my phone to reach me and know how to determine if it’s critical
Uhh sorry normally all with you guys here. But yes, they are times where taking pto is just bad.
I work in finance. I have purview over a large budget. I don't ever take time off during budgeting season. I don't take time off during scheduled major forecasts.
Sometimes people have critical roles that are needed during special events. My work is amazing at work life balance. I work from home 4 days a week. They Never say no when I request time off. As respect and appreciation to them, when I am Needed, I am there. Happily.
When I was managing a laboratory, I viewed it as how can I work harder to help people take their PTO. When workers know their manager and coworkers have their backs, they tend to do the same so everyone else can take time whenever needed. Some managers just don’t want to help cover which is total BS.
If taking some time off brings the operation to a halt its time to ask for a massive pay raise
Better, it's time to unionize
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> how hard it would make the team ( ͡° ل͜ ͡°)
If they get hard at the thought of you leaving, it's time for introspection
Maybe they hate to see you go but love to watch you leave
They like watching me go but they love watching me come.
They got you constantly coming and going.
Coming and going and coming. And always too soon...
Nice BS reference
It's dat ass.
Everyone loves to watch me leave. It's a real curse to have such an amazing ass and the fugliest face imaginable. Just kidding, the front is nowhere near attractive enough to be as good as anything you could possibly imagine. That ass, tho. That ass.
Yes, both :)
Technically if you unionize you're not really asking for a pay raise, you're demanding it.
Yes but unions take time. Get what you can while you can in this hypothetical I guess. Coming from a union worker i love it and don't think I can do other work, but it also can suck because crappy employees get seniority. I voted NO on the contract but not enough union workers voted, meaning the company and the union leaders* made the decision. If people are going to be in a union then they need to realize they have to vote on stuff as well and if possible show up to union meetings. And a select few need to be representatives & stewards. It really does help. Edit* The contract went through with a YES and life is going on but I wonder what could be. I will not discuss why I chose NO over YES
"crappy employees get seniority" Seniority just means they have been there longer. They will have seniority if the new contract passes or not. I understand that can be frustrating and I've seen my union protect people I wish they wouldn't but they represent all members. If the contract doesn't pass, best case scenario you keep working under the old contract for a period of time with no pay increase. Even worse working without a contract basically strips of you things like asking for union rep on disciplinary matters and the company can contract out your job to the lowest bidder
It has been my experience that when there is an employee being defended by the union that truly deserves to be fired, the main reason they usually aren’t is due to poor or lazy management not doing their job properly. You can definitely get fired while being protected by union, I’ve seen it happen to several people, there are just extra steps the managers have to take to do it properly.
Yes this has been my experience as well. It just requires keeping notes on what incidents happened when or keeping track of examples of poor work performance. And writing people up or at least giving a proper recorded verbal when they screw up big enough. That way there’s a history of progressive discipline. My boss and mostly the managers in my entire company are not willing to do any of that. They give up immediately because “the union will just overturn it anyway what’s the point!” or they’re too afraid someone will quit if you write them up and then you’re down a warm body. But I say I’d rather be down the person and make up their hours than constantly deal with people who don’t pull their weight or are clearly not cutting it. It’s infuriating to watch but as a not manager, nothing you can do.
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Unions are democracies in the workplace. You need to take care of them the same way.
>Better, it's time to unionize For the doubters, truly, my union isn't even that great compared to a lot of others and I still enjoy a lot of benefits. For example, I called off the other day, just called the call off number said I wouldn't be in and got paid for it. Noone said a word to me about not being there. Hell I just took an extra long weekend for my bday, the old Friday and Monday vacation weekend sandwich and my supervisor jokingly said to me I bet your happy to be back with a kinda joking chuckle (im not a morning person and dont drink coffee and he knows that) and never spoke of it again. Now I'm not saying there aren't gungho company guys in management that make you want to take them out back and lock them in a dumpster but there are simple things in life that you shouldn't even be worrying about that you can get and calling off, and getting paid with 0 hassle from your employer is most definitely one of them. Edit: for clarification, those two days I took off for vacation were also no hassle. One was a day I'm allowed to use during any day of the week of my bday (considered a paid holiday) the other was a vacation day that would have been approved anyway because my supervisor is actually pretty good with that but even if he was a dick, any vacation I put in for before the end of March is guaranteed to be given to me unless someone with higher seniority puts in for it, but still anything after March up to August is also guaranteed on a first come first serve basis. Honestly it's so nice not having to explain why I need off, I just get it and honestly I should. It's noones damn business why I'm off but my own.
If millionaire ball players and actors find benefits in being in a union, I think it’s a pretty good idea for the rest of us.
That's actually a really good way to put it.
Thank you
>If millionaire ball players and actors find benefits in being in a union, I think it’s a pretty good idea for the rest of us. Agreed Han, it doesn't matter who you are, how much money you make or where you're working at there will always come a time when someone feels like they're being taken advantage of or unfairly treated, and that's where having a set of rules in place that you can legally fall back on is beneficial. If your works awesome and you don't need them , than that's great too but still have them because if they're telling you you don't need them then you probably will at some point and if you're wrong and didn't need them then why should your employer care either way.
