# Are you ever asked to donate your vacation time at work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 24, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570 "2014-06-24T23:24:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/41 "2014-06-25T15:25:08Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That seems a bit strong. What is appalling? While not appalled, I see a down side if several people need time and people offer it, then Nasty Nora needs time and _crickets_. ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/42 "2014-06-25T16:02:12Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That seems a bit strong. What is appalling? The fact that the company doesn’t use its own discretion to gift extra sick leave to those in genuine need, rather than taking it off of people who might need it themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/43 "2014-06-25T16:21:20Z")
As a teacher, I got no paid vacation time, but I did get sick days. Our district had a sick leave bank for teachers. I don’t know what the administrators or staff had; our bank was for teachers only. We donated for people after they had surgery, or in one case, after a teacher’s son died in Afghanistan. What I didn’t donate to was teachers who said before their delivery, “I plan to have the baby, take all my sick leave, and then use the sick leave bank for another couple of weeks.” I would have had no problem donating it if their doctors thought they needed to be home, or if the baby had problems, but most of them just felt they were owed the days. A lot of them were stunned when nobody donated. In our bank we would get a request that days were needed, and teachers could donate up to two days. So many of the younger teachers thought it was like a real bank where they could just go and withdraw as many days as they wanted. No matter how often it was explained to them, they just didn’t realize that if nobody donated, they weren’t getting days. I also didn’t donate to people who took sick days to go shopping, clean the house, go on vacation, go to baseball games, and then got sick and had no days left. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/44 "2014-06-25T16:41:45Z")
Maternity leave is not a vacation. Small babies need to eat ( a process that takes 15-45 minutes) every two hours, around the clock. Set a loud clock to ring every two hours. Leave it that way for a few weeks. See how ready you are to work. The time off is a physical necessity for all but the few parents who can afford night nannies. Of course the solution to that is real maternity leave. ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/45 "2014-06-25T17:06:16Z")
Every year, my company publishes a list of employees who request donations of annual leave because they have used up their sick leave and have serious illnesses (as opposed to, say, pregnancy, which seems to be the main reason employees use it up - we only get 13 days per year, but it does accumulate). I have donated leave on occasion, but only when (a) it was somebody I knew, and (b) I was either going to lose it (only 30 days of annual leave can carry over from one year to the next) or take a lot of extra days off to burn it off, which the company, for lack of a better word for it, “tolerates.” Note that only annual leave (i.e. vacation time) can be donated; this might be because, until quite recently, saved annual leave counted as time worked when calculating your pension, but saved sick leave did not. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/46 "2014-06-25T19:20:36Z")
> [@sandra\_nz](#): > > The fact that the company doesn’t use its own discretion to gift extra sick leave to those in genuine need, rather than taking it off of people who might need it themselves. I work for a government organization not a company. For sick leave there is a system. In this job long term disability kicks in after 30 days. But what about other situations that don’t fit? Like my coworker with the dying child? We have to have coverage. That is not an option. So letting him off from work may mean forcing others to come in or denying others time off. So we had people volunteer to work his shifts or donate vacation time. Then there is the precedent. Obviously he was in need. His son dies after a year long battle. What about the next person? How sick is the family member? Are they dying? Could they pull through? Is it a child, parent, sibling, cousin, family pet? Because people will push it. Who in the chain of command is going to be the arbiter of who is worthy? What happens when they decide against you? Who is going to sue. And above all that time off is part of the employment contract. You don’t break the contract. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/47 "2014-06-25T20:05:19Z")
If someone gets cancer (or whatever) and needs to miss work, shouldn’t they be covered under short-term disability until long-term disability kicks in? Anyway, I don’t get to carry over unused PTO between calendar years. I use it or I lose it. So there’s no point in hoarding time. I wouldn’t donate in your shoes, but that’s because I don’t get much PTO and do need all of my time. I don’t have a problem with coworkers who take mental health days and then get cancer (or whatever). I do think there should be legal provisions that don’t require people to hoard their sick time, though. Like short-term disability. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/48 "2014-06-25T20:16:31Z")
I used to work for a small municipality. One of the senior service department workers (the dudes who collected trash, fixed the roads, and performed maintenance on the buildings) “borrowed” the city’s backhoe to dig out his front yard for some reason. Well, the trench collapsed on him and he ended up being airlifted to the hospital, where he spent several weeks being rescued from his own stupidity (he, of all people, knew he should have shored the trench). Despite getting 15 paid sick days per year + 12 paid holidays (that’s more than an entire month off each year _before_ his 6 weeks of vacation), he had less than 30 sick hours accrued in his bank at the time of his accident. He was one of our perpetually ill employees who called in with “flu-like symptoms” every nice Monday and/or Friday. To give a point of comparison, other honest workers with the same years of service had over 2000 hours accrued. A call went out from his friends for other employees to donate their unused sick time to support this dude because he, of course, also waived long term disability insurance. I, personally, refused because I only had 2 weeks of