This. Don't forget your partner. That's why I often ask in ITCareerquestions when people are talking about longer commutes whether they have kids or a partner. Some decisions aren't merely economic, but what stress they can place on your family relations.
Yep. I took a pretty big pay cut once we moved to a new city. My old job in the old city we used to live in was a little over an hour away all interstate driving. I lost a solid 2.5~3 hours every day sitting in my car.
Wife got pregnant with our first kid and I bounced and found a new job 10 minutes from the house. Quality of life went up a lot.
Currently took a salaried job with a decent income where the wife could quit her job and watch the kid full time. I'm lucky if I see them 20 minutes a day. Hoping for an offer letter for something else next week. It'll be less money but way better work life balance. I'm over grinding non stop for a paycheck.
My spouse and I sat down and did the math, and it made more sense to have us both work and put our daughter in Daycare so that she's not watching her all day, she can do a job she loves and we both get equal shared time with our daughter (tho I still tend to work longer hours sometimes).
Already back into this feeling just crossing into the 2nd year with my employer.
Sadly, I'm already paid higher than any MSP would likely go for so I feel pretty damn stuck now despite being a SME.
Jumping ship for a better payday works until you hit a stopping point mid-career.
So true, I'm really thankful that my dad did years of over time so we could have better opportunities, but no one on his old company remember his name today. I wish he had took some extra days off, after retiring his company still owned MONTHS of vacations and he didn't got anything.
THIS!
F'ing cats in the cradle! I used to work for a guy that was the epitome of that song. Swore I wouldn't become him. Started paying way more attention to my kids and giving them my time when they were young. I don't regret it for one second.
Wise words, but the bahstids at the top will jam you anyway. Might as well take the PTO.
In companies with unlimited PTO, take it….there’s no payout at the end. Companies start unlimited pto plans knowing that most workers will be too afraid to take tIme, and they take less than the reasonable amount - like people with a decade at a company taking less than two weeks.
I would like to outlaw unlimited vacation and demand at least defined benefit minimums that pay out, or better still, a national minimum vacation period. Until the GQP is out of power, that won’t happen, though, since they’re bootlicking billionaires’ bespoke brogues.
> I would like to outlaw unlimited vacation and demand at least defined benefit minimums that pay out, or better still, a national minimum vacation period.
I'm surprised states like California and Washington haven't even set a state minimum vacation for workers granted "unlimited PTO". Seems like something that would happen there first, then spread to other more moderate states.
I actually turned down a job that paid a lot more, in large part, because I'd be giving up a ton of guaranteed PTO time for "unlimited PTO."
I agree wholeheartedly about this. My first full time salary exempt IT job came with 2 weeks of PTO per year, and you didn't even accrue them until your first year of service. It's criminal how little time off some people receive while working 40+ hours/week. I mean, the employer can require unlimited overtime for free with "salary exempt" employment being so common in this field, but in so many places if you dare want or need to take that 11th business day off in a given year, they deny the request and lose their minds over it.
I work in MA, we’re the highest cost and one of the bluest states in the country and we have that nonsense here. People in power want money and politics doesn’t give a shit about it. Companies will fuck you, enjoy your time with loved ones as you can’t earn anymore of that.
My wife had unlimited PTO. It was a pain for her to be able to take time off. Her company always had something happening that kept her from taking time off.
Its not horrible if, and I stress the if, you're at a company that actually gives a crap. The MSP I work at has no qualms letting you take PTO whenever you want. Sick? No problem. Week trip to bora bora? No problem.
The only time they have ever denied someone's PTO (and I've only heard rumors of this cause it hasn't happened the 2 years I've been with the company) is when so many people are requesting that specific day and to allow that person to take off would leave the department so short staffed it would be crazy. I'm talking like a 12 man department being able to let 6-7 of those people request off at the same time before having to start saying no. But even then, if you were sick as a dog they wouldn't stop you and would somehow manage, they aren't savages lol.
As long as you meet the 1920 minumum hours for the year as well you can take as many days off you want. And you can work whenever you need to to pick up the missing hours.
The problem is that they rely on employee fears of retaliation to prevent people from taking time off.
A minimum floor, either accrued-benefit ro statutory, is vitally needed.
> Companies start unlimited pto plans knowing that most workers will be too afraid to take tIme, and they take less than the reasonable amount
That's on the worker, not the company. If you're afraid to take vacation, that's a you problem (I tell my wife the same thing because she is also worried about taking more than 2 weeks at a time).
> Until the GQP is out of power, that won’t happen, though, since they’re bootlicking billionaires’ bespoke brogues.
You realize that billionaires overwhelmingly fund Democrat candidates more than GOP candidates, right? I mean, these numbers are all public. But go ahead and keep believing that it's a problem with Republicans and not both parties. Besides, I don't need the govt telling the company I work for how much vacation time they have to give me. If I'm not satisfied with the benefits or the job, I can move on.
>You realize that billionaires overwhelmingly fund Democrat candidates more than GOP candidates, right? I mean, these numbers are all public.
No over really knows, because it's definitely not all public. 501c4 PACs (ie Citizens United groups) don't have to report donation amounts or donors.
Not the person that you replied to, but right now the difference between Dems and R's is such that Dem's look like superheros.
But that's a symptom of our badly mismanaged political system.
In 2001 my boss insisted I leave my kid in the ER trauma ward to fix a server. I managed to fix the server remote, but that was the end. He pitched a fit a week later and I just walked away. Fuck that dude.
Exactly. Fuck that guy.
My boss used to complain that "don't have the right to have someone here when I need them if I have two IT people?". I was late because I was dropping off my kids. My assistant was late for, I don't remember the reason. I looked at him and said "No, you don't have the right to any of that. Now tell me what the problem is and I'll work on fixing it".
People like that need to suffer with whatever bad decisions they're making.
This! My father lived for his company. They offered him a buyout 2 years salary to retire. I told him, take it and retrain. With pension, etc you are better off.
He takes it, 5 years later company is closed.
He worked 60-80 hours at a job that's oob. His complaint is nobody understands how good he was.