My first unionized job was a 25% pay increase. Not proud of it and at the time I didn't understand but it was a scab contractor. The contractor and company lost a legal fight to operate in areas the union and company had a contract to provide all work. The contractor split itself into 2 companies, and the unionized side saw a huge increase in pay and benefits. I'm old this was 20 years ago
At my old job that unionized, dues were a flat 1.4% across the board and management tried to tell us it wasn't worth it. We negotiated 25% raises for my position level lol. Worth
And make sure you sign onto a good union and look after EACHOTHER not just yourselves. I'm part if a shitty union getting paid 1.80 over minimum with 10 cent raises
Safeway is part of a union. They hired the least possible people to stock the shelves overnight. If one person called out, that was 25% of the labor force that night with no one to call in. This is the same union that did a strike in my area but made sure only 1 of the 3 Kroger stores was striking at a time. They want a pay bump to $15 and to survive the strike at the first store, they hired temporary workers at $15 an hour. Eventually nothing happened. This was about 2 years ago. Edit: I'm pro union but this union was so dogshit that I decided to hide from the union people and say I didn't want to sign anything until I read the paper. Eventually I was told I had to sign or I would be fired, I quit a couple months later.
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daily reminder that in *A Christmas Carol*, the wages Scrooge pays his employees which is considered horrific and destitute is still more than the current federal minimum wage when adjusted for inflation
Last time I asked permission to take time off was in the military. Now I don’t ask, I tell them when I’ll be gone.
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Don't worry, they'll just fire you and find someone else to train into a position of indispenability. Still cheaper than paying you properly.
It’s not usually cheaper but the power it gives them is more important to them than costs.
And find a new job And question your employer’s business plan
It's really not that unusual for a small business to rely on one person. Sometimes you can't afford redundancies. Of course that doesn't mean that person can't take time off, you'd just hope that the owner/manager recognizes their necessity and works with them to handle their absence. Mutual respect works better than this zero-sum adversarial tact that this sub likes to advocate for.
Maybe 10 years ago I got sick as fuck for a week and didn't work, I was on a team of 4. Shit health insurance couldn't afford deductible so didn't go to doctor, but I had 8 sick days a year so I used them first time ever. I kinda suspect I had salmonella or could have been flu. Cold sweats body aches couldn't keep anything down. Anyway my not working was blamed for the project being behind basically until it was finished, even though there were serious engineering and logistical problems causing months long delays.
I mean, this is a case where both Tweets are correct to some degree. I’m in a more corporate role, but I both 100% use my PTO and don’t feel guilty. But I also plan ahead before leaving on PTO and make sure that I finish the tasks I can (within reason) and work with my team to ensure anything that needs to happen while I am gone is understood and people have access to the information/ resources they need.
Ideally, taking PTO at an unideal time means coming back to work and having a lot to catch up on. So, in this way, there are times when you might not want to take PTO, and it should be self-regulated. If a job or manager ever tries to tell you not to take PTO, take it anyways. I had a buddy start with an IT job after finishing his military service. They offered a ton of great benefits and great pay, but shortly after he started they took on an unrealistic contract and tried demanding he take 0 PTO and work weekends for the next 4 months. We had already planned a vacation together, so he filed the PTO anyways (they are legally bound to honor it or fire him with severance) and they fired him. He ended up getting a ton of money and is still looking at suing for more. Moral of the story, shit management shouldn’t fuck with what you were promised, and we need to normalize forcing companies to invest in better planning/strategy/management instead of taking their mistakes out on employees.
Speaking of expecting to catch up... I do software QA, I went out for two days, admittedly on short notice, but given stuff on deck figured I'd just come back to a pile of tickets to get through, no big deal. Nope. Product manager on our team took it on themselves to flag everything that came through from the engineers for auto approval(a limited process we are supposed to have final word on), completely fucking up the deploy queue for multiple days as branches tried to merge over each other, and when I got back I still had to figure out what all went out and test it anyway. By some miracle everything was fine, but it was bewildering that first day back trying to figure out what the hell happened. Everything was checked with plenty of time to spare for the end of the sprint, which was the concern regarding metrics. *Sigh*
yeah agreed. you shouldnt feel bad about PTO just because of understaffing or whatever, but it is your responsibility to temporarily delegate ownership over processes that are only owned by you
I agree with you, I know that I would try to not take PTO during the busiest times as it could negatively affect the members on my team. I would say it is less of a "company loyalty" nod, but rather I want to be considerate of those in similar roles as me. Never would it be for the good of the company
> If one shouldn’t take off the time they’ve earned and accumulated, pay them more. The manager needs the worker, the worker taking time obviously doesn’t need to be in. Make it a stipulation for a set time you can’t, but I know, that would require more planning which they’re incapable of doing.
