Any employment relationship is one of “coercion” regardless of the economic system you work under. Otherwise no one would clean shit* for a living.
My current relationship with my employer is that they will pay me to take 27.3 days off each (I don’t know why it’s such a weird number). I actually have to take them otherwise I lose them. My employer doesn’t really care what I do or why I take them.
Me: I’d like to take the week of [whenever] off.
Boss: You can’t! We are counting on you for something in particular that week! No one else in the company, perhaps the entire market can do what needs to be done!
Me: Oh. In that case I like to take that week off or I quit.
Interesting combination of post and user name by the way.
It depends on the work, and on who would be affected, and how, by one’s not showing up.
I have sick leave, personal necessity leave and emergency personal necessity leave all written into my contract. In fact, I took Tuesday off even though I could have powered through the discomfort of getting boosted and deshingled a couple of days before. Subs are written into the District budget and who am I to deny a days work to someone?
I usually tell people who ask that I had Gluteal Myopia.
Seconding this.
I heard about someone who did this. It was a fresh graduate and she got a job offer to start right after graduation. Upon graduation, her dad gave her a gift of a month’s trip to Europe or something like that. She asked to delay her start date, but the employer refused, so she said “Okay, I quit then.”
Good for her. But, also, how lucky to have the security to do that.
I, also, get a single bucket of PTO. Mostly, i prefer separate sick leave. But the one virtue of PTO is that i can take a mental health day without guilt.
Obviously, i don’t call in PTO the morning of a major deadline or something. And yes, i let my coworkers know i won’t be there, and when to expect me back. But sure, if i wake up feeling out-of-sorts, or desperately desiring a day walking in the park, i take the day off.
If i had the sort of job where sometime else would have to cover for me i imagine I’d handle it a little differently. But most of my work can by done (by me) tomorrow, instead of today.
As tempted as I was to vote Mmm, something else, I went with Yes.
mmm
Used to, rarely do it anymore do to shifting circumstances. What I do still do is take semi-random days off all the time on a few days notice. But on even relatively short notice that is generally trivially easy to do at my job. As it happens I do have separate sick and vacation pools, but my accumulated sick leave grows at a static rate and can be used to boost retirement (and thus is valuable to save), while my vacation pool has grown to above the US average and I have a pretty robust paid holiday schedule. So short notice leave works to everyone’s advantage and I now only call in if I’m physically ill, which is rare for me (knock on wood).
But philosophically I have nothing against the practice at all. Everybody needs a break once in awhile.
I work in that legendary nightmare factory, an Amazon FC, and they have both types of this - paid and unpaid. It was the most flabbergasting thing, early on, the way people just decided they’d have enough for the day and just went home mid-shift, or simply decided not to come in. They ask you to let them know (and hour’s notice), but the bottom line is the time is yours to use as you need/want; there are no consequences if you don’t unless you take multiple days. The only time off that has to be approved are leaves of absence and vacations.
The irony is that this hands-off, manage your time yourself attitude is what gets 90% of people fired. It gets abused, people get reckless, and when life decides to knee them in the groin they’ve gone thru all their protection.
I’ve actually resolved to do this more. It’s really common for teachers to retire with like a year’s worth of days, for which they get paid a pittance
I used to be working my way toward that, but have lately decided that’s stupid. My kids don’t need me every single day (and remote learning techniques mean I can leave much better tools for them than before).
I have about 8 weeks “banked” and I add 10 days a year. My goal is now to use 5-7 day each year, banking 3 or so. This isn’t just about personal leave, it’s also about (gasp) going to things like doctor’s appointments instead of putting everything off till summer.
I’ll call in sick if I’m not feeling well - including if the reason is that I didn’t sleep well the night before. I’ll call in and ask to use a personal day if I need that day off on somewhat of an emergency basis ( I have to wait for the plumber or my car won’t start or something like that ) and I’ve very occasionally called and taken a personal day because I just don’t feel like going to work. What I don’t do is call in and say I’m sick if I just don’t feel like going to work. The reason I don’t do that is because I don’t necessarily know who else has called in and taken the day off for some reason and I’ve been on the wrong side of “Four people work in this office performing this function - one is on vacation, one is sick and a third just felt like taking the day off” too many times to do it to someone else. Which doesn’t mean I don’t take days off just because I feel like it - I either plan them in advance (like the eight days I’m taking off between now and mid January ) or I let my supervisor know it’s a personal day without claiming illness or emergency so they can say " I can’t approve a personal day- every else is out" if necessary. (which it never has been , but theoretically, it could happen)
I said “no,” but I’m a professor – if I’m not there, class doesn’t get taught, and roughly 3% of the semester is gone and we never get that time back. Your mileage in other occupations may vary.
My wife and I do it regularly in spring through fall. We take at least one Monday off each month from our respective jobs, go to the coast and go whale watching. The rest of the year the day varies, and what we do on that day.
In my job, there aren’t really any other people just waiting for my output to be done, so they can do their job. So missing a day here and there doesn’t really affect anyone else.
At the same time, I’m pretty consistently producing well above the expected work output per month for my job (sometimes double the expected output if I’m really on one month, but almost always at least 25% over the expected output), so I figure they can’t really complain if I blow off a day to go to the movies or play video games.
It’s been almost 22 years now in this job, and no one has ever complained about it, so I figure my bosses have done the math on this as well.
I’ve historically been a poor utilizer of paid time off. I live alone and spending an unplanned day at home isn’t especially great for my mood. I usually don’t feel like going anywhere and just laze around until the next day. Incidentally this is how I spend most holidays.
If I feel I can’t do well at work for some reason (physically/mentally out of sorts) then sure I’ll stay home. But skipping work “just because” doesn’t appeal to me personally. To each their own.
We get one mental health day a quarter at my job, so I use that.
I like the idea but there are jobs where this will fuck your co-workers. Retail food service and hospitality come to mind, especially right now as many places as at skeleton crew levels.
Why should I (or my co-workers) give up one of our days off for your mental health day? My relief night auditor keeps trying to do this (admittedly so she can go party, not for mental health reasons) and doesn’t care that she’s fucking over - or trying to - co-workers.
We get 2 “P Days” a year and they are paid, separate from vacation, sick, comp, or flex holidays. We can take one without any advanced notice without getting in any trouble.
In fact one of our Sergeants came in a few weeks ago, realized what a mess of a day it was going to be and said “fuck it. I am taking a P
Day” and went home.
I rarely get sick & thus rarely take a sick day.
However, I once had a job where I was getting way more OT than I ever wanted. 24-40 hrs a week. The excess OT was really messing with my attitude.
One day on the way into work my motorcycle just would not make the turn. I leaned & everything. I stopped at the next pay phone, (Remember them?), & called in sick. My supervisor told me he had been right behind me & saw me miss the turn. He mentioned the leaning & told me to have a good day. I did.