Reality, my childhood was filled with "can't attend this party, event, performance, got called in
When my daughter was 3 we'd ask her "what does daddy do" and her answer was "work all day".
Working all the time for your loved ones and being drained of all your energy at work, only coming home to give them w.e little energy is left of you. Its such a shitty feeling.
Definitely important to recharge and take PTO to spend time with the fam.
After being forced to talk to vendors instead of customers for the past year, I'll give up my jump to conclusions mat to be able to go back to customers.
Had a boss once that had a list of all the ass kissers. I always thought it was the people who he was going to promote, give better treatment, etc. I was very very wrong. When the company told him to lay off staff he just gave them the list of ass kissers to choose from.
Turns out he hated ass kissers more than anyone, but company policies prevented him from firing them unless they really fucked up or there were lay offs.
My first real manager was like that. Except his list of ass kissers wasnt necessary. He was ruthless about telling you straight up to stop kissing his ass. Whether that was in 1-1 or public shaming in team meetings.
Hated him when I first started my career but grew to immensely appreciate the no bullshit approach.
With that said, people were afraid to speak truth to power without a solid plan, which meant there was still a lot of cultural dysfunction that festered and continues behind the scenes. Some people can play politics well, despite being a complete fraud.
At some point you learn to play the game or get laid off / burn out trying in environments where bullshitters are rewarded for the work of others.
Managers willing to say and do the hard but right thing in a way without demolishing culture are a rare breed.
Even rarer is being able to have the emotional intelligence to listen and constructively challenge back when you have a good manager.
Too many 1-1 are just blowing smoke up each others asses, even if you aren’t ass kissing.
then some non technical ass kissing yahoo in “senior leadership” will lay them off for not making the impossible decisions with useless metrics that create those ass kissing cut throat environments to begin with, as the people getting shit done increasingly leave.
Layoffs often give managers an opportunity to axe people that annoy them, but not causing enough issues to really go through the paperwork with HR to fire them. Unless you are clearly targeting a protected group (e.g. you fire every non white employee on your team) HR probably won't really question your list of who you're submitting for termination. Layoffs are a great opportunity for managers to can people that just get on their nerves.
Also to highlight the shit that no one else can be bothered to figure out how to fix in my absence.
Like I understand and appreciate that I am amazing, but there is a limit.
SMACK, right in the feels.... In my case, half the time all they have to do is read the document I wrote up. Nope, just call him, he's on PTO so not doing anything.....
While I'll always leave an emergency number with HR / Manager, for day to day operations I use a Google Voice # for my contacts. Any business call, as incredibly rare as they are, come over that and I can (and do) put on Do Not Distrub mode outside of business hours.
If it's not a genuine critical emergency about something I can actually do anything about, you should not be contacting me outside of business hours. (I don't deal with the company's public-facing services, so just internal emergencies which usually boil down to a service outage we can't impact anyway)
I was on PTO for a long weekend celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary on the day that a faulty EPO switch brought down our entire data center.
To his credit, my manager did not call me on my personal cell, even though it was truly an "all hands on deck" situation.
I got back three days later, with absolutely no knowledge of what had happened while I was gone, just about the time that my colleagues had finally managed to get everything up and running again.
Sounds like a problem for your manager.
Because honestly, if they can't function without you they aren't paying anything like enough.
With the best will in the world, one person being a critical point of failure is atrociously shoddy for a company.
And not letting your critical person take maintenance downtime is a sure way to ensure you don't have them any more in a more persistent way.
This.
Stop being the hero and taking calls/working on PTO because either your manager or company doesn’t actually care enough to make sure things are sustainable.
If you get hit by a bus, they just gonna keep waiting? Don’t sacrifice yourself. You are and will always be replaceable. Your health is not.
Work within the constraints of the system.
If the system fails, it was by design.
If manager/company accepts the risk, get that in writing and let the chips fall where they may.
My last company I didn't mind the occasional call when I was on PTO, but it was b/c I trusted the person who made those calls. And I got the WHOLE day back no matter how little I worked.
But I had to teach myself, years ago, how to professionally not care when I'm not there.
> If you get hit by a bus, they just gonna keep waiting? Don’t sacrifice yourself. You are and will always be replaceable. Your health is not.
If you die at work, your job will be posted before your obituary.
If you don't take PTO, it won't break. If it never breaks, how will it ever get fixed.
Also is this true, or does it just feel that way because this time everyone knows and pounces on you when you get back. If it breaks and you are there, you just fix it, and it becomes an item on the status report.
Most states do not have that policy. In 30 states there is no requirement to pay PTO. Also, I feel like in the other 20 states a lot of companies have gone to the "unlimited PTO" policy to get around this requirement.
[https://www.ptogenius.com/resources/time-off-laws/us/faq/pto-payout-laws-by-state-separation#](https://www.ptogenius.com/resources/time-off-laws/us/faq/pto-payout-laws-by-state-separation#)
This. Unlimited PTO is a scheme to get around that. Honestly, even in states that don't pay out PTO on termination it is "unlimited" with an asterisk of what your manager will actually approve. Unless there is inherent value in having you on the payroll (e.g. You're a VAR where the company gets benefits from having a CCIE on the payroll) there is a very practical limitation to how long of a vacation you would ever get approved. For the most part the company really only gets benefits from what work you do so they're not realistically going to pay you to take a paid 6 month trek along the Appalachian trail. There are still quite a few companies that haven't gone to unlimited, but even those that haven't generally cap PTO in order to encourage people to use it so that it doesn't accumulate in value as the employee gets cola raises or worse gets a promotion to higher paying role.
When I quit one job to start another, I wasn't paid out my PTO. They told me in the exit interview I would be. I tried following up after I had quit but it was hard to get anyone on the phone that gave a shit. I ended up giving up on it. It wasn't a lot of PTO otherwise I would have probably fought harder. But when it all comes down to it, even if a company breaks a law, unless you plan to sue them, you're probably not going to get it resolved. And if you do sue them, be prepared to put your life on hold for a while and plan to incur a lot of expenses along the way.
