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So I Just Found Out That in The US You Have Very Limited Sick Leave
- Thread starter Angie
- Start date
It's that classic, American lack of empathy: "I don't need it, so no one does."
It heavily depends on the company. I worked for a place once that refreshed our sick leave if we provided a doctor's note. So any time I was out sick, as long as a doctor could vouch, I didn't have to worry about it.
And then, I've also seen places with no sick leave at all.
And then, I've also seen places with no sick leave at all.
HUH???
You guys don't have unlimited sick leave if, well, you're actually sick??!! WTF!!!!!
Always when I read people here talking about "calling in sick", I thought you had some number of workfree days in a semester or year, if you happen to be mildly sick and don't want to pay a doctor appointment, since you don't have public healthcare.
But to have limited sick days even with a doctor's note is unbelievable
You guys don't have unlimited sick leave if, well, you're actually sick??!! WTF!!!!!
Always when I read people here talking about "calling in sick", I thought you had some number of workfree days in a semester or year, if you happen to be mildly sick and don't want to pay a doctor appointment, since you don't have public healthcare.
But to have limited sick days even with a doctor's note is unbelievable
Maternity leave as well.
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Wow, really? Genuinely no idea that there is no paid maternity leave in the USA. That's incredibly backwards, moreso now many other countries are moving to extensive paid paternity leave too.
At my company (in the US), I get 20 days of vacation per year (I've been there for 20 years...I think you start out with 15 days and it goes up to 20 at some point. Although the company doesn't actually keep track. It's between you and your manager.
As for sick time, just take it when you need to. If you're out for more than 5 days, I think short term disability kicks in? I've only had to do that once.
There's maternity leave for women and they also offer bonding leave for men. (4 or 8 weeks? I can't remember. )
As for sick time, just take it when you need to. If you're out for more than 5 days, I think short term disability kicks in? I've only had to do that once.
There's maternity leave for women and they also offer bonding leave for men. (4 or 8 weeks? I can't remember. )
We have stuff like short term and long term disability let's say if you have a surgery or something unexpected happened. The problem is, you don't have any job security so your employer still can fire you during this time.
Lol I'm a contractor, so I work full time hours and have all the consequences of a full time employee if I fuck something up.
But sick or vacation time? Nah, contractors don't get that shit. I'm free to take days off but I don't get paid for them, so if I take one day off to recoup from a shitty week I either take the non paid day off or I work 4 10-hour shifts to make up the time.
I just fucking love the USA, let me tell you.
But sick or vacation time? Nah, contractors don't get that shit. I'm free to take days off but I don't get paid for them, so if I take one day off to recoup from a shitty week I either take the non paid day off or I work 4 10-hour shifts to make up the time.
I just fucking love the USA, let me tell you.
One of the only positives of working for state/local government are usually you get decent benefits. I have like 700 hours of sick leave banked but none of it pays out if I leave the job sadly. Still though, good to know I'll be in decent shape in that regard for awhile if I were to ever get very ill.
I moved to America from a developing country, and in many regards it's much worse. If I hadn't made a career and had a solid position, I'd rather go back. It's a place with barely any social safety nets, honeyed up by the great lie of the american dream.
I worked as a long-term substitute teacher one year and went in sick as fuck for a week because missing a day would've cost an absurd amount of pay because of the way our rate was calculated. It wouldn't have done much good to call out since I was uninsured anyway. America!
When you know no different I guess you take it for granted. Last time I rang in sick I was told to get better soon and don't bother working even though I was wfh. I logged in two days later and the first thing my boss did was call me and ask how I was and take it easy and if I need to log off at anytime then no problem.
I just couldn't imagine being told I have a certain amount of sick days. Life is a bitch and anything can happen. I have worked with people before that have had not worked for 6-12 months due to stress but there job was there for them when they were better.
There are massive inconsistencies, which is a problem. At my job if I'm sick I can use time (I get about 8-9 paid sick days per year and it rolls over and accumulates if not all used). If I had a major issue I could use FMLA without consequences. The issue is not that all Americans don't have paid sick time, but that there are many who have decent sick policies and many that have terrible ones.
Which makes it a lottery. If a presidential candidate ran on implementing laws which made it compulsory for things such as paid sick leave, vacation time, maternity/paternity leave would they be supported or just called a socialist crackpot?
You guys can get fired so easily as well while we in Europe have so much protection that a company needs a very good reason just to fire someone with no prior warning or they face an employment tribunal.
This isn't unique to the US by any means, though. Contractors in the UK, for example, don't get the same employee benefits (pension contributions, paid holiday, parental leave, all that good stuff) that regular employees get. The compensation tends to come in the form of day rates that equate to higher salaries than those regular employees get. Essentially, contractors fund those benefits themselves.
From the sounds of things, in the States everyone is funding those benefits themselves, but surely as a contractor you are being paid more than the regular employees you work alongside? If not, then what's the advantage of being a contractor?
I don't know how well it would be received by the general public. The perception is that the few jobs with significant job protection lead to people abusing that protection (public school teachers accused of wrongdoing who are paid not to teach, tenured professors who flout their position, etc...). I personally think the benefits would clearly outweigh the negatives, but I suspect it'd be a proposal that would get a surprising amount of pushback.
