MangoCon 2016 NYS
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I still don't have kids, so that was never a factor in wither or not I took vacation, having the finances to do so was the leading concern.
At that older company that gave what I considered crazy amounts of vacation I had 5 weeks of vacation on the books. As I was getting ready for work my boss called and said "I'll see you in two weeks, you start vacation today." Needless to say at first I kinda freaked out, but I asked why and was told that they were looking over the vacation accruals for everyone in my department and that since I had 5 weeks I had to use some now or lose it. So they decided that I was on vacation starting that day.
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to continue the thread jack and talk about time off...
Vacations are nearly pointless for me. they drive me crazy. Do I need and take time off - absolutely. And maybe part of it is that for the last 10 years I have worked for Non Profits and was the soul IT person. Things had to be managed daily, and I would work from Hilton Head, or Kitty Hawk.
I feel I'm pretty blessed now working from home, so why do I need a 'vacation'. I plan to take time off, but it will back up to a weekend, I don't need much time,.. I just need a bit to unscramble.
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@Dashrender said:
I still don't have kids, so that was never a factor in wither or not I took vacation, having the finances to do so was the leading concern.
At that older company that gave what I considered crazy amounts of vacation I had 5 weeks of vacation on the books. As I was getting ready for work my boss called and said "I'll see you in two weeks, you start vacation today." Needless to say at first I kinda freaked out, but I asked why and was told that they were looking over the vacation accruals for everyone in my department and that since I had 5 weeks I had to use some now or lose it. So they decided that I was on vacation starting that day.
I hate the forced vacation crap. Just a way to waste it without time to plan or whatever. My last job pulled that on us. The sold "big accrual" as a feature when hiring, but before we could accrue the first year they conveniently "change the policy" and made it a rolling five weeks so if you hit five weeks you'd be forced to take one day, then you'd accrue a day, then forced to take a day...
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@gjacobse said:
to continue the thread jack and talk about time off...
Vacations are nearly pointless for me. they drive me crazy. Do I need and take time off - absolutely. And maybe part of it is that for the last 10 years I have worked for Non Profits and was the soul IT person. Things had to be managed daily, and I would work from Hilton Head, or Kitty Hawk.
I feel I'm pretty blessed now working from home, so why do I need a 'vacation'. I plan to take time off, but it will back up to a weekend, I don't need much time,.. I just need a bit to unscramble.
Same here, if the job is good vacations start to become kind of meaningless. You need variety but not really time off. Time to do things, yes. But when life can be a vacation.... what is a vacation?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I still don't have kids, so that was never a factor in wither or not I took vacation, having the finances to do so was the leading concern.
At that older company that gave what I considered crazy amounts of vacation I had 5 weeks of vacation on the books. As I was getting ready for work my boss called and said "I'll see you in two weeks, you start vacation today." Needless to say at first I kinda freaked out, but I asked why and was told that they were looking over the vacation accruals for everyone in my department and that since I had 5 weeks I had to use some now or lose it. So they decided that I was on vacation starting that day.
I hate the forced vacation crap. Just a way to waste it without time to plan or whatever. My last job pulled that on us. The sold "big accrual" as a feature when hiring, but before we could accrue the first year they conveniently "change the policy" and made it a rolling five weeks so if you hit five weeks you'd be forced to take one day, then you'd accrue a day, then forced to take a day...
My last company kind of did this... except they would close the business for the day and force all employees to take a personal day, whether you had one or not.
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I think that is called being laid off for a day
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@scottalanmiller said:
I think that is called being laid off for a day
Right... if you had no vacation day it was un-payed leave. Weirdest thing I've encountered.
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At an employer from several years ago we had a similar system.
The company would close down to do year end audits, everyone was off for the day, but uppers and the staff they deemed payable would come in and work on the audit for the day.
Otherwise it was just unpaid leave.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@gjacobse said:
to continue the thread jack and talk about time off...
Vacations are nearly pointless for me. they drive me crazy. Do I need and take time off - absolutely. And maybe part of it is that for the last 10 years I have worked for Non Profits and was the soul IT person. Things had to be managed daily, and I would work from Hilton Head, or Kitty Hawk.
I feel I'm pretty blessed now working from home, so why do I need a 'vacation'. I plan to take time off, but it will back up to a weekend, I don't need much time,.. I just need a bit to unscramble.
Same here, if the job is good vacations start to become kind of meaningless. You need variety but not really time off. Time to do things, yes. But when life can be a vacation.... what is a vacation?
Well, you can definitely say that considering what you're doing now - working from the road. I personally would love that kind of life style - but my skills aren't such that I could do it today. I would fathom that I would need to be pretty good at scripting and remote management of things to make that viable from a support type role.
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@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I think that is called being laid off for a day
Right... if you had no vacation day it was un-payed leave. Weirdest thing I've encountered.
