[Fullsize455]

Originally Posted by dataway

I've been at the same job for 38 years .... I can take all the vacation I want. Heck I could take six months off and still come back to my job, but they won't pay me to not do work.

The Government told me I am free to seek the best job I can get. That's pretty much all I need. Everything I DON'T have ... is my fault, no one else's.

I'm not sure I've seen a better post than this in recent times.

[johnta1]

Thanks, Heybuck!


Looks like I'll be staying here.
At least it's warm.

[ta6point6]

I have worked at my current job 22 years and I have 5 weeks paid vacation. The the first few years you only get 1 week and it increases the longer your time with the office. I am surprised more people have not brought up PTO when referencing time off. We used to get a week of sick time on top of whatever vacation time was acquired. If you did not call in sick much then you could trade in sick time for vacation time. Now with PTO no extra sick time and if you call in sick it counts against your vacation time. I used to be one of those guys who would tough out a cold so I didnt use PTO time but now I see that it is better to call in sick and not get everyone around you sick. People who are hacking and coughing at work drive me nuts

[Chris65LeMans]

As they say - taking almost 10% of the year off doesn't put a man on the moon, cure polio, won't make the self-driving car a reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8 (Cadillac Commercial)

[OG68]

My wife works for a Swiss company here in San Diego. Initially each subsidiary of the company was bound to the laws of the state the were located in regards to benefits. Then about 5 years ago the mother company decreed that all subsidiaries were to follow the benefit schedule of the Swiss headquarters. So all employees now have unlimited sick time and maternity leave for mother/father, generous vacation, free coffee/tea/snacks at all work centers and an in-house deli. No meal is over $4. Amazingly the sick leave rate is the same as before the change. Her line of work is highly competitive with employees jumping from company to company so the benefits are designed to keep them happy.

[bird72]

I am glad I am out of the corporate mess. For at least the last 10 years I could only take vacation in the dead of winter due to seasonal activity here. So in frozen Montana in January, I took vacations and don't ski. I never was able, due to work load, to take the 3 weeks I earned (after 17 years). So it built up in PTO bank. Then they capped the limit and took away hundreds of hours from many of us. So we had vacation we could never totally use and lost anyway. It became a mythical benefit of sorts. But it was a good gig and paid my bills.

[lust4speed]

Australia have more weeks in their year? In the remainder of the world getting paid for 13 Weeks out of 52 without working is exactly 25% of the year that a person does absolutely nothing but receives payment. Now this all will sort of work out if the pay scale is 25% less and it is simply a shift of benefit payments. We always come back to "there's no free lunch" principle and there's only so much of the pie to split. An example would be that some of us would choose $40 an hour rather than the $30 with the $10 being stocked away by an employer for benefits or future payments. Or another example is your boss comes up and offers you an additional two weeks of paid vacation, but you have to take a corresponding pay cut to get it.

[RocktimusPryme]

The problem with the "anything I don't have is my fault" theory is that its reliant on others. It is reliant on other people to have a spine. We all know there are a whole lot of people who don't own one of those. Even if you know that your workplace conditions are unfair, be it wages, PTO etc etc. If you are willing to go fight for yourself and the other employees aren't willing to do so as well, its likely to fall on deaf ears.

I 100% agree that you have to fight for yourself, but because there are so many lemmings out there, it sometimes doesn't matter. At the end of the day you have to be willing to walk, its your only real weapon.

When I have realized in the past I wasn't going to get my way, I smiled and nodded like a good little lemming,............and I looked for a different job while I was in the position of power of having a job currently.

[GT182]

When I was working for Anchor Mtr Frt we got 2 weeks. On our 14th year we moved up to 3 weeks. Sadly I never got to have 3 weeks seeing they closed our terminal. All of the other the jobs I worked at gave 2 weeks to their employees after your first year on the job.

[Formulabruce]

"entitlement" in a "Real" job, is a oxymoron...

[poncho-mike]

I totally agree with your statement.

I've been with my current employer for almost 14 years. I have looked for a new job on four different occasions, had two job offers, and almost quit once.