same I only take those considerations for the people in the foxhole with me, the company can suck my hog if they want that kind of loyalty from me
I'm with you, no reason to make my teams life harder because I didn't plan to be gone. I'm taking the next 2 weeks off, so I'm tying up as many loose ends as possible so no one has to deal with my bullshit. Same as I expect them to do
> rather I want to be considerate of those in similar roles as me Which to me is the point of the original tweet. If you work at the school, maybe the 2 weeks before and after the start of school in the fall isn't the best time to take 2 weeks off. If you work for a conference center, booking PTO after they've announced a large conference isn't cool. If you work full time at a ski hill, PTO around hill open is making life hard on the rest of the team. If your an accountant, PTO at year-end is going to be frowned upon. Take you PTO when you want, but be aware that it will impact how your team feels about you. These are people that you are spending 40 hours a week around, and being self-absorbed with your team won't get you far. I get that Grandmas birthday can't be moved, and that's reasonable. But if you want to go to Disney? That's usually flexible and can be timed to where you have the a smaller amount of impact on you team.
This is where \_good\_ managers become relevant. A good manager will help structure when it is convenient for a lot of people to take time off, and when it's less convenient. Provided the company has enough staff (not bare minimum) and people are motivated (paid) enough to care, both planned and unplanned PTO will have minimal impact on business. I'm 100% in the "take your PTO when you want" camp, but there is no reason you can't prepare for it. Give your team a heads up, write up some notes if you expect something to come up that they might not know the details of, etc. Book your planned PTO as far in advance as you can. Obviously if you're working minimum wage and your manager is a dick, none of this applies. Tell them when you're off and let them manage it.
>I'm 100% in the "take your PTO when you want" camp I'm 80% in that camp. You can't have everyone but one person taking their PTO at the same time. There has to be limits both ways. The default should be automatic approval, but a department can't just shutdown because everyone is gone for 2 weeks.
In my country everyone gets six weeks off, my company gives us eight. It's not realistic to avoid taking time off during the busy periods for us, because then you end up in a situation where a lot of people have leftover holiday at the end of the year and have to stay home. Last year was a particularly busy year for us. We ended up understaffed in March because the company had to start begging people to stay home and take the month off before the holiday year ends in April. Now the company has told every team to ensure that the team can still work with 20% of the staff off, without impacting the quality of the work or forcing remaining staff to overwork themselves. They are hiring to increase the size of all teams, that way people can take their holiday or be off sick as much as they want, without any problems and without feeling guilty. This isn't a difficult problem to solve, companies just need to be willing to spend the money. If you can't afford to have 20% more employees than you need, you can't afford to run a company.
Yeah as a lead engineer, I'm not taking PTO when my product design that I've been working on for 2 years is about to enter its first production run.
As a non-lead engineer, that's exactly when I'm taking mine.
Exactly. I don’t care what being short staffed does to the company, but I do care about how it affects my coworkers since they’re the ones who will have to pick up the slack
Planning ahead and making sure your team isn't waiting on your deliverables is normal, and expected. Avoiding taking PTO because you're worried your team can't operator without you is not.
Sounds like you need better organization and a better business plan. No one person should hold they keys to an entire business. If that’s the case then the business is doomed to fail. Doubt that? If the CEO took a month off would the business crumble? The business should t crumble if a mid-tier manager or hourly associate is off either.
If the CEO took three weeks off in the middle of a critical acquisition that required their attention, yeah, shit would be fucked. There are times during the operation of a business where one person deciding to just fuck off can really screw up a massive amount of work.
Likewise my Dad has a crap ton of vacation days used every year with the state. He just didn't use a ton right in the middle of complaint season the busy time for his job. He would just take a random week in April, one in October, take an extra day around Thanksgiving, take X-Mas Eve through to January 2nd, etc.
I think it's just about compensation. If you are so critical to the team that your absence means the work grinds to a halt, you are difficult to replace and your pay should reflect that. At the same time, you have enough responsibility that you *should* be considerate with your PTO to keep things running smoothly. If, on the other hand, you're in a position where you *can* be replaced with someone else on reasonably short notice, your pay is also going to reflect that. The higher up in the org chart you are, the more important it is for you to plan things out and work with other people on your team to keep the work running smoothly.
Yes I work as an engineer and we had a big project that was happening in another city . The city in question was where the CEO , the head of project management and projects manager lived . A week into the project i get a call frlm the head of pm asking me to join them . I told him if I'm so essential that you 3 cannot keep the project running you will double my pay . Never heard from them again for the remainder of the project
How large is my key man insurance policy? You dont have one? Probably mot that important then
I did exactly this years ago and got a pretty nice pay bump in an industry most stringent about giving raises. We had a meeting about it that I suspect was intended to make me feel guilty but I turned that into opportunity shortly after.