vacation, and never used sick time as a vacation. Other employees stepped up, including those who really couldn’t afford it. Unfortunately for the worker, the City Solicitor deemed that practice illegal because the City would be out thousands of dollars that it wasn’t liable for otherwise (because employees were only allowed to cash out 1440 hours of unused sick/vacation upon their their retirement). So the poor dude had to actually go for 6 months without pay. I certainly wasn’t gleeful about it, but I did think that it was justice for all the money he bilked the City out of over all those years. (Future AFSCME contracts reduced sick time and made long term disability mandatory) ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/49 "2014-06-25T21:03:16Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > As far as I know, companies generally treat accumulated sick time very differently from accumulated vacation. > > Sick time is an allowance from the company for paid time off, but accumulated unused time _does not_ belong to the employee. There is generally no limit to how much you can accumulate (at places I’ve worked), and when you leave the company for any reason, you do not get paid your unused sick time. Also, because the company owns that time, they can make rules about how you use it – the obvious rule being, that you’re really only supposed to use it for medical leave purposes. > > So the time really isn’t the employee’s to donate. If an employee wishes to donate his sick time to another employee, that’s the _employer’s_ time he’s giving away. So I would imagine it’s up to the employer to decide if that’s allowed. > > The is all in contrast to vacation time, which belongs to the employee as soon as it’s accured. The employee has greater freedom in choosing how to use that time, and when he leaves the company, he gets paid for any remaining time. As far as the employer is concerned, it’s time _already given_ to the employee. So I would expect that an employee can donate his _vacation_ time to another employee. If the boss wishes to veto that, I wonder how that will play out. And, as with pretty much everything people think they know, there are exceptions. Where I work, we are allowed to donate sick time because it is ours, at least a quarter of it is. So if there is a call for sick leave, we can donate 4 hours and the recipient gets 1 hour. If we donate annual leave (which is separate and under separate rules) it is a one to one donation. When we leave/retire, we are paid for a quarter of our sick leave (up to a certain number of hours that I can’t remember) and all of our annual leave. As far as the OP, I’m with them. I’ll donate money and other things, but my sick leave is mine. I currently have a little over 1400 hours of sick leave (about 9 months) and I’m going to keep it for in case I need it. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/50 "2014-06-25T21:13:58Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Maternity leave is not a vacation. Small babies need to eat ( a process that takes 15-45 minutes) every two hours, around the clock. Set a loud clock to ring every two hours. Leave it that way for a few weeks. See how ready you are to work. The time off is a physical necessity for all but the few parents who can afford night nannies. > > Of course the solution to that is real maternity leave. I did not mean to say it was a vacation. What I didn’t like was the women who assumed it was their right to stay at home as long as they could on someone else’s sick days. They could take family leave, or unpaid leave if they wanted. Unused sick leave counted towards days worked when we retired, so every sick day we donated took money off my pension. When you are close to retirement you have to decide if you want to give up some of your pension in order to have someone stay home another three weeks. It was probably only pennies a day you would lose, but we would get a couple of requests each year. And since most teachers were able to have their children and get back to work, I’m afraid I wasn’t sympathetic. I am not talking about anyone with complications after delivery or a sick child, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/51 "2014-06-25T21:27:40Z")
We have a sick leave bank - that’s not well known - that people can choose to pay a minimum of 8 hours into. Only those people who pay in are eligible to use the donated time. There are specific rules in how it’s used and there’s a committee that reviews the request. I put in time each year, for a couple of reasons. One, I’m of an age where a serious illness would likely take time to recover but would be recoverable, and two, I had a sibling benefit from such a policy at their work. But I don’t expect everyone to pay into that, and I like that only those who pay in are able to draw. I may never need to draw from that, and I’m fine with that. ---
**Author:** ![Q.N.Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3da27b/32.png) [@Q.N.Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.N.Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/52 "2014-06-25T21:29:25Z")
I would not donate to one of these banks on principle. When I go out and solicit donations from someone for a cause I think is worthy, I have always made a significant donation to it myself. So I find it appalling that companies, which have much greater resources than their individual employees, refuse to gift any extra sick days, but will roll out a campaign to try to emotionally blackmail their employees into giving up part of their own compensation for the cause. I think this is an appalling trend that needs to stop. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/53 "2014-06-26T02:33:12Z")
My company has a reasonably generous PTO allotment. It’s pretty strictly use it or lose it, unless there is a pressing business need that won’t allow you to take time off. That’s highly discouraged. They want you to take your time. If you’re going to be out sick more than one consecutive week, short-term disability kicks in. For that week before disability, you can use PTO (including future accruals for the year) or if you have no PTO left, go without pay. The STD is 70% of your pay, however you can pay a few extra dollars per month with your insurance and that will bump it up to 90%. StG ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/54 "2014-06-26T04:39:01Z")