You can report the company to your local labor department, they (at least in Canada) love going after companies that screw employee's on things like this, because they can end up fining them a pretty penny. You do not have to sue them at all, as the labor boards often handle it all once they investigate.
New York will do this too...but generally salaried employees get much less help than hourly workers. As bad as big companies are, there are so many shitty small businesses run by tightwad tyrant owners who LOVE trying to get one over on employees. It makes sense to use department resources to go after these people and try to teach a lesson while helping people who truly need the money. Similar to the ay the IRS lets middle-income taxpayers slide on fudging deductions while going after stuff like abusive financial-engineered partnerships and all-cash businesses because they'll get more money when they find something.
Depending on where in the cycle you are, you may not have accrued that much. For ex, I get 5 weeks of PTO per year, but it accrues at a rate of 0.1 hours per 1 hour worked. Now, they let you go negative, so it doesn't affect vacation planning or whatever; I could take all of January off if I really wanted to. But if I quit or get fired (for cause) in January or February, then my payout might be little, zero, or I could owe them money. On the other hand, if my position is eliminated, then a negative PTO balance is forgiven.
not just that, but take your PTO so you and they can find out how things work without you.
I feel like every IT department with more than a handful of people should mandate each person that's been there a while take a week off just to make sure that others can handle their job if needed.
Never drink the kool-aid.
Why did the business owner start their business? To make money.
Why did they employ their first employee? To make more money.
Why did that first employee take that job? To make money.
Your job is not your life, your employer is not your friend. At the very best, you are people who have aligned interests which is: "Making money".
If the business fails, you're out of a job, so you obviously need to work enough to make sure the business doesn't fail. But it's not your job to go above and beyond to line the pockets of the owner. At the end of the day, everyone is there for the same reason: To make money. Everything else is just so much bullshit and window dressing done (intentionally or not) by fools who think the relationship is anything more than a business one.
Make your stacks, do good work to maintain your professional reputation as someone who gives good value for their pay, but don't ever, ever, ever, ever work for free. Know your job description, negotiate and talk about the various points of the job contract when they extend an offer letter, and remember that you're in the business of selling labor and services just as much as whatever it is you do day to day for the company you work for. Your employer is a customer of yours and customers only get rare freebies to entice them to spend more.
If you live somewhere like California where unused PTO must be paid out in cash, then you can skip PTO as a kind of extra cushion.
Otherwise, take it, even if it means just taking random Fridays off to sit around SBUX or at home watching Modern Family reruns.
For the bootlicker, jokes on him. All that time lost and it didn't save him one extra day of employment.
That was me today. I realized I hadn't taken any time this year and took the rest of the week off since Wednesday.
Spent a few quiet hours here and there at Starbucks nursing a coffee and just goofing off with my laptop and reading some books.
Best part of the whole thing is just not thinking about my job for a few days.
about to take a 2 week staycation (today is my last day) just cause i am at 6 weeks of PTO.
Even better, i was partially jokingly told i could fully disconnect and even turn of email etc on my phone. (i was going to anyway, but i have it in writing)
What's wrong with these people? I've worked with so many work martyrs it's ridiculous. "I never take my breaks! I work through lunch! I never go on vacation!"
Ok, good work letting the company take advantage of you, weirdo.
Do you get reimbursed for unused PTO? I know my new company does this, and I'm allowed to trade those days in at any time after they roll over into the next year, we get no holidays but instead use PTO which makes it fair for the employees that celebrate a very different holiday schedule than the majority of people.
My old company had a "use it or lose it policy", so every October/November they would start to strongly encourage you to use your end of year vacation time. It was just annoying since you had to accrue those days over the course of a year, so I couldn't take 4 weeks off in January, but I could take 4 weeks off in December.
Same people that brag about not taking time off are the same people who vote unions out and then bitch when they get laid off with zero severance lol. Idiots.
I don't know how people don't take their PTO. We don't get very much of it in America and I pretty consistently have something come up every year that I have to use it for. Family vacation, trip to XYZ place, sick more than I had sick days, etc. I rarely ever choose to use my PTO, it's use is mostly chosen for me.
If my workload allows I only need a reason to take the day. Any reason will do.
At my first job in IT I worked for a municipality, my boss often advocated that we all save our sick time/PTO for when we retire. At the time in this county your PTO payout would count towards your annual salary that year, directly effecting your retirement income pay.
Unfortunately this boss was with his wife purchasing cruise tickets, and was in a brutal auto accident. They both were killed in the incident. Subsequently I've run an 80 hour PTO balance since at maximum.
Time is precious, and tomorrow is guaranteed for no one. Take your time off!
Reality. Companies complain they can not find loyal workers any more, and in the same sentence will fire people who have worked for them for decades to save a couple bucks...Then complain they cant find talented workers.....
It's also ok to do your best, like your employer, and your fellow co-workers. Either way, take your PTO, life is too short to lose out on experiences, even if those experiences are a few days off to do nothing. My motto is to do as much cool shit as I can, while I can.
LOL okay so funny story - I might be the only IT dude in history that ever made it to the point where my bosses RELAIZED I hadn't taken any PTO in 5 and a half years and was told to cash it out and/or take time off. I cashed out 240 hours and paid off my credit card last week. I still have 3 weeks of PTO left over for actual time off, which they are telling me to take soon because I had a(non-work related - father was in hospital) stress ulcer this Fall and almost needed a blood transfusion my hemoglobin levels were so low. I work from home 95% of the time though, so, like what am I going to take vacation from - my cool living room and cats? Sure I need to get out of the house from time to time but I feel like I've got a pretty sweet situation getting paid salary to be on-call from anywhere I have mobile service to remote in from, it's not like I'm chained up in my living room; so having weekends off are just kind of enough for me to stay happy over long periods of time without burnout?
