Don’t see how it would lead to early retirement. Vesting is now 5 years. At 5 year the retirement would be 10 to 12.5 percent of salary depending on age.
An extra year of service would get an addition 2 to 2.5 percent of salary in the retirement check. That amount might be enough extra so a person could retire early, maybe.
I am pretty sure it’s a body thing of some type. When I was pregnant, I did not get so much as a sniffle for nine months. My habits didn’t really change, and so it must be some change in my immune system.
I have some number of sick days per year that I get, and they don’t carry over. No idea on what the number is because none of my bosses at my current company have tracked sick days (or vacation days, for that matter) all that closely: if you need a day here or there, take it, for whatever reason.
That said, I had much stronger opinions on sick days when I was in my early 20s and working a job where if someone didn’t come in, their daily responsibilities needed coverage. I would take 2-3 sick days a year, generally because I really needed them, and I’d always do what I could to minimize the impact on my colleagues. The people who took all 8 every year, most of them in obvious hangover, extend-a-long-weekend, or “day off during crunch that would never have been approved” situations? Dicks. But because of the imposition on co-workers, not because they were taking advantage of the benefits of their job.
(With where I am now if you’re not in it just means a couple e-mails go unanswered for a day and you have a busy day tomorrow to catch up, no direct effect on the rest of the team. So take your hangover days all you want, if you don’t need them for anything else.)
My company allows us to work from home when we don’t feel well, and I’ve worked from home with a migraine rather than burn a PTO day.
I think it is the immune system. I’m not in the least germophobic, and I rarely get sick, and if I do it is for a day (usually Saturday) but my wife gets mildly sick for long periods. We’re exposed to the same germs - in fact she works at home, so I’m exposed to more.
George Carlin had a bit about how he and his friends had no fear of polio since they swam in the Hudson, amidst the sewage, and so figured the germs were afraid of them.
Some employers will (would?) allow the unused sick time to be “used” at retirement. If there was no limit to how much could be accrued, this often amounted to several months they didn’t have to work at the end of 30-35 years of service. I think it tended to be a union thing.
I’m pretty sure my dad got this when he retired from the railroad. I think it amounted to 3-4 months.
I just can’t get my head around the concept of earning sick days and banking them. Here if you are sick you are sick. More than one week then you need a doctor’s note. More than two weeks and the state starts to pay you instead of your employer. The state then decides, under advisement from doctors and their standards for certain illnesses, when you have to be back in work.
I just put it down to one of those weird cultural differences I’ll never get to grips with.
Oh, this is Sweden. I, unfortunately, do have experience with how long term sick leave works in this country.
Oh and how they deal with people taking sickies: the first day of illness you do not get paid. After that it is 80% of your wage and then after several weeks this turns into 80% up to a fixed limit.
In the US sick leave is up to the employer or union contract. If you are sick less than 7 days all you get is sick time, if your employer grants sick time. If you are sick for more than 7 days most states have disability insurance. In California that is at 55% of your normal wage.
4 years ago I had a total knee replacement and was off work for 90 days. If I did not have banked my sick time I would have had a costly time off from work. but I had not had plenty of hours banked up. Then doing therapy I got a hernia, and a year later needed to take a month off from work. By the time I got back to work I had zero hours of sick time left.
I feel entitled to take a sick day today because I am sick. I won’t, however, because my line manager has a problem with people calling in sick the day after their rostered days off. She figures people like to give themselves the equivalent of a long weekend.
So I’ll go to work sick today and tomorrow I’ll probably be over it.