My wife and I have different situations, though we both work in education.
At my college, I get plenty of vacation and sick leave- but I can never take any of it due to the fact that I’ve achieved indispensability. Seriously, every time I’ve taken a long vacation, or just the odd day off, something crazy involving property damage, paperwork snafu, or event catastrophe happens. As it is, I only take time off if my youngest son gets sick, and try to run the office via remote (e-mail, calling every hour, etc.) I routinely lose time at the end of the year (we can only have something like 150 hours at the end of the year, and lose the rest)
My wife teaches elementary school. She gets fewer days off that I do, but if she has to take any days, she gets flack from both her principal and co-workers. This is especially true if she has to take time off for our son. Most of the teaching staff is past their reproductive years, and resent anyone taking time for their kids. And last year, when she was sick and at home resting, her principal called her and told her she needed to be back the next day for a field trip. She went, and I ended up taking her to the hospital right after school- she ended up missing another week.
sigh
And bear in mind, this is all dealing with leave we’ve earned, not running over.
This place just wants a scapegoat in the office. They fuss whenever I’m not here, and criticize what I do when I am here. The company could be doing so much better if I were happier, but that doesn’t seem to occur to them.
My work includes writing programs to monitor this sort of thing. There is a formula to highlight slackers called the Bradford factor which is the number of separate sickness periods squared times the number of individual days off sick.
Sick for a whole week, five days one off period. BF = ( 1 * 1 ) * 5
Sick for 5 fridays, five days five off periods. BF = ( 5 * 5 ) * 5 = Ouch!
I think a lot of companies (particularly big ones) get so lost in the “big picture” (yeccch, I can’t believe I used that phrase) that they lose the details. My company’s policy is horrid, and if it isn’t illegal, it should be. We have sickdays and “scheduled” sick days. A scheduled sick day is apparently when you give advanced notice that you will be out sick - such as an email the day prior. If you call out after the business day has begun, you get charged with a sick day. As an incentive, if at the end of the calendar year you haven’t taken any sick days (scheduled sick days don’t count toward this) you will get a $300 bonus. I guess the rationale is that they assume that most people take sick days when they aren’t really sick. Now let’s apply this to my current situation:
I took a scheduled sick day on Tuesday to see a doctor about a problem with my right eye. I filled out the form, sent the email and performed all the necessary rituals. As it turns out, I have been diagnosed with Central Serous Retinopathy - a stress induced condition which causes the retina to detach due to a build up of fluid. So I’m basically blind in my right eye due to stress (which might have something to do with not being able to use more than a week of vacation time a year because I’m so indispensible). This means, that under doctor’s orders, with all paperwork properly endorsed I am taking a week of sick leave. Even though this is “scheduled” sick time because of the advanced notice, it is more than 2 consecutive sick days, thereby making me ineligible for next year’s bonus.
I’m half tempted to have a psychiatrist friend write me a note for indefinite sick leave so I can burn all time I have earned, will never use, and won’t be reimbursed for when and if I leave the job. As it stands today, I have 54 sick days on the books. That would work out to a nice 11 week paid vacation
We don’t have sick days here. I get ten days that I can use as either sick or vacation days. There are also 9 annual holidays when the office is closed. That’s nineteen whole freaking days I can be other than in my office chair M-F and still get paid. Health insurance is mediocre and doesn’t cover my partner. There’s a decent 401k but aside from that there aren’t many benefits and perks here.
I had some old guy ask me once, after a three-day weekend and I had jokingly wished for another day, “Why do you want another day?” Why not? I work plenty of days, don’t I?
365 days
52 weeks, 52 x 5 is 260 days.
Minus 12 days of vacation (this may have gone up this year, who knows)
Minus 12 paid holidays in the year (for us, and this is generous. This is like State employees. Most people don’t get MLK, President’s Day, etc.)
260 - 24 = 236 days. So That’s 129 days I don’t work throughout the year. And this doesn’t count people who work weekends, or even one day. I spend 236 of my days at work, app., without any sick days.
This is my life! I firmly believe I only get the one. And while I like my job, it’s my job, not my life.
And they resent it when I take a day off? My company, not so much, but the company my friend works at genuinely is irritated when you take scheduled vacation time. Why are you giving it to them if they can’t actually take it?
Anyway, let’s hope they hear this. I have long since been envious of what I hear of conditions in other countries, especially Europe. But it could be worse, too.
I didn’t know holidays were so few and far between in the US. Eek!
Twenty days paid holiday plus about nine Bank Holidays (Public Holidays and you get paid on those or paid time and half at least if you work) is pretty much standard starting deal here in Ireland. It doesn’t get much more, maybe a three or four days after very long service, but still.