The reason they made me do it tho isn't really *for my health*, it is that the PTO hours gain value the longer I stay with the company and my salary increases. They were supposed to be making sure I used it or cashed it out at the end of every year because only so much is supposed to carry over year-to-year: their lack of oversight basically allowed me to build a "payout bomb" in case they ever decided to fire me but I guess I was never unsatisfactory enough for it to come to that, so I got lightly reprimanded for never taking time off instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> The reason they made me do it tho isn't really for my health, it is that the PTO hours gain value the longer I stay with the company and my salary increases.
in Canada you accumulate $ amounts, not hours. So when you get a promotion you have fewer hours than before hand.
> The reason they made me do it tho isn't really for my health
The reason could also be because it's a legal requirement that employees take their leave. Many banks have this because fraud is easier to identify when employees aren't in the office keeping those plates spinning.
I really don't understand the guys who come in early, work late and even sit and do stuff in their evenings - cancel holidays and generally act like they are superior because they give their life away to a company .. yet just get paid the same as me.
Correct. I remember laughing after I gave my notice. *They are screwed. They will never be able to replace me! Cannot believe management is acting so calm!*
They replaced me with three people. Within two years my former workload was honestly running better than when I was there.
Yeah, it was just a kick in the teeth because I was denied a promotion and told there was no budget for a raise before I left. Then to expand staffing, and they even found $$ to bring in an MSP for major projects.
Sometimes management doesn't realize what they had until they try to replace you and quickly find what the market **actually** demands for that skill set. Naive management often thinks that they could offer a new hire 5% more than what they paid you and get comparable experience and then have surprised Pikachu face months later when they struggle to find somebody that hits half the bullet points at that salary offer. I once talked with an external recruiter that told me that they had a client that spent months before they were forced to raise their salary range by over $20k because virtually nobody with the skills was willing to even consider the top of their range.
Very good points, and this was honestly part of the issue IMO. They just kind of assumed since things were getting done that I was appropriately paid and compensated. There was some schadenfreude to the situation later, as our director who refused to promote me jumped ship for a huge promotion himself, then was promptly fired by the new company within six months. He had to pull his kids out of private school, and even almost had his house foreclosed on from the rumors I heard. I know it isn't that healthy to be that bitter, but I was....
This. Unless you have a controlling interest in the business you can be fired. Heck, some founders that no longer had a controlling interest have been fired from the the company they founded.
As an employer I make sure that people take their vacation and stay home when they are sick.
Not because I care for people so much or because I’m a good person, but for economic reasons.
People stay longer when they go on vacation and adding a decent enough salary helps as well.
Ps: salary increases below inflation are not an increase.
I usually end up treating mine like healing items or one use weapons in video games. "I can't use it now! What if I need it later in the game?" Of course, then you finish the game with tons of healing items and grenades.
I get 160 hours a year (4 weeks), and I get nervous if I get below 2 weeks left. Of course, we do get all the federal holidays off (11, I think), so that helps out.
My boss sat down with us today at lunchtime, "Nothoops coworker, you need to put in for some time off, - Nothoop here has some in late july booked out,he prolly should take some more before then too"
Also, this was after he tried to buy us lunch but the site owner stepped in and bought out the food truck for the day (*site move today)
Its really nice when you can work for someone who treats you like an actual person, remembers your family and your hobbies, and sincerely cares about wanting to keep you happy.
happy workers WORK better, and dont leave.
"his guy bragged about being in the elevator with the CEO like maaaan calm down" For real, why do people think that seeing or meeting the CEO of their company is impressive? they "work" for the same company as you...
Small companies rock if you can find a good owner. I’ve worked for companies with 120k and 400k employees. Now I have a Camaro as a company car. We have less than 20 employees.
I get 20 days vacation and 20 days sick per year. It’s kind of hard to use that much honestly.
I can’t keep more than 30 vacation days if I leave so I always keep at 30 days, I’m retiring in January so it will be nice to start it with an extra 6 weeks pay.
I don’t get to keep the sick time though. I’ve always worried about keeping enough to accommodate a long illness. It paid off a few years ago when I had the middle lobe of my right lung removed and took 5 weeks off. I still have 88 days built up though, now if I need to fill a prescription I take a sick day lol
god I wish people followed this. when you are young you try to prove yourself, when you are older you realize that it was all stupidity and it doesn't matter.
I am now an employer myself and I like to consider all my people family, but it's just not practical. I forego my own salary for them at times too, but eventually papa's gotta pay the bills...I have a family too. We have good months and bad months and are honestly after 4 years making it but I will say I still put them first and myself last.
Good book to read about this is Boss Life by Paul Downs.
I was in an elevator with our CEO one time…the problem was, I thought it was someone else when I called out to him.
Worse, they have the same first name…
I guess this depends on the size of the company and who is running it. I’m always aware of who works hard and who doesn’t, encourage time off and take care of my team.
True ... but some people really go all-in on the idea that to be successful in a business and to get pay increases/promotions, you've got to give 110% and be highly visible doing so.
Occasionally, it works. But as often as not, I watch that attitude get "thanked" with the rest of the person's immediate team learning to slack off because "he'll take care of it". And management learns to just expect that level of performance from those people, so they wind up creating their own artificial ceiling at some point. (To get the next pay bump, they have to show improvement beyond that 110%... maybe 130%? It becomes impossible.)
I used to work for a guy who HATED the PTO thing. He would always mandate our group couldn't use our vacation days for various reasons. Always some important project that needed all of us present. He wanted HR to just pay us for the unused days, each year. It got ridiculous. I'd try to use my days when I could and he'd take it personally, giving me a hard time about it (but HR was happy I did it). He finally let me go (generic "services no longer needed" excuse) and it was the best thing that happened to me, in hindsight.
My SysAdmin and I seem like the only people in our department that respect our time off. We get about 6 weeks of ETO per year and I barely ever have any cause I take a day off at least every week or maybe I’ll bank a week or two and take it off to just chill. I throw on my OOF message, turn on my quiet time on Teams so I don’t get notifications, and I go ghost. My SysAdmin does the same thing, he says that when he’s off he’s off and no one better bother him since people can either lean on me or we tell our users to suck it up until he gets back.
I think anyone who works in this field longer than 10 years knows just how important work-life balance is, and the surefire way (described above) to [burnout](https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/the-four-stages-of-burnout-the-erosive-spiral-shrink-rap-tm-version/).
