Or if they push people to come in, do they give any extra rewards like money or vacation time?
Tonight I’m going in. I know probably 50% of my coworkers wont which will make extra work for the rest of us PLUS those people will all still get paid PLUS those who do show up will be lucky to even get a thank you. We’ve asked for say overtime pay or a comp day off but nope.
Sucks being a loyal worker.
We rarely have snow days, when we don’t have to go to work. But most of us can work from home if we’ve thought to bring our laptops home the night before. We are routinely allowed to work from home if weather makes it hard to get in to the office.
I work in schools. They either close the school and expect nobody to come in, or they stay open and expect everyone.
I live in Atlantic Canada, land of snowstorms. We are expected to report for work regardless of the weather and cannot use personal days to cover not coming in. If you don’t make it to work then you don’t get paid. If cabs have been taken off the road then work will rent 4 wheel drives and drive you to work if necessary. They will also put you up in a hotel for the night if necessary (two to a room.)
All of this for no extra pay or other compensation
I’m a cafe baker, and it’s located in the public library, although a seperate business. We are closed Sundays. The library is closed on federal holidays, so we are too, as we don’t have our own entrance.
Other than that, if the library is open, we are too. There is just one exception, the Friday after Thanksgiving.
No snow days. In fact, I had to work half a day today, making stuff for a big catering, on a day that’s usually an off day for me. It’s icy as all get out, and now it’s snowing, with a bitter wind chill.
Yes. I work from home 2 days a week anyway. If it looks like bad weather’s coming, we’re expected to take our laptops home the day before and work on our snow days as long as the wireless holds up. They prefer it to sending us out to drive in slippery, icy traffic.
They’re pretty flexible about it, which is nice. I live in NYC where many (most?) employees take public transportation to work, and if the city starts shutting lines down, or running a delayed schedule, the administration will start letting offices know to tell people to come in if they can, but it’s okay if they can’t.
For those that can come in, it’s relaxed (completely dress down) and they’ll usually order in lunch or dinner for those who are in the office. It’s actually pretty fun (for work).
Ditto. We had an ice/sleet storm overnight and if today had been a school day, I’m pretty sure we would have closed. They didn’t allow weekend activities in school buildings to start until 1pm.
Ottawa. Fuck no.
You don’t make it in you use a vacation day, or you don’t get paid.
Severe cold with precipitation shuts down the city. Nobody here can drive on icy streets.
Hurricanes give plenty of warning–if we’re getting a direct hit, we’re told to stay home. Or flee inland if we live on the coast–storm surge is the real killer.
Flooding is more common. Last time, most of the deaths were those who kept driving. But floods don’t affect every neighborhood equally.
Since I commute by bus & train–I come in as long as Metro is running or the institution has gone to Emergency Status. I can always use up some of my PTO.
My workplace can be complicated about this issue, so I’ll just speak for my own position.
I’m able to work from home if needed, so if the weather sucks I can ask my supervisor for a work-from-home day. If he approves it, done. He’s never not approved it. Generally where I live this only comes up a couple days a year, if that.
When I taught, If the district called school, I stayed home and made up the day at the end of the year. If they didn’t call, I went in.
No incentives given for showing up.
For my husband, you went in if they had to find someone with a truck to come and get you. No incentives, it was just expected that if you had to work, you were there. There were times once he got a little higher up that he would call the people who worked for him and tell them to use their judgement, but if my husband’s boss wanted you in, you went in, even if school was closed (which it almost never was. Universities rarely close).
We get snow days.
If you want to play Catholic math ask for the joint intercession of St Joseph (patron saint of workers) and St Eulalia (patron saint of snow days–no kidding). SCORE!!! SNOW DAY for the office.
I work in a hospital, so no snow days. It’s gotten more common for the administrative offices to allow working from home in bad weather, though. It used to be that we were all expected to come in or use a vacation day, even if we work in an area that has nothing to do with patient care.
It takes a lot of snow, but once in a while we will get a blanket text to stay home due to bad roads. We have service technicians who spend our days driving from one client site to another. I guess management sometimes think the risk is not worth it
Winter is slow for me in general and is primarily emergency service. If there is work to be done employees must come in. If not they can stay home, people aren’t paid to stay home. If they want to come in there is plenty of clean up to be done to earn their pay.
I don’t know Eulalia-- We always heard that St. Scholastica was the patron of snow days (possibly because I went to a Benedictine school).
It looks like it’s specifically Eulalia of Mérida that you’re referring to: The relevant legend is that as she was being martyred, a miraculous snow came to cover her body (she was burnt at the stake naked).
The legend for Scholastica (sister of Benedict) is that she was visiting her brother at his monastery, and he came down the hill to the guest house to talk with her (Benedictine monasteries are always built atop the highest hill in the vicinity). After some hours, he apologized that he had to go back up the hill to say mass with his monks. Scholastica bowed her head a moment, and suddenly a huge thunderstorm came out of nowhere, so fierce that Benedict couldn’t possibly make it up the hill: “I asked God if you could stay a little while longer, and he said yes”.
My Wife and I both work for county government in the Colorado Rockies. We drive over the continental divide every day to get to work. And of course back home again.
It’s expected that you have your shit together enough to be able to get to work. Some excuses are OK, but frankly, if you have to commute to an island, you had better have a boat. Same with handling severe weather.
I have missed three days in 24 years because of snow.
My company’s attitude for line workers is simple: All workers show up as scheduled, period. If the weather sux, leave home earlier to arrive on time. Calling off sick when you’re not is subject to discipline. There’s small room for the boss to authorize an unpaid day off, but it needs to be a real personal hardship case, not just a snowy day.
There are some situations where they’ll do a planned reduction in operations and if so your supervisor boss will call you and tell you to go home or stay home. If so, hourly workers lose the pay for the time not worked.
The office folks who’re not in real time positions are probably a lot more flexible about home working but that’s not my department.
As a professor, I was expected to come unless the university was shut down, which was rare. To get in in really bad weather, I had a four block walk to the train station and about the same from the station down town, although most of the latter could be done underground. If I didn’t come in, my classes would be canceled and there was no penalty. But aside from one bout of illness, I hardly ever didn’t come in.