Huh.
When I was in the Service, it was 30 days accumulation a year, period. Now I work for a major corporation, and it’s 20 days a year, plus four floating holidays, plus 8 ‘official’ holidays… I’m getting, all told, about six weeks off.
Yes, I live in America.
Huh.
Well, I’m in Canada.
I get 4 weeks paid vacation; 10 additional days at X-mas; 9 stat holidays throughout the year; one moving day a year; a year paid leave for either maternity or paternity (including adoption) and unlimited sick time.
Every few years they give me a “bonus” week of vacation, and after 20 years service I get 5 weeks. I work a 35 hour work week.
Really, I have nothing to complain about. 
Of course they do. Stressed and fatigued employees are less productive than content employees, to say nothing of the replacement cost of hiring and training new ones if dissatisfied employees find another job.
Guessing you’re a union man, huh? :rolleyes:
I’m a Network Admin/Programmer/DBA/Computer-Anything guy who has worked for only small and medium companies. I’m used to having an average of zero paid vacation days.
In my experience, the problem with taking time off in America… even if the company says you’re entitled to it… is that you’ll be fired if you do take it. Not overtly, but that’s what will happen. Employees are overloaded so much work that a vacationing employee’s work simply can’t be done.
In my last job I was considered a slacker because I worked 9 hour days, only staying longer for an emergency. Of course I was only paid for 8 hours, but hey… you gotta put in 110% effort, right? : (
Oh well, you have to put up with it… being “laid off” is how you get time off. That’s how you also get a pay raise.
And after reading Cecil’s report on how little other countries work… I’m tempted to correlate the wealth and power of the United States with how much we work. France has a 35 hour work week? That’s amazing.
-k
Welcome to the Board, Ozy. While I don’t disagree with your assessment of most employers’ appreciation of the effects of stress and fatigue, you might want to take a peek at this.
Reading through this has made me realize another aspect of my employer’s policies. I work for an NYSE traded company that anyone in our business is well aware of; i.e., not a mom-and-pop shop. Doctors appointments and go meet the plumber type absences from work are generally not charged against our personal days, as long as you can get back in a couple or so hours. It works so far because nobody’s abused it yet. When the eventual day comes that some employee abuses the system, I suspect we’ll lose this bennie.
Guessing you’re a union man, huh?
Why why WHY does everyone on this friggin’ board think I am a man?!
Do you SEE a penis on me???
And no, I’ve seen what unions do to an area, I live in West Virginia. I’m about as anti-union as it gets. However, when there are more potential employees than there are (good) jobs, employers who provide (good) jobs can do whatever the heck they want to. And they do. Hell no they don’t care if their employees are stressed. There’s 20 other people whose resumes they have who would kill to work for them and be treated like a dog, because unfortunately that’s better than losing your house/car/etc.
I am a US state government employee. I have been on the job for more than twenty years, and I get boatloads of time off.
I get twenty four days a year in Annual Leave. I also work most holidays, but then get 13 days a year in “Compensatory Leave” to make up for it. I accrue an odd hour or two for being on call just about every month, for another two or three days a year. That comes out to be forty days, or eight weeks. Two years ago I was given a bonus of ten days “Special Award” leave.
Now comes the catch.
I can’t get approved leave for more than two weeks without applying months in advance, and they don’t approve it until the month before. For the last three years I have accrued more than I have taken. Now I have more leave than I am allowed to “carry over” to next year, and it is still January. So, sometime between now and next January, I have to take about eighty days of leave. I have turned in twelve requests for a week off (one a month). Whenever one gets turned down, I increase the next one to two weeks. The administration feels that this is a personal affront, but since I have all the denied requests, if they don’t let me take the leave before November, they will have to give me November and December off. I also offered to take two days a week, every week, between now and November, but that was considered unacceptable, as well.
I also have about six hundred hours of sick leave, but I can accrue that without limit. (I am pretty healthy, and have been for a long time.) Eventually, I can apply that to retire early.
“Beware the fury of a patient man.” ~ John Dryden ~
How much of the work time is real work time though ? In every country you will have slow workers or excessive coffee breaks... the US seems over zealous with keeping employees in line.
I remember seeing an article saying that french employees were the most productive on a per hour basis. Americans work more overall... but per hour productivity isn't better than many europeans. (This involves technology too when you talk about productivity. So Latin American per hour rates were horrible.)I get 4 weeks vacation per year, paid holidays, one “floating holiday”(personal day I can take any time) and a strange sick leave policy.
I’m in management, non-management people get 5 days sick leave per year. They can save them up for the whole time they’re with the company. Then if they retire, they can receive full pay for each day “in the bank”. If they’re fired or quit, they get half pay.
For management, we get no specified sick leave. We can take up to 6 months off at a time sick (with valid medical certification) at full pay. Then we would be eligible for long term disability if we needed it, although theoretically we could come back after the 6 month period, work one day, and take another 6 months off paid.
My company just moved to a standard 3 weeks of vacation, with 4 and 5 weeks available for senior employees. We also have something called ‘personal holidays’ where they take away some of the normal scheduled holidays, and let you schedule them any time you want.
I work for a major telecoms company in France (much like ATT in size).
I get a basic 5 weeks holidays per year plus an extra week because most of my family are in Ireland (but this may not be standard)
The basic working week in France is 39.5 hours though people only get paid for 35. The 5 or so hours per week that you work and don?t get paid for you get back in holidays
Which equals to about 2 days per month.
So that?s 5 paid weeks per year and 5 unpaid per year.