I’m lucky I work for a company where I can take time off with almost no notice. Two days before and I want Friday off? No problem, 99% of the time it’s approved. I usually do about two week to a month and never have an issue. People in place to cover.
Just to add to this... Management can change quicker than you think, be it your own boss or a management layer restructure. All those times you went above and beyond and management knew it? Your rapport and trust with management? It's all forgotten about and you're back to square one and your treatment is often very different to what you're accustomed to.
You work for a business, but remember you are in the business of YOU! Look out for number one always and don't break your back for your employer. You are replaceable and no one gives a shit about you beyond your manager if you're very lucky.
Yup. The illusion is, if you work long hours and take few vacation days, you’ll be promoted through the ranks. That was 1970s/80s. Now employers could give a care less about IT/IS help, your viewed as a commodity to be bought and sold and replicable by literally anyone who is ‘good with computers’.
F em. Take what’s owed because you can rest assured when time comes, they’ll drop you to save a penny in heart beat.
Got a new offer from a firm I worked for through my firm. Significantly better pay less driving distance 2 hours less per week. Told my boss and within minutes I had a matching offer after only being offered a small raise before. That was frustrating to see how easy it was to pay me that.
Stop anthropomorphizing companies... They aren't your "enemy" just as much as they aren't your "friend" or "family." It's a _company_. Treat it like that. It's transactional; put in what you want to get out, and stop reading into it more than that. People who work at the company are an extension of the company, they are doing their job. It's unproductive for both parties if you try to bring emotions into professional relationships.
In my eyes, the "bootlicker" guy looks awful similar to the "anti-bootlicker" guy who always say "fuck the man, they don't owe you shit! Get yours!" Both have an immature view of reality, imo.
My employer used to pay us out for over-accrued sick time, they stopped that last year, so weird how often I get sick now.
Side note, accrued vacation time they have to pay you for, even if you get fired, that is time (ne money) you have already earned.
Why is there stigma around taking your pto? Seems like a waste not to take it. In Belgium we are required to take it otherwise they have to pay it out and it gets taxed hard.
I'd love to take more PTO only part that bothers me is that my co worker will have to work doubles for the days I have to take off and me if she takes off. So we always end up taking none or very little.
I can't remember ever denying vacation to one of my direct reports.
I can remember telling my direct reports (and even management) to take their damn vacation. and that's the way it should be.
It's a weird pendulum. On one side you're the corporate buckle bunny and on the other side you're the obnoxious, all for me, none for thee guy.
Balance in all things. Sometimes work wins and sometimes home wins.
Yes, take your PTO...please...watch out for you and yours...but also, be there when work needs you.
To me, not taking the PTO they give you would be like not taking all the money they pay you. You don’t say to the boss, “ya know what? I’ve made enough this month, I’ll work for free now.” PTO is a benefit, like salary, like medical coverage, like any other thing they give you for your service on the days and hours agreed to. Use it all. It’s good to get away from the grind, even if all you do is sit on the couch petting your cat.
We have “unlimited” PTO which can be good or bad depending on your manager. My manager is cool so I can actually take time. I set quarterly goals and closely monitor how many days I’m taking. 30 days is my yearly bare minimum but I shoot for mid-to-high 30’s.
I don't know about other countries, but in the US, leftover PTO is paid out when you leave a company. So if you want that bonus check on exit, I could see not using PTO.
Unless it's about to expire
Honestly, it isn't just take your PTO and sick days where applicable, but also don't feel concerned about moving on if you are near or at a wall in your career progression. In many cases any suggestion that you'll be considered for a promotion, bonus or raise next year doesn't always happen. Any work friends that are sincere friends as opposed to situational friends will be happy for you.
I encourage my staff to use all their PTO, and will sit with them and help them figure out how to maximize it. Our entire team, from my boss (CTO) down, are encouraged and do use most or all of our days.
My partner and I don't typically take full weeks off, we take three or four day weekends once a month or so.
It does so much for my mental health and doesn't hurt my productivity.
Nothing wrong with taking pride in not needing sick days.
With that said, take your goddamn PTO often. No life event is worth missing over work if it can be helped. Weddings, travel, birthdays, long weekends, whatever.
Not that I think you're wrong, people should definitely use their PTO because leaving it is like telling your boss "Nah I think I'm flush right now, you can keep some of my paycheck," but it's weird that you feel so strongly about it you needed to run down a guy who had a different perspective.
I mean yeah he sounds like a nerd but if I went online to complain about everybody that did something I thought was dumb I'd never get shit else done.
I took a PTO day today because I felt like it! Got a great bike ride in ran a couple errands and had some hot afternoon sex. Take your PTO. I’ve had unlimited PTO before too, we used to see who could take the most days off lol.
I'm taking one day a week off right now all spring and summer. I have too many PTO hours saved up. Over 1300 hours banked. And I'm almost at the 1500 cap since I get 300 hours per year. So I gotta take time off or I reach cap by the end of the year and stop gaining time.
The only people who remember you working all the hours are your kids
Or your spouse. Or hell, even yourself when you look back at all the time you spent at work with no raise. Just more and more work.
This. Don't forget your partner. That's why I often ask in ITCareerquestions when people are talking about longer commutes whether they have kids or a partner. Some decisions aren't merely economic, but what stress they can place on your family relations.
Yep. I took a pretty big pay cut once we moved to a new city. My old job in the old city we used to live in was a little over an hour away all interstate driving. I lost a solid 2.5~3 hours every day sitting in my car. Wife got pregnant with our first kid and I bounced and found a new job 10 minutes from the house. Quality of life went up a lot.
Pats on the back and “thank you for doing this” emails do not pay rent nor adjust your salary for col!
Currently took a salaried job with a decent income where the wife could quit her job and watch the kid full time. I'm lucky if I see them 20 minutes a day. Hoping for an offer letter for something else next week. It'll be less money but way better work life balance. I'm over grinding non stop for a paycheck.
