MangoCon 2016 NYS
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Yeah, the US is terrible on vacation stuff. Although you know, honestly, having been to a few different places the Europeans and more heavily European influenced countries (Australia, New Zealand, Canada) they have this feeling like people should have loads of vacation (and I agree) but in much of the rest of the world people often get little or no vacation. The US actually falls in the middle. Sure it is at the bottom of developed nations for holiday time, but when you compare India and China and Central America, for example, it's more like average.
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@JaredBusch said:
I have no paid time off at all. So there is that. Instead my hourly wage was initially set higher than average for my duties.
We have that but that's termed 'casual' employment. Lots of the big companies (Woolies, Coles, Maccas etc i.e. the ones where kids/students start) put most people on as casuals. It works out cheaper for them.
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@JaredBusch said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I spent eight years that way. It's not all that uncommon. I knew lots of people who had done similar things at many different companies. Definitely not the norm by any stretch, but not super uncommon.
You simply have to make sure you properly account for the wages as desired.
Example (not my real rate):
You make $25/hour (x2087 hours = $52,175/year) and get 2 weeks (80 hours) of paid vacation time.
This comes out to $2,000 per year for those 80 hours.
Divide that by 2,087 (US standard work hours in a year) breaks it down to $0.96 per hour.
So take $1/hour more on the offer, means you make $26/hour.
Assuming you still take 2 weeks off, that comes up to $26 * 2007 = $52,182/year.
It also means any paid overtime will be worth more.Exactly, and if you are like me, I did it mostly in the years when I did not have kids yet. So I just didn't take vacations most years so I earned that much more and did not start looking for the vacation time until later in my career. That can lead to burn out, but I never intended to do it forever. I did manage to go twenty years with no normal vacations, though, taking just one for my honeymoon.
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@nadnerB said:
@JaredBusch said:
I have no paid time off at all. So there is that. Instead my hourly wage was initially set higher than average for my duties.
We have that but that's termed 'casual' employment. Lots of the big companies (Woolies, Coles, Maccas etc i.e. the ones where kids/students start) put most people on as casuals. It works out cheaper for them.
Here (in the US, not actually where I am) it is the opposite. The more casual you are, the more you are protected and get vacation time of some sort. It's the hard core consultants who should be in a position to make their own adult life choices that might end up in that position. Which is, I think, a very good thing. People like Jared know what it means, how to handle it and how to make it work for them. It ends up being important flexibility rather than some horrible loss. But a twenty year old that is desperate to get an entry level job should not fear slave labour that they can't afford to escape.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Exactly, and if you are like me, I did it mostly in the years when I did not have kids yet. So I just didn't take vacations most years so I earned that much more and did not start looking for the vacation time until later in my career. That can lead to burn out, but I never intended to do it forever. I did manage to go twenty years with no normal vacations, though, taking just one for my honeymoon.
I did not get the job until after I had kids. But I also got more than the "minimum" offset for the time. We still take vacations, just small ones. But that is because of a time dedication in Japan that is not vacation, but still eats available time.
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Back before the kids I would do things like travel to offices around the world but work while there and take @dominica with me. This worked out great. We got a week in the UK out of that that we really enjoyed. We went and did a weekend (I didn't normally work weekends) in the British countryside, then I worked in London, then it was Thanksgiving in the US (I did get ten holidays a year so this was a day off for me) that we spent doing our own thing, then Friday I worked in Belfast and that weekend we had to ourselves in Belfast.
A vacation it was not, but we got five days of "not working" time in the UK out of it plus Dominica got free time there while I did four days of "work time" too. So with a little creativity things worked out really well during those years. Not perfect and I really have valued by vacation time since then, especially my two months that I took in 2012 after my twenty year vacationless stretch, but I think it was the right decision during those years.
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What is interesting, to me at least, is that I have been so focused on vacation time as being critical in the years since changing out of that vacationless job and my one job had for or more weeks and the next had five.... but in both cases, even though I was super serious about the vacation time, I ended up taking a vacation buyout rather than actually taking vacation time! I took a little at the one job in 2013, but only one week and only in Walt Disney World (does that even count as a vacation?)
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/threadjack
MangoCon... I think it sounds like we are trying to swindle someone out of some Mangoes.
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However, the name is still better than JATCAT (Just Another Tech Conference, Alrighty Then)
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@nadnerB said:
/threadjack
MangoCon... I think it sounds like we are trying to swindle someone out of some Mangoes.
Perhaps that is part of the agenda!
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@nadnerB said:
@Dashrender said:
I get 5 days a year
I'm sorry, but WHAT!?
You only get 5 days annual leave (vacation)?I got 5 days of vacation for the first two years at my last job... when I mentioned it my second year they bumped it up to 7 and acted like they were doing me this huge favor. By the way this was accrued leave for both personal time and sick time... so when I had a medical emergency in the beginning of the year and used up three days... I basically couldn't get sick for the rest of the year.
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@nadnerB said:
@Dashrender said:
I get 5 days a year
I'm sorry, but WHAT!?
You only get 5 days annual leave (vacation)?Uh no - This place has the best default starting vacation time I've ever personally had, but I've been places where I've had more in the long run.
Where I am today everyone starts with 3 weeks vacation. It's setup on an accrual basis, 120 hrs (assumes a 40 hours work week) / 26 (number of pay periods) = 4.62 hrs accrued each pay period.
At 5 years you get a 4th week.
At 10 years you get a 5th week.The place that offered the best long term vacation worked as follows:
start with 2 weeks vacation and 2 personal days
You get 2 additional personal days a year until you have 10
At 5 yrs you get a third week (total of 5 weeks off)
At 10 yrs you get a 4th week (total of 6 weeks off)Neither of these companies have sick time. If you miss a day of work, you lose a day of vacation.
The two personal days at the second company were primarily designed as sick days - you get a day off anytime without notice, whereas vacation was intended to be scheduled time off.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
I get 5 days a year and $2500 for training/travel/etc - at least 3 days of that is taken by SpiceWorld. While I paid a non insignificant amount on a room ($750 for 4 nights), and $299 for SW itself, and $370 for flights, over all it was pretty cheap because I didn't have to buy any meals while I was there. There might be enough to do both next year.
Your SW ticket should have cost you $99 if you purchased at con. If not you can get it for $199 now. So that is $100-$200 less there.
You could share a room next year and halve the hotel (AirBnB).
The flight, is probably always going to be similar.Absolutely on all fronts. I did buy my ticket while we were in the prize panel, and I'll be searching for a roommate.
I don't think I'll do AirBnB with a roommate, unless I can find a place at the same price with two beds. The rate I got this year was pretty good for last min, but only $20 less than the hotel (which included breakfast) and one had one bed.
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Lots of people with AirBnB were getting hotel like prices but with two bedrooms, so less of a "room" mate and more of a "house" mate. Not like a hotel with two beds in one room.
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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.