I hired on with my current employer in 2005. Our products were manufactured in Tijuana, Mexico at the time. In late 2006 or early 2007, my boss wanted me to go to the Tijuana plant to assist in the start up of a new product I designed. Right before his request, the Tijuana Police Department confiscated all of the police officer's guns and issued them slingshots because they suspected many were corrupt and may have used their weapons in unsolved crimes.. I told my boss there was no way I was going to Mexico, and started immediately looking for a new job. The job market was pretty good around that time. My boss asked me if I had applied for a passport yet and I told him I wouldn't need it if I found a new job first. By that time I had two interviews lined up, so he relented and we video conferenced with the Mexico facility. I followed through on one fo the interviews and was offered a job, but pay and benefits were no better than what I had so I stayed.

I think management can tell if an employee is unhappy, and if you're valuable enough to the company they will work with you. Sometimes they don't, so you have to draw a line in the sand and be willing to stick by it if you are treated unfairly. Being free to leave is really the only power you have.

Originally Posted by RocktimusPryme

The problem with the "anything I don't have is my fault" theory is that its reliant on others. It is reliant on other people to have a spine. We all know there are a whole lot of people who don't own one of those. Even if you know that your workplace conditions are unfair, be it wages, PTO etc etc. If you are willing to go fight for yourself and the other employees aren't willing to do so as well, its likely to fall on deaf ears.

I 100% agree that you have to fight for yourself, but because there are so many lemmings out there, it sometimes doesn't matter. At the end of the day you have to be willing to walk, its your only real weapon.

When I have realized in the past I wasn't going to get my way, I smiled and nodded like a good little lemming,............and I looked for a different job while I was in the position of power of having a job currently.

[ramairthreegto]

Most Western European countries and their offshoots have a history and tradition of a leisurely aristocracy, unhurried processionals, and vassals doing the minimum they have to, in modern times, this has translated into daily work hours, work weeks, benefits, and an overall pace of things and impact that largely leaves no mark on the world.

America took a different route, and although changing in recent times, lauded a furious work pace and severe Puritan work ethic that rapidly shot it to a dominant position in the world.

Trying to get stuff done in other countries with the European influence was maddening.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by Heybuck

Nonetheless, I was quite astonished that holiday breaks are not paid to an employee in the US. I gather you are saying you are paid for the time you are at the job and if you take a holiday, that's down to you financially??

As the others said, it depends on where you work and what they are offering. In my case, this contract job has been a real blessing even without the benefits.
One thing that did screw me up though, the so-called 'Affordable Care Act', aka 'Obamacare', caused my previously free healthcare (it was part of my retirement benefits) to go up to a couple of hundred a month for my wife and I.

[MYGOAT]

Hey Ian,
Did you mention that the 4 weeks annual leave comes with around 17% loading. It does for me in my job anyway. I get 17% more for not coming to work.
Also, I get 12 days on top of the 4 weeks annual leave as so called RDOs (rostered days off).
Then there is the overtime rate. We get time and a half for the first 2 hours then double time thereafter on weekdays and Saturdays and triple time straight up for working Sundays.

I was telling this to some of our US visitors and they could not believe it.
Mind you these are all Grandfather clauses that were set years ago when the Union had strength and were not given up in our EBA negotiations.
I think this is why the Australian manufacturing industry is basically dead. We get too much and just can't compete with Asia.

Originally Posted by Heybuck

I just asked my wife (my book keeper!!) how much exposure we have to this one employee. Just about A$35,000 at this point. We are responsible employers so we have an interest paying account running to which we automatically add to on a monthly basis so if she resigned or I decide to wind up the business, we will not be stretched to pay her out.

Employee benefits in Australia are (in my opinion I suppose as an employer...), exceptionally generous. Standard employment gives the employee a good weekly wage, 4 weeks annual holiday, long service leave, up to 10 days sick leave each year fully paid, if a family member is ill, they can take carers leave. A woman is entitled to very generous maternity leave, a new father gets a varying amount of leave as well (2 to 4 weeks is normal). And all fully paid. A 36 hour working week is normal.