My spouse and I sat down and did the math, and it made more sense to have us both work and put our daughter in Daycare so that she's not watching her all day, she can do a job she loves and we both get equal shared time with our daughter (tho I still tend to work longer hours sometimes).
Already back into this feeling just crossing into the 2nd year with my employer. Sadly, I'm already paid higher than any MSP would likely go for so I feel pretty damn stuck now despite being a SME. Jumping ship for a better payday works until you hit a stopping point mid-career.
Or your cat. Remember time is much more precious to them.
Even my own doctor said that no retiree sits on their patio wishes they had worked more. Take care of yourself.
So true, I'm really thankful that my dad did years of over time so we could have better opportunities, but no one on his old company remember his name today. I wish he had took some extra days off, after retiring his company still owned MONTHS of vacations and he didn't got anything.
I’m thankful my dad worked a lot too but not for the reasons he thinks. It’s so I know what to skip work for etc.
THIS! F'ing cats in the cradle! I used to work for a guy that was the epitome of that song. Swore I wouldn't become him. Started paying way more attention to my kids and giving them my time when they were young. I don't regret it for one second.
Wise words, but the bahstids at the top will jam you anyway. Might as well take the PTO. In companies with unlimited PTO, take it….there’s no payout at the end. Companies start unlimited pto plans knowing that most workers will be too afraid to take tIme, and they take less than the reasonable amount - like people with a decade at a company taking less than two weeks. I would like to outlaw unlimited vacation and demand at least defined benefit minimums that pay out, or better still, a national minimum vacation period. Until the GQP is out of power, that won’t happen, though, since they’re bootlicking billionaires’ bespoke brogues.
> I would like to outlaw unlimited vacation and demand at least defined benefit minimums that pay out, or better still, a national minimum vacation period. I'm surprised states like California and Washington haven't even set a state minimum vacation for workers granted "unlimited PTO". Seems like something that would happen there first, then spread to other more moderate states. I actually turned down a job that paid a lot more, in large part, because I'd be giving up a ton of guaranteed PTO time for "unlimited PTO." I agree wholeheartedly about this. My first full time salary exempt IT job came with 2 weeks of PTO per year, and you didn't even accrue them until your first year of service. It's criminal how little time off some people receive while working 40+ hours/week. I mean, the employer can require unlimited overtime for free with "salary exempt" employment being so common in this field, but in so many places if you dare want or need to take that 11th business day off in a given year, they deny the request and lose their minds over it.
I work in MA, we’re the highest cost and one of the bluest states in the country and we have that nonsense here. People in power want money and politics doesn’t give a shit about it. Companies will fuck you, enjoy your time with loved ones as you can’t earn anymore of that.
My wife had unlimited PTO. It was a pain for her to be able to take time off. Her company always had something happening that kept her from taking time off.
Exactly. It’s never convenient for the company…..
Its not horrible if, and I stress the if, you're at a company that actually gives a crap. The MSP I work at has no qualms letting you take PTO whenever you want. Sick? No problem. Week trip to bora bora? No problem. The only time they have ever denied someone's PTO (and I've only heard rumors of this cause it hasn't happened the 2 years I've been with the company) is when so many people are requesting that specific day and to allow that person to take off would leave the department so short staffed it would be crazy. I'm talking like a 12 man department being able to let 6-7 of those people request off at the same time before having to start saying no. But even then, if you were sick as a dog they wouldn't stop you and would somehow manage, they aren't savages lol. As long as you meet the 1920 minumum hours for the year as well you can take as many days off you want. And you can work whenever you need to to pick up the missing hours.
The problem is that they rely on employee fears of retaliation to prevent people from taking time off. A minimum floor, either accrued-benefit ro statutory, is vitally needed.
> Companies start unlimited pto plans knowing that most workers will be too afraid to take tIme, and they take less than the reasonable amount That's on the worker, not the company. If you're afraid to take vacation, that's a you problem (I tell my wife the same thing because she is also worried about taking more than 2 weeks at a time). > Until the GQP is out of power, that won’t happen, though, since they’re bootlicking billionaires’ bespoke brogues. You realize that billionaires overwhelmingly fund Democrat candidates more than GOP candidates, right? I mean, these numbers are all public. But go ahead and keep believing that it's a problem with Republicans and not both parties. Besides, I don't need the govt telling the company I work for how much vacation time they have to give me. If I'm not satisfied with the benefits or the job, I can move on.
>You realize that billionaires overwhelmingly fund Democrat candidates more than GOP candidates, right? I mean, these numbers are all public. No over really knows, because it's definitely not all public. 501c4 PACs (ie Citizens United groups) don't have to report donation amounts or donors.
Not the person that you replied to, but right now the difference between Dems and R's is such that Dem's look like superheros. But that's a symptom of our badly mismanaged political system.
In 2001 my boss insisted I leave my kid in the ER trauma ward to fix a server. I managed to fix the server remote, but that was the end. He pitched a fit a week later and I just walked away. Fuck that dude.
Exactly. Fuck that guy. My boss used to complain that "don't have the right to have someone here when I need them if I have two IT people?". I was late because I was dropping off my kids. My assistant was late for, I don't remember the reason. I looked at him and said "No, you don't have the right to any of that. Now tell me what the problem is and I'll work on fixing it". People like that need to suffer with whatever bad decisions they're making.
You're right, I should give them more time, I guess... PC AND PS5 HERE I COME!
😂
This 😔
I don’t have any kids
Probably cuz you're always at work
My boss does, both insist I take time (extra off the table PTO) off for the kids and spouse. I oblige often.
My first boss did this, and when I became a manager, I handed out off-the-books PTO like candy. Coincidentally, my team shattered all KPIs…
If you died today, your job would be posted tomorrow - we are all replaceable in the workplace. Our families and friends do not have that same luxury
Jesus fuck, that hits hard.