Then again, my father, an secondary school teacher in Holland, is shocked at how few days off I get!
If you are getting as few days as some of you then you should most certainly be allowed to take them!
I have an employee who I believe (but can’t prove) is currently doing something like this. Has been out on doctor’s orders for several weeks, and keeps extending. No communication to me (the manager) about the reason for the leave except that it’s on Dr’s orders. No communication with me directly at all, everything goes through HR, and the extensions only come after HR calls and asks, on the day this peson was supposed to return, why that hasn’t happened. So here I am, down one person whom I can’t replace because each extension is only for 4 or 5 weeks, which isn’t long enough to post for a temporary replacement (it would have to be an internal replacement, this isn’t something an outside temp could learn to do in a reasonable period of time). Does this employee care about the stress on me of covering two jobs? I doubt it.
This is the same employee who I was on the verge of speaking to about attendance, since this employee was out 12 sick days in the first 10 months.
Very interesting, I didn’t know about this. The calculation on my absent employee (currently on leave) for the first 10 months of last year is 12 days off in 9 different occurrences, so 9912 = 972.
jaw drops to the floor Are you kidding me? Wow! Here are my holidays for 2006:
January 2, New Year’s
January 16, MLK Day
February 20, President’s Day
May 29, Memorial Day
July 3 Independence Day
July 4 ID Day
September 4, Labor Day
October 9, Columbus Day
November 22, Thanksgiving
Nov 23, Thanksgiving
November 24, Thanksgiving
December 25, Christmas Day
December 26, Day after Christmas
So…13 instead of 12. And this is generous! Most companies don’t give MLK Day, President’s Day, or Columbus Day. Most people only give one day for Thanksgiving, some none. Often only one day for 4th of July.
It may be that when Pookah uses the term “twenty days paid holiday” that translates to “vacation” in the US. While what you have listed is what Pookah refers to as “Bank Holidays”.
You’re in a rough situation.
[ol]
[li]The employee shouldn’t need to give details of his/her illness.[/li][li]It would be rude (and perhaps illegal, I’m not sure) to fire over sickness[/li][li]However, such frequent sickness is hurting you and your firm’s ability to do your jobs[/li][/ol]This is very much a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. Good luck with a solution.
I’d say that’s what **Pookah ** means. It’s comparable to what we get here in Australia:
20 days’ paid annual leave (“vacation”), which accumulates if not taken. My employer actually won’t allow us to accumulate too much annual leave. The HR people come around and suggest that it’s time you took some holidays. If your accumulated leave hits 50 days, you’re forced to take holidays;
normal paid public holidays. The number of these varies from state to state. Here in NSW there are 9 per annum.
Sick leave is usually about 10 days or so per annum. I’m actually with a very generous employer where we have unlimited sick leave. The HR people monitor it fairly closely and crack down on those abusing the system. But in fact, according to HR, the vast majority don’t abuse it and sickness absenteeism here is well below average. It seems that if the employees are trusted and treated like adults, that’s how they’ll behave.
Boy howdy. My boss seems to think he knows how to address this situation, so he’s going to coach me. We wouldn’t even come close to firing for this, but I do need to “express concern” somehow.
I can see how it would look that way, and I frankly wish it were, but things that I didn’t include in the story make that pretty unlikely.
By the way, “the first 10 months” meant the first 10 months of last year, not of the job. This person has worked for our company for a very long time, and has a history of going out on “stress” leave one other time, which lasted almost 3 years. I’ve never understood why we took this person back at that time, and there seems to be some hold over us whereby this person is guaranteed the same or equivalent job when they return, no matter how long it is. Since there is no equivalent job, I’m stuck with, at best, a temporary replacement, if I can somehow make even that happen.
Sorry, more than anyone was interested in knowing, probably.
I have a friend who used to work for a private investigator. Much, if not most, of their work was spying on people who were out on disability leave. Which is really strange - an employer can’t ask, but he can hire someone to spy on you and then fire your ass for fraud.
You are so lucky. On your list scratch off #'s 3,5, 8, and 9 . . . that’s mine. Plus I only get 2 days of sick time and 1 personal day. If I’m sick any more than that, it’s either unpaid or I can take it out of my 10 vacation days.
My husband has 20+ days vacation and unlimited sick time (they call it PTO at his job).
Well I work for a non-profit so our pay is bubkis. They make up for it with lots of time off. In addition to this, I have 4 sick days (w.out doctor’s note) and 4 “personal” days .
My SO’s company is one of the ones that look at you funny when you try to schedule vacation time.
Why not? I work plenty of days, don’t I?