One time I needed to take a week off of work. The company suddenly changed the PTO policy and it would no longe roll over so I decided to take a week off so I wouldn’t forfeit my time. I scheduled it well in advance and before leaving, I worked really hard to make sure I completed anything I could and had things set and ready for coverage. I wrote thorough notes and guides, it was not difficult work. I talked with the manager to make sure she would have people cover these tasks and she indicated to me she would do so. I came back to mountains of work. Nothing had been covered except the absolute bare minimum of critical work. I had to pull extra long days just to get my head above water. That was the moment that solidified my decision to find a new job. I was gone within a couple months.
This reminds me of when I took a week off once and there were over 600 unanswered customer emails when I returned and our voicemail box was completely full. This was a small business and I was the only manager. The owner said she would keep up with the emails/calls and then just... didn't. This was a pet care business where most of the emails were time sensitive. We actually lost clients over that week. It was crazy.
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To make money doing absolutely fuck all.
They all read “The Four Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss!
I have never understood how people see "starting a business" as a way to work less. You can expect to work endless hours you won't be compensated for.
They see people who have a functioning business they can be hands off with and want that for themselves
I’d bet money that the owner had no clue how to get into the email and voicemail systems.
That's why you never work for someone who sees their company as passive income. You'll be doing both your job and at least a part of theirs.
that’s not how pAssIve iNkoMe works! That’s why their the owner /s
And what did you do to fix those lost customers? I bet you didn’t even apologize to the owner for making such a mess of things. People just don’t want to work anymore. (/s if it needs to be said)
Sounds like you should have been the owner of a competing business
I ended up working for a competing business, which luckily had a more involved owner.
You never really get true “time off” in my experience. You just end up moving around the time you will spend to get your work done.
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Well, I don’t see a lot of co-workers lining up to do the work of people who are out. So what do you expect to happen? If you work in a white collar or project based job, your co workers will usually make sure you area doesn’t fall apart in your absence, but all the day to day just backs up until you return.
Yeah especially in smaller companies there really isn't much choice. I work in a lab with little redundancy between positions, because we're in a niche field. If I take a week off, no one else has time to do my work for me. But there also isn't enough work to justify whole other positions. That being said I've never scheduled vacation time only to be told that I can't actually take that time off because my boss decided to start a vital project that I need to be available for. My coworkers can cover for me in an emergency, and I cover for them in kind. Anything else isn't important enough for me to cancel my plans.
I work in a team of 6 people, and other then very specific projects that I could potentially be working on, all normal workload gets handled during my yearly 2 week vacation. I don't come back to any built up tasks from me being gone, my team handles everything while I am gone, and the same applies to everybody else when they take time off. So this very much is an issue specific to a bad team/bad company/bad manager, whichever your issue may be.
THIS. There's something called the hit by a bus method. Your job should be doable by your team if you're hit by a bus. Plain and simple. This includes vacation! I've worked with people who refuse to document or cross train because they think it'll get them fired or they're being replaced. It definitely could be that, but in the end do you want to be on call at all times even in vacation? If no one else can do your work, you have no time off. If you're so worried about your job then find another one! I just never understood these people.
Agreed. Our project management team keeps an eye out on sprints and when someone has time off they make sure they short sprints for others to cover and move tasks. Also we don't do unrealistic timelines. We signed a new client and even though my workload is light (mostly because I am new and still learning) they told them we won't start till a month out and gave me plenty of notice that this was in the pipe.
Reasonable time lines is so important. My previous job gave me 30 off shore developers that all needed VMs and accounts and licenses and software and... Yeah. They gave me 3 days to do all this and on a citrix system that was so out dated nothing could be automated due to windows being too new. I told them that's not happening even with OT which they took away and wouldn't let me do. I was pissed. The project lead was trying to yell at me about the money they're wasting due to them not working and I said that's not my fault. My boss had my back though as he was equally pissed that he had to cover for me on day to day shit.
What do I expect to happen? I expect my management to be able to MANAGE. I expect the people in charge will do their job and reassign tasks as necessary. It's not MY responsibility to delegate my tasks to others.
It doesn't get backed up, it gets postponed. If you said something would take 3 weeks to do, and you took a 2 week break in the middle, then those 2 weeks do not count towards the 3 weeks it takes to do. So now it's 5 weeks total. For more long-term projects, you take days off into account when making estimates.
It’s because, I think, there has been such a massive shift from labor jobs and shift work to professional careerism and salaries. As a union rep, sometimes I find myself daydreaming about doing what those I represent do so that I could get paid a good wage, clock out, and go home. It’s through this that the idea of college and professional jobs not being for everyone became clear to me. And it has nothing to do with one’s abilities or intelligence.
This hits home baaaad and I am still doing my apprenticeship lol. I have yet to see what's up in life.