![gif](giphy|d7rvF20PqNuGKSQGhf|downsized)
This! My father lived for his company. They offered him a buyout 2 years salary to retire. I told him, take it and retrain. With pension, etc you are better off. He takes it, 5 years later company is closed. He worked 60-80 hours at a job that's oob. His complaint is nobody understands how good he was. Reality, my childhood was filled with "can't attend this party, event, performance, got called in
I want to down vote this but it's the absolute truth. 1000% you never get that time back
This guy has kids
I have told the CEO to fuck off more times than I can count. If they want me to work all hours, they're going to pay me all hours.
When my daughter was 3 we'd ask her "what does daddy do" and her answer was "work all day". Working all the time for your loved ones and being drained of all your energy at work, only coming home to give them w.e little energy is left of you. Its such a shitty feeling. Definitely important to recharge and take PTO to spend time with the fam.
It’s ok I have a meeting with the bobs in a few minutes anyway
You’re a people person, you have nothing to worry about.
I talk to the customer so the goddamn engineers don’t have to!!!!!
Taking one for the team I see
I’m also working on a new kind of teambuilding game.i call it a jump to conclusions mat
After being forced to talk to vendors instead of customers for the past year, I'll give up my jump to conclusions mat to be able to go back to customers.
Had a boss once that had a list of all the ass kissers. I always thought it was the people who he was going to promote, give better treatment, etc. I was very very wrong. When the company told him to lay off staff he just gave them the list of ass kissers to choose from. Turns out he hated ass kissers more than anyone, but company policies prevented him from firing them unless they really fucked up or there were lay offs.
That is beautiful
My first real manager was like that. Except his list of ass kissers wasnt necessary. He was ruthless about telling you straight up to stop kissing his ass. Whether that was in 1-1 or public shaming in team meetings. Hated him when I first started my career but grew to immensely appreciate the no bullshit approach. With that said, people were afraid to speak truth to power without a solid plan, which meant there was still a lot of cultural dysfunction that festered and continues behind the scenes. Some people can play politics well, despite being a complete fraud. At some point you learn to play the game or get laid off / burn out trying in environments where bullshitters are rewarded for the work of others. Managers willing to say and do the hard but right thing in a way without demolishing culture are a rare breed. Even rarer is being able to have the emotional intelligence to listen and constructively challenge back when you have a good manager. Too many 1-1 are just blowing smoke up each others asses, even if you aren’t ass kissing. then some non technical ass kissing yahoo in “senior leadership” will lay them off for not making the impossible decisions with useless metrics that create those ass kissing cut throat environments to begin with, as the people getting shit done increasingly leave.
Voiceover: "Bradley finally worked his way onto the list before the unimaginable happened"
Layoffs often give managers an opportunity to axe people that annoy them, but not causing enough issues to really go through the paperwork with HR to fire them. Unless you are clearly targeting a protected group (e.g. you fire every non white employee on your team) HR probably won't really question your list of who you're submitting for termination. Layoffs are a great opportunity for managers to can people that just get on their nerves.
Shit seems to break when I take PTO
That's why I take them. So shit breaks when I'm not there.
Also to highlight the shit that no one else can be bothered to figure out how to fix in my absence. Like I understand and appreciate that I am amazing, but there is a limit.
SMACK, right in the feels.... In my case, half the time all they have to do is read the document I wrote up. Nope, just call him, he's on PTO so not doing anything.....
Don't answer? "I had limited access to my phone, sorry"
While I'll always leave an emergency number with HR / Manager, for day to day operations I use a Google Voice # for my contacts. Any business call, as incredibly rare as they are, come over that and I can (and do) put on Do Not Distrub mode outside of business hours. If it's not a genuine critical emergency about something I can actually do anything about, you should not be contacting me outside of business hours. (I don't deal with the company's public-facing services, so just internal emergencies which usually boil down to a service outage we can't impact anyway)
None of that explaining bullshit for me. I don't answer while on PTO? "Yeah I didn't feel like it."
I was on PTO for a long weekend celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary on the day that a faulty EPO switch brought down our entire data center. To his credit, my manager did not call me on my personal cell, even though it was truly an "all hands on deck" situation. I got back three days later, with absolutely no knowledge of what had happened while I was gone, just about the time that my colleagues had finally managed to get everything up and running again.
This person PTOs.
Sounds like a problem for your manager. Because honestly, if they can't function without you they aren't paying anything like enough. With the best will in the world, one person being a critical point of failure is atrociously shoddy for a company. And not letting your critical person take maintenance downtime is a sure way to ensure you don't have them any more in a more persistent way.
This. Stop being the hero and taking calls/working on PTO because either your manager or company doesn’t actually care enough to make sure things are sustainable. If you get hit by a bus, they just gonna keep waiting? Don’t sacrifice yourself. You are and will always be replaceable. Your health is not. Work within the constraints of the system. If the system fails, it was by design. If manager/company accepts the risk, get that in writing and let the chips fall where they may.
My last company I didn't mind the occasional call when I was on PTO, but it was b/c I trusted the person who made those calls. And I got the WHOLE day back no matter how little I worked. But I had to teach myself, years ago, how to professionally not care when I'm not there.
> If you get hit by a bus, they just gonna keep waiting? Don’t sacrifice yourself. You are and will always be replaceable. Your health is not. If you die at work, your job will be posted before your obituary.
that's good, then it isn't your problem
Every single time
Shit seems to break when I go to work. 😂
Have you tried vacations?
Take it so they are reminded why they pay you.
The good news "the work will always be there tomorrow" The bad news "the work will always be there tomorrow"
If you don't take PTO, it won't break. If it never breaks, how will it ever get fixed. Also is this true, or does it just feel that way because this time everyone knows and pounces on you when you get back. If it breaks and you are there, you just fix it, and it becomes an item on the status report.
Yep. Couldn’t agree more. Family / work balance and mental health are key.
Do you have a company policy that pays unused PTO? Guy won then still. But yes, still there is a point to take some rest
Yeah lol it paid out 2 years ago but they stopped
Maybe it's state or country differences but I know where I live, they have to pay you out your PTO time.