We are a small business now. 25 years years ago we had 14 employees but we have cut back to only one now. With one employee, I make as much money as we did with 14 and now have 14 times less stress. Reading all the above, you can see why I have a less stress!!!

Nonetheless, I was quite astonished that holiday breaks are not paid to an employee in the US. I gather you are saying you are paid for the time you are at the job and if you take a holiday, that's down to you financially??

[nas t eh]

Alberta law is 2weeks paid vacation each year and after five years it goes up to 3 weeks per year.
The time away must be taken and paid each calendar year and not carried over to the next year. This is only recently being enforced to prevent businesses from paying out vacation without allowing employees to take it.

I work for a large US privately held Chemical company. They exceed the requirements and give 3weeks vacation per year from the beginning and increase to 4 weeks at 10 years service, 5 weeks at 20 and 6 weeks at 30years service. We have Chemicalplants in many American States and more in Europe and South America.
I’m pretty sure it’s 2-3 weeks per year increasing to 6 weeks per year at every American location we have.

Some of our locations are unionized and others are not. The company tries to avoid a site going union by paying better wages and benefits than a union could negotiate for.
Been there 36 years so far, our site is non union.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by MYGOAT

Hey Ian,
Did you mention that the 4 weeks annual leave comes with around 17% loading. It does for me in my job anyway. I get 17% more for not coming to work.
Also, I get 12 days on top of the 4 weeks annual leave as so called RDOs (rostered days off).
Then there is the overtime rate. We get time and a half for the first 2 hours then double time thereafter on weekdays and Saturdays and triple time straight up for working Sundays.

I can't imagine how anyone stays in business if they're held to that.
For many years, before I retired, and I was a union represented employee, we got time and a half for working off days...whatever those days happened to be. Some guys would take a couple of sick or vacation days, Monday and Tuesday for example, come in on Saturday and Sunday and make the full 40 hours at regular rate plus time and a half for that 16 hours.
The company wised up and the union gave in. After that, you only get time and a half after working 40 hours of regular time..regardless of what days you worked or didn't work.

[dataway]

The "poor" in the US are in the top 10% worldwide as far as income and quality of life.

Not a day goes by that I don't consider myself lucky that I have a roof over my head and food to eat. I grew up simple in Tenn. I could work at a gas station and be happy. I'm a simple man, with simple desires. That might make me an idiot in some people's estimation, a "fly over" person, a rube, but I'm happy, my wife is happy, I feel blessed to live in this country, in this time.

[Mrp613]

I work 2 jobs regularly, one more when I want to. My primary job is conducting investigations for a state agency. Lowest paying state in the nation but all employees, at least in my agency, accrue 3 weeks vacation and three weeks of sick time per year, with 13-15 paid holidays.

My police job, the full time staff get one week of each to start, and starting pay is 13.50-15.50 per hour.

I worked at our local Sheriff’s Department for a number of years, started at 21,500 a year with pay increases for time of service. We also supplied all of our own gear except for two pair of pants, a long sleeve and a short sleeve shirt. Badge,gun belt with equipment, sometimes ballistic vest, duty weapon to include any long guns were on us as was duty ammo.

There is not much negotiating with a govt entity when it comes to work but there is some.

[66sprint6]

Originally Posted by dataway

The "poor" in the US are in the top 10% worldwide as far as income and quality of life.

Not a day goes by that I don't consider myself lucky that I have a roof over my head and food to eat. I grew up simple in Tenn. I could work at a gas station and be happy. I'm a simple man, with simple desires. That might make me an idiot in some people's estimation, a "fly over" person, a rube, but I'm happy, my wife is happy, I feel blessed to live in this country, in this time.

Amen to that. In the early nineties we had a devastating recession. I couldn’t find a job at all for weeks, months at a time.
Benefits? Vacation? Ha!

[grandam1979]

I’m self employed I don’t work I don’t get paid no guaranteed time off. So to say the least I don’t feel bad for the 49% who pay nothing and get a lot handed to them from my paid taxes.