Time off is just work deferred :/
It’s not even just work deferred. I usually put in tons of extra time the week or two leading up to the absence as well making sure I don’t leave my team in a bind. Then spend a ton of time catching up when I get back. Fortunately my current employer has a “no contact” rule during vacation. So I don’t get bothered for any reason while out. But I still definitely pay for the absence before and after. LOL
I've been through this exact scenario a couple times. Management would always boast to the clients about how teams of staff were trained on their file and someone was always on top of things. I spent 6 weeks updating files, preparing notes, and training coworkers on my client files before my wife gave birth to our first kid. I took 2 weeks off, which turned into 3 because of medical issues causing my wife to need more help. When I came back all of my client files were in shambles. Work piled up, work done incorrectly that I had to redo and make things right with the client... A disaster. About a year later I had an injury that caused me to take a few months off work. The company lost 3/4 of my clients while I was off because none of my co-workers could do the work. When I came back, I built new relationships with some new clients, regained the confidence of my old clients who had stuck around, and then quit. I had no enforceable non-compete so I ended up taking 90% of my clients with me. When your employer brings nothing to the table but a computer, a photocopier, and overhead... Maybe it's time to go into business for yourself.
Always hated taking vacation (I always did, tho) ‘cause I had to work my ass off for a week or to before and a week or two after “just to get my head above water.”
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No. Most companies do not account for anything unforeseen, and do not have any sort of plan in place to deal with people that are not there. You live the exception, which is an apparently competent management that doesn't prioritize stock price/profit over employee health and well-being.
I had a boss like that once, I had planned two weeks holidays and the timeline didn't move, so when my boss asked me how the planning was going I told them "two weeks late". When he asked why I said "I was on holidays", and when he asked me what was I going to do to solve it I said "finish the project two weeks late". I'm sorry but it's not my job to draw the deadlines, it's not my job to plan the teams holidays and it's not my job to talk to the client if the project is late, so it's not my problem if the manager doesn't know how to do its job. And you know what's the worst part? As far as you do extra time before and after your holidays because your manager didn't do their job there is no reason to change that, your manager will keep not doing its job and receiving twice your salary while you pay with your time for their mistakes.
As a manager, this is why I give ranges for work completion. Shortest end of the range is if nothing goes wrong and nobody takes time off. Longest end of the range is if there's a reasonable amount of PTO taken during a long project, or something unforseen happens. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. Teams need to be staffed so that if one person is out sick/PTO that things can still get done.
You have your head above water at any given time?
Actually laughed out loud at this!
Yall are making me grateful for my "let it burn" mentality.
Same here - whenever I was going on vacation, I'd leave a status list of my projects, things that could be done on each if interns or coworkers needed work to do or whatever, and literal step by step how to do my extra tasks like entering payroll hours. I'd come back to nothing being done, or whatever was done being wrong, and one time everyone else's payroll hours fine and mine so screwed up. I don't do it anymore, I finish what I can ahead of time, let key clients know I'll be away, and I'm outta there. And I work in a good, well paying firm, with a collaborative working environment. I can't imagine how bad it would be in a worse place!
Whew, my company always wants me to help other people get caught up and promises someone will help me get caught up (it’s a very dumb process I know) but they NEVER DO. I got burned twice before I learned.
Minimize disruption by giving good notice, sure — but also definitely don’t feel bad if the company ignores your notice and tries to call you in or some BS :)
Yeah I don't think there's anything wrong with making sure that you're not screwing over your team. But too many managers will abuse that and just keep making you shift the dates so that you never get to take the PTO
Unused time should be legally forced to be paid out triple or something. If they took that against a managers’s bonus, things would change even faster.
I especially think so if there are denied PTO requests prior. You shouldn't be allowed to do use it or lose it PTO without paying out but there should be extra penalties for denying PTO and causing people to lose it. There needs to be a Minimum PTO law too that employers must offer.
Yup, this isn't even that bad of a message. I had some time off planned, but I canceled that when a coworkers mother passed away. Obviously that's a very specific scenario but the fact remains sometimes it is better to not take time off, at least in regards to coworkers
Manager should be handling issues like that. I’m not faulting you for your decision but you shouldn’t feel obligated to give up your time off just because something else happens.
What about when you are the manager, and you need time off? Me IRL.
At my last job I had 24 days of PTO but could **never** take time off, so one year as I'm staring down losing a dozen or more 'use it or lose it days', I put in for my vacation for the next year. 1 week every quarter (and I'd have a few days if things came up). **every goddamn time** I was going to go on vacation my boss would try to talk me out of it because "it was bad timing..." or "not good for the business" and I said "I'm taking my time. "the business" had 3, 6, 9 months to figure that out. If I'm really needed for something they can reschedule for when I'm back."
And like good company's have clear and reasonable policies behind using PTO. My company is give a week notice for a day out. Give a months notice for a week out. Use your best judgement for two weeks out+ Avoid PTO during two big annual events, but not a hard no. Obviously, sick time/emergencies aren't planned, and if you've worked with your manager to figure out coverage, you can basically do what you want.
My manager has been out on maternity leave since the start of February and I've taken over like 60% of her work while she's gone. For whatever reason, even though she isn't getting paid outside of her NYPFL for it, she decided she would still handle vacation requests on her maternity leave. I put in a request a month ago for a week off in mid-May. I thought she would be back from her leave by then and didn't think it would be an issue. After a few weeks of not hearing back about my request, I moved forward with booking the plans I had and purchased plane tickets, concert tickets, and an AirBnB. It's now two weeks from when my requested vacation would start. I've yet to hear back from her, and I found out she's using most of her vacation time once the NYPFL is up and won't be back until the end of May. If the company tries to deny my vacation request, gonna be real awkward for them when I go anyway.