Yup, it's called being laid off and the company is considered to be temporarily out of business. They can legally do it and likewise, you can legally not return to work the next day without warning and they can't claim that you quit - because technically they fired you. If people were paying attention and wanted an "out", they could take unemployment benefits, go to another job without giving notice, etc. The company would have no ability to block the benefits, claim the employee quit, etc. and if asked why they were laid off they'd have to admit that they had shut their doors and the employee did not ask for a new job when they reopened.
Businesses need the right to not be able to operate, but if they don't pay their staff when they do it they have to accept the consequences that people have the right to work too.
So it gets complicated, and weird.
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Interesting... I wonder if that is why the company picked up the tab on Tuesday for everyone they sent home due to the lack of water. We couldn't function as a business for patient care without water, but the staff could have stayed and made phone calls and worked on computer tasks - but since there were no bathrooms, management decided to send everyone home at 2 PM (2 hours after 'lunch') because of the lack of bathroom problems.
I'm assuming they decided to pay everyone because of what Scott said?
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@Dashrender said:
Interesting... I wonder if that is why the company picked up the tab on Tuesday for everyone they sent home due to the lack of water. We couldn't function as a business for patient care without water, but the staff could have stayed and made phone calls and worked on computer tasks - but since there were no bathrooms, management decided to send everyone home at 2 PM (2 hours after 'lunch') because of the lack of bathroom problems.
I'm assuming they decided to pay everyone because of what Scott said?
And legally you can't send people home without pay after you have called them to work. There is a minimum, at least in most states. Can't remember if that is a state or federal law that protects employees from being forced to go to work and then sent home without pay. I know that in NY if you are called into work and then sent home you get a minimum of four hours of work to ensure that you are paid for the time that you commuted into work and were not able to work at another job. Otherwise jobs would stop people from being able to pay their bills by calling them in for a full day and sending them home a few minutes later over and over till they couldn't afford gas anymore.
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Yeah I've read those laws as well. That definitely wasn't the case here. Most people started at 8 AM, so having them go home a noon without pay would have them covered for that 4 hour requirement. Keeping them until 2 and giving them a 1 hour lunch still allowed that 4 hour to be covered.
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@Dashrender said:
Yeah I've read those laws as well. That definitely wasn't the case here. Most people started at 8 AM, so having them go home a noon without pay would have them covered for that 4 hour requirement. Keeping them until 2 and giving them a 1 hour lunch still allowed that 4 hour to be covered.
Pretty sure that there is a different law about providing bathrooms, though
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Yeah I've read those laws as well. That definitely wasn't the case here. Most people started at 8 AM, so having them go home a noon without pay would have them covered for that 4 hour requirement. Keeping them until 2 and giving them a 1 hour lunch still allowed that 4 hour to be covered.
Pretty sure that there is a different law about providing bathrooms, though
Bathrooms are required in NYS for any job site.
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@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Yeah I've read those laws as well. That definitely wasn't the case here. Most people started at 8 AM, so having them go home a noon without pay would have them covered for that 4 hour requirement. Keeping them until 2 and giving them a 1 hour lunch still allowed that 4 hour to be covered.
Pretty sure that there is a different law about providing bathrooms, though
Bathrooms are required in NYS for any job site.
As is water, I'm pretty sure. Those two things are considered healthy and safety things. But I think that they might be covered by OSHA too.
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Sure, I'm sure you're both right. But what I'm saying is that the bathrooms only were cut off after 12 PM. So if we closed the doors at noon, we could have sent everyone home without pay for the remainder of the day - 1) to cover the bathroom issue, and 2) because we are over the 4 hours of pay requirement.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Yeah I've read those laws as well. That definitely wasn't the case here. Most people started at 8 AM, so having them go home a noon without pay would have them covered for that 4 hour requirement. Keeping them until 2 and giving them a 1 hour lunch still allowed that 4 hour to be covered.
Pretty sure that there is a different law about providing bathrooms, though
Bathrooms are required in NYS for any job site.
As is water, I'm pretty sure. Those two things are considered healthy and safety things. But I think that they might be covered by OSHA too.
I'm pretty sure that is correct. We've had to close for the day when our water was shutoff (due to a well break).
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Yeah I've read those laws as well. That definitely wasn't the case here. Most people started at 8 AM, so having them go home a noon without pay would have them covered for that 4 hour requirement. Keeping them until 2 and giving them a 1 hour lunch still allowed that 4 hour to be covered.
Pretty sure that there is a different law about providing bathrooms, though
Bathrooms are required in NYS for any job site.
As is water, I'm pretty sure. Those two things are considered healthy and safety things. But I think that they might be covered by OSHA too.
That's definitely not the case. Otherwise you couldn't have construction sites. Most don't have running water for weeks, months - they porta-pottys.
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@Dashrender said:
That's definitely not the case. Otherwise you couldn't have construction sites. Most don't have running water for weeks, months - they porta-pottys.
Not running water, but I think that they might need to provide it. But never assume what company do reflects legal requirements. Companies have learned that employees are terrible at knowing their rights or doing something about it. I've watched so many people roll over to companies blatantly breaking federal law left and right. It is actually really rare that employees do anything about getting the working environment, pay, leave, whatever that they have earned.
