Vacation time at work?

[drshdw]

Originally Posted by crashoran

Why the personal attack?
We were never told about the 2 additional breaks.

Just saying, not really attacking. But seriously if you don't need the job, someone else will gladly take it. Also the US requires a minimum of 0 vacation days.. and Texas is an at will state, just saying..

[achtungpv]

Originally Posted by crashoran

If you aren't on a constant 9-10 hour grind, every single day, with not even enough time to make a short phone call, or enough time/freedom to eat away from your desk, then you don't know what it's like.

With that said, I don't mind unpaid time off. My boss has set a minimum of 45-50 hours each week for me, so I feel like even unpaid time is going to be very very difficult to come by.

That sounds like a very ****ty job. Your salary is based on 40 hours a week. At $50K a year that's $24.04/hour. If you are required to work 50 hours a week with no overtime pay, you just got a 20% pay cut down to $19.23/hour.

I used to work for a place like that. They called themselves an "extra effort company". You also had to make up the time for any day you took off (PTO, Christmas, vacation, etc) so in reality you had no time off for anything.

[Trainwreck20]

Your salary is based on 40 hours a week.

Assuming you are salary and not hourly pay.

[JayBrown80]

Originally Posted by crashoran

I can't STAND when people say they have never taken time off in their lives, when their work is basically a godsend. It's all relative. If you aren't on a constant 9-10 hour grind, every single day, with not even enough time to make a short phone call, or enough time/freedom to eat away from your desk, then you don't know what it's like.

With that said, I don't mind unpaid time off. My boss has set a minimum of 45-50 hours each week for me, so I feel like even unpaid time is going to be very very difficult to come by.

I am not trying to personally attack you either, but you seem to have a bad attitude towards work. I am wondering how many of your bad experiences are self inflicted.

Let's look at what you say above. You say that your boss has set a minimum of 45-50 hours a week, so that even unpaid time off is going to be hard to come by. But then you say that you are a temp being hired full time.......you are a temp that's salary? How can you work 50 hours a week mandatory if you are just a temp? You would need to be salaried or the company would be killing themselves in overtime pay. That seems weird. If you are on a "constant 9-10 hour grind" why would you even CONSIDER accepting their offer to become a full time employee, especially when you get no vacation for the first year?

Something about your story doesn't add up. You are a salaried, temporary worker, forced to work 10 hour days that you describe as " a constant grind", and then you tell us you are questioning accepting full time work there....based on their vacation policies? Specifically only having to wait one year before you can take paid vacation? It sounds to me that there are other problems with that job that you should be more focused on.

I have had a lot of employees that sound like you in the past. They were unhappy no matter what, and they tended to exaggerate the minutae that comes with any job. Are you maybe exxagerating? Can you explain your situation better, or more clearly? What am I not understanding?

[Aquitaine]

The simple truth is us Americans are overworked when compared to our European counterparts.

Your verb tense here suggests that the "overworking" is something that happens to American workers, or is something done to them by The Man.

There are a hundred differences between European labor laws and American labor laws. In Italy, you have a constitutional right to your job if you work at a company with more than 15 people - you pretty much can't be fired. Other countries have shorter workdays and require more vacation days.

That's all well and good except that a drop in production also means a drop in tax base, since the economy shrinks (unless you imagine that everyone will suddenly do in 34 hours what they previously did in 40). Not a problem unless you also have a big apetite for government services, as most European countries do. Normally I'd add something here about "...and here is a list of European governments being crushed by debt" but I actually think it would've been quite possible for them to keep shorter work days or weeks if they hadn't also over-promised on so many other issues. You pick and choose, and "one of everything" doesn't work.

In the US, back when I was a salaried worker, I was very careful never to sign an employment contract that required that I work more than X hours a week. That's not to say I never did, since sometimes everybody puts in some extra time, but it was voluntary and we were usually given latitude during the quieter times if the people upstairs knew we could be counted on for crunch time. Things are a bit tougher today but even in a bad economy I would sooner start my own business (as I did) then agree to work an unspecified or high number of hours at my employer's whim unless the salary reflected that -- and even then I probably wouldn't anyway.

The important thing is that the choice is mine to make.

[ITO]

Originally Posted by crashoran

I've been offered a job, but they will not allow ANY vacation during the first year. After 1 year of employment I'm eligible to use 2 weeks. I've already been working with them for 3 months through a temp agency, and they want me to come on full time.

Asking me to go 15 months straight without any time off is unreasonable, do you agree? I don't know if I should dump this and begin my job search somewhere else, because this is ridiculous. They did tell me I could take unpaid days, but that kind of defeats the purpose of taking a vacation..

That is pretty much SOP for a lot of businesses, and does not sound the least bit unreasonable. If I were in HR and I knew a potential new hire was working as a temp and being offered a full time job, and was not happy with waiting a year for paid vacation, I would rescind the offer. It's a bad sign, especially in this economy. If it is that unreasonable to you, then just pass on the job and let someone else, who really needs it, take the job.