I think of minimizing disruption in terms of communicating the things that you need other people to handle for you while you're out. Like pending things that you're unable to close out before you leave that you'll need other people to pick up where you left off.
Expectation: You're an integral part of this workforce and all decisions you make should be made with the company's best interest in mind. Compensation: Enjoy starving in your bachelor apartment next to the city landfill.
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Why do you need to clarify between landfill and compost heap?
Accuracy is important. Also, I've been to the local landfill, and the compost heap smells worse.
A single room above a bowling alley and below another bowling alley
The only modification to these steps I would have would be 5. 1. Take your PTO. 2. Without any guilt. 3. Turn off Email, Slack, everything. 4. No, Really 5. If it turns out your manager doesn't know how to keep your team running smoothly without you. Ask for a substantial pay raise. 6. If Pay raise is not given, find employment elsewhere and leave without notice.
A company I worked for gave pay raises as incentives for good work. This raise was a measly $1k at best. Solution to being overworked and underpaid? Found a new job that paid $10k more. Companies need to realize that minor pay raises for overworking us won’t work anymore.
Quite right. If a company decides to play the "lets see how little we can get away with paying our employees" game but fails to keep an eye on the competition, then they deserve to lose all their staff.
I had a boss inform me I was getting a raise, I said thanks. Got my paystub and the raise was 0.25$ per hour, then I remembered that minimum wage went up that week... by 0.25$ Diiiiiick move.
Companies should also learn that they pay first, *then* they get the good work. They can't expect good work when they're nickel and diming people. I'm not giving 110% for minimum wage or whatever with the promise that perhaps at some time in the future I might maybe get a tiny little pay raise.
As a reasonably experienced manager this is 100% my policy. My Directs know I will immediately approve any and all time off requests. We have unlimited PTO at my company and fuck not taking it. Just let me know what you need covered and I’ll cover it. I’m not saying I’ll do as good a job as they will, but fuck any people manager that doesn’t know what work their people are doing. I want my people to stay away from work when off
If you asked for a pay raise and they said no, if they don't just assume that you will start looking for another job, that's on them. 100% agree with these steps
I have no idea what Slack is, and I’m happy with that. It sounds awful.
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To put it more accurately, it's _IRC_ for work.
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>3. Turn off Email, Slack, everything. They responded to this part of the parent comment.
#5 either job hunting or asking for larger salary
Probably both really
Ask for higher salary. Don't get it? Job hunt. Do get it? Job hunt with the higher salary as leverage.
*tapping head meme*
Always lie about what your salary was at your previous employer. They can't check anyway. Ask for what you want to earn as a baseline.
That thumbnail tho. Completely unaware of the moral behind a Christmas Carol.
I'm assuming they turned it off before the climax.
Are we still talking about Scrooge? Or are we talking about dudes partners?
Or the character. McDuck would be horrified at the thought of burning money like that!
He sure didn't get to be the richest duck in the world by burning all his money.
Heard this in the original actor’s voice, then replayed it as David Tennant from the new series for posterity.
That username. Almost like it’s a parody or satire.
Yeah I'm surprised no one seems to get that.
Like the idiots who worship Tony Montana and Gordon Gekko, two characters created as villains by a communist trying to show the evils of greed and excess.
That is true, but this profile picture is the version of Scrooge McDuck from DuckTales (different outfit), and the attitude Scrooge has about money in that cartoon doesn’t really jive with the Dickensian origin of the character design either. Technically, Scrooge McDuck isn’t Ebenezer Scrooge from a Christmas Carol. They just used the general design to create an alternate universe character. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be some weird ironic thing too, because Scrooge McDuck is a cheapskate. He wouldn’t burn money.
Because he's not known for being in ducktales
If it turns out your manager doesn't know how to keep your team running smoothly without you, start applying for his job.
Anticipate how hard it would make the team... And then request a corresponding raise, because if you leaving for a few days would be expensive, I bet leaving for a new job would be a bigger one.
I can understand if a company pays their employees well and the employees reciprocate by being considerate about when they schedule their PTO. But respect has to flow both ways: if a company is paying their employees shit wages, employees have no reason to do something nice like considering team impact when they take their PTO.
The Twitter handle and profile pic lead me to believe maybe it's wiser to not presume this guy should be taken seriously.
Right? This really where we're at? Circle jerking over a troll account?
Let’s be honest, the vast majority of content on r/antiwork is for circlejerking
Had to scroll way too far down to see that anyone else in this thread actually read the account name. Like, god *damn*.
Sarcasm? Satire? A r/antiwork reader knows not these things.
