Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Kathryn - I give up. I could not possibly have been more clear on what I said. Yet you continue to misrepresent what I say. I apologize for saying before I thought you were doing it on purpose. That was apparently not correct. It must be that you don't understand.
And if you think adults should get rewarded for coming to work, being on time and being polite that says all I need to know. Those are the minimum requirements for keeping your job, not cause for reward.
Where I work, we get 4 or 5 weeks vaca (depending on length of service) -- AND 3 personal days -- AND 12 sick days.
I highly doubt my company would be willing to put ALL those days in ONE PTO pot -- giving every worker potentially 35-40 days -- EIGHT WEEKS -- off a year. I know I'd take all my time off
((We can also earn compensatory time off for working holidays, that can be carried over indefinitely and must be paid if you leave, so I can build that up if I want to.))
In my mind, having just thought of it -- it seems like a lot of time to have to be covered by others, or to be able to deal with reduced staffing. Maybe not. And IF you let people carry some over AND/OR pay them or let them cash it in for NOT using the day, it MIGHT be OK.
It's been explained to me that because OT for a worker paid due to sick leave for another, comes out of some kind of insurance/disability pot or dis policy/account, the company doesn't mind paying that kind of OT, for that reason.
Right now I'd take it one step at a time and just ask for getting some pay for sick days NOT taken. What we have is the devil I know.
Wow, you have very generous amounts of time off! Nice package. You certainly don't seem to have some sort of "sense of entitlement" or an immature approach to accrued or earned time off, by the way.
I don't think I'd recommend lumping PTO and vacation time all together. I would consider doing away with sick days though and just call all time other than vacation "PTO." Then they can do with it what they will, hopefully SCHEDULING stuff in advance, rather than having to use "sick days" for other things, feeling guilty about not really being sick, and just sneaking around calling in "sick" when the reality is that they knew days in advance that they'd need the time off (kids' games, appts, whatever).
See, that's the subtle difference between "sick days" and PTO. "Sick days" by their very nature tend to be random, unplanned - if not by the worker him/herself, then certainly to management much of the time, because workers generally WANT to be treated fairly. If they know that Misty called in sick because she partied all weekend long, leaving the rest of the crew short handed on a Monday, but she got paid for it, they sure as heck feel they should get paid for a legitimate need to take off, especially when they haven't used all their sick time - but management is sometimes balky about letting people use "sick days" for other personal reasons. So...they hide the real reason and then just call in sick, and really, who can blame them, if they've got sick days to spare, going to lose them if they don't take them, while Misty gets paid for nursing a hangover?
And if they DON'T use those days - they're not sick, they don't call in EVER, they don't lie about being sick, and instead use their vacation days or unpaid leave for appts or whatever, then why should they lose that pay or those vacation days, when other workers around them are using sick days because they have a little headache or feel just a little off...and they figure (maybe even rightly so) that they're GIVEN these paid days off, so why not take them?
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 01-03-2014 at 09:09 PM..
Kathryn - I give up. I could not possibly have been more clear on what I said. Yet you continue to misrepresent what I say. I apologize for saying before I thought you were doing it on purpose. That was apparently not correct. It must be that you don't understand.
And if you think adults should get rewarded for coming to work, being on time and being polite that says all I need to know. Those are the minimum requirements for keeping your job, not cause for reward.
I give up, too. You clearly are not understanding my points whatsoever. I'll waste no more time trying to explain it to you.
Maybe you can try to explain why you're opposed to paying people for unused sick time to all the thousands and thousands of company CEOs who have policies which do just that. Then you can explain to the workers who get those (usually small, but always welcomed) payouts that they're silly for appreciating them - in fact, they shouldn't get them because it's just a form of entitlement attitude. After all, adults shouldn't expect to be rewarded when their professional attitude toward attendance, and their sense of duty to their coworkers and customers goes above and beyond the minimum required.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 01-03-2014 at 09:10 PM..
I give up, too. You clearly are not understanding my points whatsoever. I'll waste no more time trying to explain it to you.
Maybe you can try to explain why you're opposed to paying people for unused sick time to all the thousands and thousands of company CEOs who have policies which do just that. Then you can explain to the workers who get those (usually small, but always welcomed) payouts that they're silly for appreciating them - in fact, they shouldn't get them because it's just a form of entitlement attitude. After all, adults shouldn't expect to be rewarded when their professional attitude toward attendance, and their sense of duty to their coworkers and customers goes above and beyond the minimum required.
I'm not opposed to paying people for unused sick time. I never said that. I simply said I think it makes sense to have a policy of not paying people for not using time (I believe we were actually talking about vacation time at that point) That doesn't mean I'm opposed to a different policy. I was simply countering an opinion.
Our real disagreement started when you questioned me on that and brought up the issue of people feeling "cheated" when they don't use them. That is what I find immature. Not people who show up to work. Not people who use sick days. Not anything else. Every time I used those terms is was in relation to people who would feel "cheated" by not taking their allotted sick days.
I find flaws in both methods. One policy may encourage people to take sick days when they aren't sick. One policy may encourage people to come in to the office when they are sick and get others sick.