Where I live most companies aren't looking for full time IT employees, so they work with 3rd parties to get people on board to be long term / indefinite contractors. If it's all anyone is offering you have to take what you can get.
And lol, I probably make less than the full timers.
Oh, that sounds fucking rough and like an example of unscrupulous companies taking advantage of their workforce. Hope you get into a better situation soon.
It's an epidemic in my field, IT is historically a "cost center" that doesn't really bring money into the organization. So the corporate solution is to only contract help since we can be dropped at literally any time (it's part of their agreement with the 3rd party) when they decide it no longer makes sense to have us on board.
Short of getting into a different field - which I'm very seriously considering - I don't see this getting any better anytime soon. The US has made it loud and clear that it doesn't give a single solitary fuck about working people.
He's so stubborn and all I can really do is make sure he gets a general vibe from me that there's no shame in any job, big or small, and that we all deserve a quality life. Maybe he'll see the light soon, but I doubt he'd fully convert to the scary european socialism in his mind.
I mean I have unlimited vacation so....I don't know what the fuck this is. And yes I live in the US
This is why it annoys me when the big unions in the UK call strikes over certain conditions and I hear people moaning about it.
They seem to forget that workers striking may not effect you personally but they are a necessary force to keep the powers that be in check.
They seem to forget that workers striking may not effect you personally but they are a necessary force to keep the powers that be in check.
Most of those things are pretty popular with the public, for example, mandatory paid sick leave has like 80% support with the public.
But it doesn't have lobbying money behind it, not enough al least, and this is America, it can be hard to pass even very popular things if most of the money is against it.
Wait, when they say sick days. They're not talking about paid sick days but just being away from work sick? In Australia full time workers get 10 sick days a year (which they get paid for), but you can be sick for longer you just don't get paid but obviously you need a doctors certificate.
Edit: additionally full time workers get 4 weeks of paid leave per year.
Edit: additionally full time workers get 4 weeks of paid leave per year.
It means that you need to show up to work or you're fired.
I mean not all jobs are like that, but that's the level of legal protection a whole lot of people in the US gets from our labor laws.
Maternity leave as well.
That's not true for the US as a whole. Depends on state and county.
CA gives 4 months of disability leave for pregnant women. And 12 weeks of family leave for men and women to bond with a new child.
States can vary quite a bit.
In CA we have sick leave, then short term disability, then long term disability. It is annoying to claim (lots of paperwork deadlines but it is there).
PTO or short term disability if you've already been sick a week.
Much higher pay usually.
Sounds like an anime.
Unlimited PTO is a scam. People end up taking less time off when it is unlimited.
So say a person gets diagnosed with a long term illness such as a cancer not only they do they have to worry about their health and life expectancy on top of that they could be going through the stress of having to take time off with the possibility there job could be taking away from them due having time off?
I sincerely hope this is not true. It's so foreign to me that I would be forcing myself to accept it as real.
Yeah, contract pay is higher because you're funding your own benefits. You can also get extra tax deductions that employees cannot.
That would be disability pay in the US.
For a lot of people in the US getting serious illness that prevent you from going to work means losing your job and then your health insurance.
I mean every job I've had has given me unlimited vacation so I was unaware this was a thing to have "limited" leave. Just assumed if you run out of sick days they take vacation
Not only do you have limited sick/vacation time but it also only really ever applies to full time staff and you also have the privilege of management and the company treating you like absolute trash if you use it. Work culture in the US is basically "If you're not working, you have no value", you're a number and you're easily replaceable.
Working in the food industry for years before doing what I do now I saw all kinds of situations of people that should not have been handling food, but there is always a fear for people in service jobs especially that if you call out you will increase your chance to get fired.
Working in the food industry for years before doing what I do now I saw all kinds of situations of people that should not have been handling food, but there is always a fear for people in service jobs especially that if you call out you will increase your chance to get fired.
Sure. Which is why I highlighted the importance of making sure that you have policies in place to counteract the ingrained culture of workaholism.
To be clear, I had already taken more than 10 days/2 weeks off when I was talked to. I ended the year with over 20 days/1 month. That was still just under the average of what others on my team took.
Unlimited PTO can be great. If you're given it, use it. If you're a company that offers it, make sure that your employees make use of it.
It's changing at most tech companies though because they want to attract the best talent. Just $$$ on the table isn't enough. Most have unlimited PTO as well as sick leave.
As I and others have said, there does exist a bubble if you work in a field that has to compete for talent.
i.e. If you're a startup competing against Amazon, Google and Facebook for engineering talent, offering full medical coverage and unlimited PTO is just table stakes.
But again this is absolutely not normal for 99+% of workers in the US.
It depends on where you work which is unfortunate. We are given a lot of sick leave and vacation days. Conversely, my job is in corporate America and can be extremely stressful too.
Do people actually use their unlimited vacation days at the same rate as the mandated holidays that you get in Europe (for example I have 25 days then my bank holidays on top of that in the UK)
It's not even just the shitty sick leave that most companies have that bothers me, it's that when you do take time off that you're entitled to, employers will try to guilt-trip you.
Maternity leave as well.
Since we are not in that map, we get 26 weeks in New Zealand.
What the fuck? What do you do if you are really sick or break a bone or something and are out for a whole month. Who pays after that?
But damn this backwards. This is what happens when you let companies regulate themself. Sucks that they just don't care about a worker's well-being.