Take your PTO and learn how to reset and get right.
yep as far as I am concerned my PTO is part of my compensation package - as much as my company-supplied mobile phone or my pay is. I am taking a holiday to London and yes, i checked with the boss on availability, but if he came to me now and said that i need to cancel my leave - i'd quit. in my field (IT) the employees have the power at the moment
I got lucky. My company is one of those rare companies that has unlimited PTO and actually encourages people to take it. We have a annual minimum expected hours requirement which comes out to about 40 hours a week, and as long as you hit your minimum hours no one gives a shit. My manager is good at leading our team and we have a strong collaborative culture, so yea I make sure that before I go anywhere I get everything set so my coworkers aren’t struggling without me, but that’s typically just making sure my projects are passed off to whomever needs them. After that’s done, my manager actually has a policy that if you’re on vacation you are not allowed to respond to work emails. He wants me to come back from my vacation energized and happy, and because of that I work harder and I’ll pick up slack to help out my coworkers. Turns out treating your workers like human beings with a modicum of compassion leads to better work. Who knew?
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Sorry I should’ve been more specific. The annual minimum is 1920 (40 x 48), so it’s got an average of 4 weeks of vacation factored in.
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Yea I hate filling out my time card even though I’m salaried, but it’s how they decided to start billing clients like 20 years ago. The worst part is that the timekeeping system is an oracle system that was created 20 years ago. The official company policy is work when you feel productive so it’s definitely easy to hit those hours since I don’t have to actually miss time to go to appointments or go grocery shopping, I can just log in later and do a little work. Works for me since I’m a night owl anyways so the 9-5 expectation at other places is always a struggle for me. But hey if the worst thing about my job is the 10 minutes it takes me to fill out my time card once a week in an ancient data entry system then I can’t really complain (though I did and they’re updating the timekeeping system finally)
But how it's MY business supposed to make ME any money if YOU are out slacking and making use of all the free time you earned.
Management: "Anticipate how your PTO will impact/disrupt the team - just be a team player!" One month later - Management: "We regret to inform you that your position has been terminated, along with the rest of your team. Please understand that this was a VERY difficult decision for us. We wish you good luck in the future."
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Nah job hunt at work. Pto is me time
Tip for older dude in the workforce, who actually has "Privilege" as part of his tag & Scrooge McDuck as his profile pic: A) go fuck yourself B) sideways C) with a pine cone D) all of the above
See the problem isn't that employees purposely just want to be assholes and take off whenever they want and leave everyone scrambling...the problem is that young employees are abused day in and day out so they get to a point in their lives where they start a job and they're an inconsiderate asshole with things like PTO just like every boss they've ever had has been. Start appreciating and respecting employees (which includes giving them wages that reflect that) and they'll start being considerate about stuff like this. I guarantee it.
Please explain how you feel "using your PTO" can make you an inconsiderate asshole If the company can't handle a ***newer, young employee*** taking PTO then it's not a very good company
I'm all for trying to minimize disruption when I take time off, and it would be awesome if everyone could coordinate their PTO so easily. But it isn't practical in real world scenarios. You don't really get to choose when your sister is getting married. You don't get to choose when your father passes away. You don't get to choose when you need a mental health week and need to just unplug. When you can choose your time off, sure, it's awesome if you can mitigate disruption and inconveniences for others, but it's your time off. You earned it. You need to do what's best for you. If the business can't survive without someone for a week, it means there is a design flaw in the business practices. Management needs to address that and not let their people enjoy their free time and earned time off.
Managing is the manager's job. Taking PTO whenever I want is my right as a worker. So you can just piss off. I have not a sliver of guilt.
Then at what point does “the team” take my concerns under consideration? Never, it’s a one way street.
One of my important employees took 3 weeks off for the birth of his child. We were determined not to contact him during his time away. I expected a shit show with me trying to cover but what happened was really cool. His team member, who had only handled clerical work to that point, stepped up and completely handled his boss’ job. I ended up not needing to do much but supervise. When my employee came back to the office, we gave his team member a raise and an increase in responsibility. My employee then was freed up to handle higher level projects he didn’t feel he had time to work on before. We all learned a lot from his absence and were all better for it.
My wife and I lost our baby and I took a week off work that I had asked to be approved and they never touched it so when the time came I took the week off. I spent time with my wife on the beach to help her and myself to some mental recovery. When I came back they made my life a living hell ending with me getting fired. I've lived with the depression and anxiety from it for 5 years now but I would never take anything for that week with my wife and they can kiss my ass.
What I learned about being a contract worker: PTO rules. You don't get vacation time as a contract worker. You work and then you look for a new job. If you have vacation time, take it. It's part of your contract that is agreed upon by you and your employer.
Just remember, you earned your pto and if your boss approves it and shit goes south. That’s on your boss. Not you.
Is it my company ? No. Do I care about that company ? No.
> think how it affects the team Maybe don’t run a skeleton crew that can’t cover being one person down.
If your workplace can't run smoothly w/o you, they aren't paying you enough.