If you're paid over 12 months (instead of ten) then you do get paid time off. You're paid over the summer, during your vacation time. My friend who's a teach also bemoans not being able to travel at non-peak times.
It doesn't matter. I get paid for working the 185 days of my contract. The fact that I get paid over 12 months doesn't mean I am getting "paid vacation."
Let me put it into perspective:
Let's assume I earn $46,250 a year.
- If I am paid for only the 185 days that I work, that works out to $250 for each day of my contract.
- If I am being paid for 260 days (a standard work year), then I am being paid $178 per day for 185 days of work and 75 days of vacation and holidays).
Let's look at a couple of scenarios to determine how I am paid.
Scenario #1: Let's also say that I am in a horrible car accident and I am unable to work for 4 weeks (20 working days) and I only have 10 sick days.
If I am truly being paid for 75 days and holidays, I should be able to get paid for the 10 days I did not have sick days for and I could make up the time during my "vacation." I am not allowed to do that because school is not in session. Strike one for having "paid vacation."
Since I can't work and I can't take vacation days or make up the days later, I will have to forfeit my pay for the 10 days that I could not work but did not have sick days to cover. If I were being paid for 260 days, I would lose $1,780 of my pay. However, since I am paid only for days I work, I will actually be docked $2,500. Strike two for having "paid vacation."
Scenario #2: I am a horrible teacher and I am fired effective the end of the school year. If I were being paid on the 260 work day schedule, I would would not be paid for my summer "vacation" because I am no longer with the school district and the district does not have to pay me once I am fired. In addition, the district would save 9 weeks worth of my salary ($8,010).
However, even if I am fired or laid off I will continue to draw my paycheck for the summer months. This is not because I am being paid for summer vacation, it is because I am being paid for work I already completed, but have not yet been paid for. Because I am collecting money owed to me, I can actually file for and receive unemployment benefits during the summer because the state government considers me unemployed. Strike three for having "paid vacation."
The school district spreads out my pay over 12 months because it is beneficial to them. By holding back a portion of our pay and then giving it to us later, the school district can keep millions of dollars in their interest-bearing accounts, not ours. We agree to the arrangement because it makes life a little more stable.
Sorry - don't know what you mean by that related to my post. Are you in a job that requires you to write and implement policies within the legal confines of the law, with the best interests of both the company and the workers in mind?
That was a response for a different thread mistakenly placed in this one
My employer has made it a "requirement" that we use ALL our vacation prior to the new year. Of the 200 hours of vacation used I still have 140 left over. From my experience employers either pay out those unused hours by the end of the year or allow you to roll them over. My employer has restricted the amount we can roll over to 40 hours so I'd essentially lose 100 hours of vacation. Is this legal, is there a baseline policy on vacation hours, etc...?
You say "of the 200 hours of vacation used ..." but I assume you mean you earned or accrued 200 hours (5 weeks per year), right? And first you say the employer says you have to use ALL your time "prior to the new year" (I assume you mean JANUARY 1, 2015 -- basically a year from now?) but then you say they will allow you to roll over 40 hours.
But if you really need to use 100 hours of vacation time (that's 2.5 weeks, assuming a 40-hour week) "prior to the new year," you have a year to do so. You really don't think you'll be able to use just 2.5 weeks over the next year?
I keep thinking I must be misunderstanding something.
At my last corporate job, we could roll over 2 weeks of vacation time (80 hours) maximum. I knew far in advance when I would be leaving so I planned it so I'd have exactly that much. It was a nice chunk of money just before I started grad school!
You lost me a bit. I'm sure it's me, but that's OK.
Quote:
Scenario #1: Let's also say that I am in a horrible car accident and I am unable to work for 4 weeks (20 working days) and I only have 10 sick days.
You don't have any kind of short-term disability that kicks in, for when you need to be out beyond sick days?
Quote:
Scenario #2: I am a horrible teacher and I am fired effective the end of the school year. If I were being paid on the 260 work day schedule, I would would not be paid for my summer "vacation" because I am no longer with the school district and the district does not have to pay me once I am fired. In addition, the district would save 9 weeks worth of my salary ($8,010).
However, even if I am fired or laid off I will continue to draw my paycheck for the summer months. This is not because I am being paid for summer vacation, it is because I am being paid for work I already completed, but have not yet been paid for. Because I am collecting money owed to me, I can actually file for and receive unemployment benefits during the summer because the state government considers me unemployed. Strike three for having "paid vacation."
Scenario #1: Let's also say that I am in a horrible car accident and I am unable to work for 4 weeks (20 working days) and I only have 10 sick days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rdflk
You don't have any kind of short-term disability that kicks in, for when you need to be out beyond sick days?
Any short term disability would have to via insurance that we purchase ourselves.
We do have a sick-leave bank that a person may join but is not required to join. At the beginning of the year you donate one sick day to the bank (leaving you with only nine sick days), and if you use more days than you have, you can "withdraw" days from the sick bank. If you don't belong to the bank, then you would be out of luck.
There have been instances where someone doesn't belong to the sick-leave bank and is out long term. Sometimes the district will allow other employees to "donate" a sick day to the employee so the person will get paid.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