I work for a government agency. Employees get between 8 and 13 sick days per year, depending on their bargaining group. We can accumulate up to 40 weeks hours of sick leave ( and any we have left at retirement increases our pension).This is in addition to 3-6 weeks of personal leave and vacation depending on the length of employment ( which accumulates up to eight weeks) If someone has a serious medical problem , they get four weeks of sick leave at half pay per year that they have worked in addition to their accumulated leave. The sick leave at half-pay is a cumulative- if I work ten years ,have a medical problem and get 40 weeks at half pay, after I work another year I will be entitled to four weeks, not 44. It must be a serious issue that keeps you out for weeks- taking a week off due to a virus doesn’t qualify for half-pay. ``` We can donate our vacation time to people out on sick leave. It's day for day - I donate one day and the recipient gets one day , regardless of our pay rates. Management sets the rules regarding who can request donations ( must have exhausted all of their own leave and must be expected to be out a certain amount of time) but there isn't any sort of pressure to donate- personnel just sends an email that so and so is asking for donations. Donations are used before sick leave at half-pay kicks in. People usually donate only to people they know, or at least whose circumstances they know. People who make sure to take a sick day as soon as they earn it tend not to get donations. People who have uncomplicated births and healthy babies tend not to get donations. Those who had to go out on maternity leave in their fifth month or who have babies with serious medical issues do. I guess the best way to describe it is that people decide whether to donate based on whether the recipient had the ability to plan for the leave and took advantage of that ability. You generally have at least 7 or 8 months to plan for a maternity leave (sometimes more). That's seen as enough time to plan for your leave- saving up your sick leave and vacation days, making medical appointments before or after work to minimize using sick leave for appointments , budgeting to save enough money to carry you through any extra time you take off. Same thing for people who take sick days as soon as they earn them- if you've worked here 20 years, have never had an extended absence for medical reasons before and exhaust all your leave after two weeks, you won't get many donations while the person who worked here two years and exhausts her leave after two weeks will get donations and so will the person who worked here twenty years , has a stroke and exhausted his leave after six months. ``` ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/55 "2014-06-26T04:40:11Z")
> [@Cunctator](#): > > I’ve never heard of a request to donate holiday/sick leave to other employees. I doubt whether my employer would let me do it, even if I wanted to. It’s common with government jobs. I work for a public library, thus I’m a city/government employee. We average about 2 e-mails per month asking if we’d like to donate vacation time. The e-mails are sent by HR and cover anyone who works for a city department in need of help. Often (almost always) we don’t even know who the person is. In order to donate you have to have at least 48 hours available yourself. I have donated twice - each time for someone in my own department whom I knew very well and were in bad need of help. Many requests have gone out in the 8 years I’ve worked there. I’ve deleted the e-mails without even reading them. I don’t feel guilty about it one bit. We do what we can when we can, and that’s that. And to the **OP** , I know exactly what you mean in regards to people who go through their sick time as quickly as they can. Not a good idea, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/56 "2014-06-26T04:51:32Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > So we had people volunteer to work his shifts or donate vacation time. I’ve worked in many 24-7 factories where if someone needed time off during what would have been his shift, he could arrange a trade with someone else before going to HR - so, instead of “I need Wednesday off, can you arrange cover?” it would be “I’m taking Wednesday off and Joe will cover for me, I’ll be paying him back on Saturday”. But if it came to someone needing enough time off that it couldn’t be covered by trading, even though 10% of the shift workers had 26% of their hours “available” (not set as part of their regular calendar, so they could be called in for peaks or if someone was off unexpectedly) it was the company’s job to get a temp. For emergency personnel such as cops, firemen or medics, there is supposed to be enough personnel to cover duty with several people off. ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/57 "2014-06-26T04:53:38Z")
I tend to agree with the OP. I have donated in the past for unforeseen catastrophes. But for requests for those with elective surgery, maternity leave etc. Nope. In my old job we were allowed to cash in a maximum of 40 hours of sick time at the rate of 1/2. I always declined though Imdon’t know if that was the wisest choice. When I left that job, I got nada and my sick leave was maxed out. I just always figured sick leave was there for emergencies. I didn’t want to be the scmuck who didn’t have sick time when I needed it. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/58 "2014-06-26T04:58:10Z")
I’d participate if we had such a thing, now that I have enough sick days accrued not to have to pay for short-term disability insurance. I’ve used 4 sick days, I think, in 15 years, one to go to the ER with minor chest pain, two for the flu, and two half-days to care for family members. Fortunately, I have flexibility go work from home if I’m not specifically needed at work. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/59 "2014-06-26T12:37:00Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > For emergency personnel such as cops, firemen or medics, there is supposed to be enough personnel to cover duty with several people off. I know. At our current manning levels most shifts are only allowed one person off. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570/60 "2014-06-26T12:53:10Z")
I’ve also never heard of such a thing. The whole idea makes me cringe as it just seems so abuseable. On top of that, that whole thing is the reason I pay for short term disabilitiy insurance at my job. I’ve never had to use it, but any absence over 5 working days and it can kick in with 80% pay. Then again, I also am getting 38 PTO days now (+ 8 holidays) so I feel like I would be covered just in case too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-ever-asked-to-donate-your-vacation-time-at-work/691570.md?page=4)