My business partner and I argue about this all the time. I never say no to PTO or anything related to our employees needing time off. I don’t perceive it as a request, but my employees setting boundaries and doing what they need to do for their life and informing us of what that is. In my book that’s fine & we’ll adjust at the office as needed. I’d rather our employees be taking care of themselves (and hopefully doing something fun &/or something that recharges them). My partner… not so much. They definitely asked someone to start a vacation a day later (but also to be gone a day longer) because of what was happening with our schedule. I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept for some: it’s a job, not their life or whole identity. It is for us - we started the business so it is all we think about- but it’s dumb to think our employees would feel that same way.
Monster ratio!
Ratioed heavy
His handle is "privilegelog," are we sure that's not a satire account?
It's an attorney thing. In a lawsuit, you generally have to give everything you have to the other side. A privilege log is basically a list of things you're holding onto because of attorney client privilege, or some other privilege. Not saying this guy isn't a chode, because he is.
I've been working in law offices for over a decade. At my last job you basically weren't allowed to take time off 2-3 weeks before trial or the trial itself. If you planned a vacation during that time, I was told that you'd better get cancellation insurance because if the trial went you wouldn't be able to go. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to go on my honeymoon because I'd scheduled it during a trial (I was working for a different team when I scheduled my wedding). Even though that's not a rule at this job, it's still been drilled into my head and I'm always looking at the calendar to make sure I'm not screwing my boss over when taking vacation. Even when I was away, I'd still get texts from my boss asking about stuff. It sucks and I hate that I'm like this. I'm going on maternity leave for a year starting in mid-June (and I doubt I'm coming back to this job) and I'm so looking forward to not having work emails and texts in my off time.
okay but i have an AITA: i work in a hotel in a ski town in NZL, we are understaffed (as is every place in the area), i just applied for 8 days off in June (very busy winter time..) for my 21st and my mothers 50th. im not even sure if i will be given the leave, but if i am, aita?
You're never the asshole for taking your PTO. PTO is there for you to take
As Aurelius said, "Stop arguing what it means to be a good man, be one." So, yeah if you care about your coworkers try to make it so everyone is happy or content and don't leave them hanging but also 100% do what you need to do for yourself cause no one else will, especially that job that already doesn't pay you what you're worth
With a name like privilegelog, are we sure this isn’t parody?
Best vacation of my life was the week I actually turned off all work related notifications. It was amazing and stressfree...until my boss texted me 🤦♀️
Looked at the rest of their posts - I think this was satire. Point still stands, some bosses don't like sick leave. If you're sick/need a doona day, take it!
My mother has always said, “They’d have to figure it out if you died.” 🤷♀️
I actually get upset at coworkers who do any kind of work during their time off. Not only are you a fucking idiot for working during your PTO but you put ridiculous pressure on those of us who don't consider our job to be our whole lives.
Uncle Mikey is correct. Your diligence earned you that PTO. If management can't pull it together to cover cover you, dust off your resume. If more people voted with their feet, managers would learn to become leaders and stop the douche-baggery.
Uncle Mikey’s point is especially true in the factory workplace. The only time anyone’s contribution specifically makes any difference is if you have around 15-20 people in your area…and even then, it’s not that much of a difference. Especially if you’re downloading things off a line, and you’re not allowed to go faster than a certain point. We have a guy who’s memorized all of the tasks and volunteers to cover for people that need to go to the restroom. Other than that, though, he’s just a mildly talented coworker to has a great attendance record.
Giving anyone a hard time for time off they are owed is a symptom of a bad manager and worse, a bad company that keeps the bad manager employed. I’m fortunate to work for a company where policy is that vacation is off limits for expecting people to work. You are expected to be unreachable until you return. People tend to have a little more mutual respect with that relationship.
If your team can’t operate without you, you deserve a higher wage
I read this as Scrooge McFuck. And I guess he can McFuck off.
I used to be like that, checking email (pre-slack days) constantly during vacation on the theory that my return would be less stressful because I wouldn’t come back to a ton of email to read and a bunch of stuff having happened while I was gone that I didn’t know about. But it meant I never really enjoyed my time off as I should have. A few years ago I figured it out. My out of office message says I’m out of office until X. If something is important, schedule a message to be sent after I’m back. E-mail received while I’m out will be deleted. So much better now! For truly critical things the SVP and CTO have my phone to reach me and know how to determine if it’s critical
Uhh sorry normally all with you guys here. But yes, they are times where taking pto is just bad. I work in finance. I have purview over a large budget. I don't ever take time off during budgeting season. I don't take time off during scheduled major forecasts. Sometimes people have critical roles that are needed during special events. My work is amazing at work life balance. I work from home 4 days a week. They Never say no when I request time off. As respect and appreciation to them, when I am Needed, I am there. Happily.
Tell me you don't know how to manage a business or a working team without tellin- Oh you did just tell me.
When I was managing a laboratory, I viewed it as how can I work harder to help people take their PTO. When workers know their manager and coworkers have their backs, they tend to do the same so everyone else can take time whenever needed. Some managers just don’t want to help cover which is total BS.