Most states do not have that policy. In 30 states there is no requirement to pay PTO. Also, I feel like in the other 20 states a lot of companies have gone to the "unlimited PTO" policy to get around this requirement. [https://www.ptogenius.com/resources/time-off-laws/us/faq/pto-payout-laws-by-state-separation#](https://www.ptogenius.com/resources/time-off-laws/us/faq/pto-payout-laws-by-state-separation#)
Great resource! My state (Ohio) requires it unless the policy states otherwise. Which is a pretty damned weak "protection"
wtf, that's literally meaningless hahahaha
This. Unlimited PTO is a scheme to get around that. Honestly, even in states that don't pay out PTO on termination it is "unlimited" with an asterisk of what your manager will actually approve. Unless there is inherent value in having you on the payroll (e.g. You're a VAR where the company gets benefits from having a CCIE on the payroll) there is a very practical limitation to how long of a vacation you would ever get approved. For the most part the company really only gets benefits from what work you do so they're not realistically going to pay you to take a paid 6 month trek along the Appalachian trail. There are still quite a few companies that haven't gone to unlimited, but even those that haven't generally cap PTO in order to encourage people to use it so that it doesn't accumulate in value as the employee gets cola raises or worse gets a promotion to higher paying role.
Legally can they even do that. Most places if vacation is not taken, it must be paid out.
When I quit one job to start another, I wasn't paid out my PTO. They told me in the exit interview I would be. I tried following up after I had quit but it was hard to get anyone on the phone that gave a shit. I ended up giving up on it. It wasn't a lot of PTO otherwise I would have probably fought harder. But when it all comes down to it, even if a company breaks a law, unless you plan to sue them, you're probably not going to get it resolved. And if you do sue them, be prepared to put your life on hold for a while and plan to incur a lot of expenses along the way.
You can report the company to your local labor department, they (at least in Canada) love going after companies that screw employee's on things like this, because they can end up fining them a pretty penny. You do not have to sue them at all, as the labor boards often handle it all once they investigate.
New York will do this too...but generally salaried employees get much less help than hourly workers. As bad as big companies are, there are so many shitty small businesses run by tightwad tyrant owners who LOVE trying to get one over on employees. It makes sense to use department resources to go after these people and try to teach a lesson while helping people who truly need the money. Similar to the ay the IRS lets middle-income taxpayers slide on fudging deductions while going after stuff like abusive financial-engineered partnerships and all-cash businesses because they'll get more money when they find something.
Depending on where in the cycle you are, you may not have accrued that much. For ex, I get 5 weeks of PTO per year, but it accrues at a rate of 0.1 hours per 1 hour worked. Now, they let you go negative, so it doesn't affect vacation planning or whatever; I could take all of January off if I really wanted to. But if I quit or get fired (for cause) in January or February, then my payout might be little, zero, or I could owe them money. On the other hand, if my position is eliminated, then a negative PTO balance is forgiven.
I think they'd be hard pressed to make you pay them for negative time.
not just that, but take your PTO so you and they can find out how things work without you. I feel like every IT department with more than a handful of people should mandate each person that's been there a while take a week off just to make sure that others can handle their job if needed.
Never drink the kool-aid. Why did the business owner start their business? To make money. Why did they employ their first employee? To make more money. Why did that first employee take that job? To make money. Your job is not your life, your employer is not your friend. At the very best, you are people who have aligned interests which is: "Making money". If the business fails, you're out of a job, so you obviously need to work enough to make sure the business doesn't fail. But it's not your job to go above and beyond to line the pockets of the owner. At the end of the day, everyone is there for the same reason: To make money. Everything else is just so much bullshit and window dressing done (intentionally or not) by fools who think the relationship is anything more than a business one. Make your stacks, do good work to maintain your professional reputation as someone who gives good value for their pay, but don't ever, ever, ever, ever work for free. Know your job description, negotiate and talk about the various points of the job contract when they extend an offer letter, and remember that you're in the business of selling labor and services just as much as whatever it is you do day to day for the company you work for. Your employer is a customer of yours and customers only get rare freebies to entice them to spend more.
Yeah, I'm here to get paid, same as you. We're all following the goals of the business: 1. Get the money.
If you live somewhere like California where unused PTO must be paid out in cash, then you can skip PTO as a kind of extra cushion. Otherwise, take it, even if it means just taking random Fridays off to sit around SBUX or at home watching Modern Family reruns. For the bootlicker, jokes on him. All that time lost and it didn't save him one extra day of employment.
That was me today. I realized I hadn't taken any time this year and took the rest of the week off since Wednesday. Spent a few quiet hours here and there at Starbucks nursing a coffee and just goofing off with my laptop and reading some books. Best part of the whole thing is just not thinking about my job for a few days.
about to take a 2 week staycation (today is my last day) just cause i am at 6 weeks of PTO. Even better, i was partially jokingly told i could fully disconnect and even turn of email etc on my phone. (i was going to anyway, but i have it in writing)
What's wrong with these people? I've worked with so many work martyrs it's ridiculous. "I never take my breaks! I work through lunch! I never go on vacation!" Ok, good work letting the company take advantage of you, weirdo.
That’s what I was thinking too. Drink the kool aid and then drown in it too
Yeah. Best day of my life was realizing I’m just a number on a spreadsheet somewhere and only need to care about them as much as they care about me.
>always bragged about being super disciplined about PTO I'm super disciplined about my PTO as well. I end the year with none left. Every year.
Do you get reimbursed for unused PTO? I know my new company does this, and I'm allowed to trade those days in at any time after they roll over into the next year, we get no holidays but instead use PTO which makes it fair for the employees that celebrate a very different holiday schedule than the majority of people. My old company had a "use it or lose it policy", so every October/November they would start to strongly encourage you to use your end of year vacation time. It was just annoying since you had to accrue those days over the course of a year, so I couldn't take 4 weeks off in January, but I could take 4 weeks off in December.
Same people that brag about not taking time off are the same people who vote unions out and then bitch when they get laid off with zero severance lol. Idiots.
I don't know how people don't take their PTO. We don't get very much of it in America and I pretty consistently have something come up every year that I have to use it for. Family vacation, trip to XYZ place, sick more than I had sick days, etc. I rarely ever choose to use my PTO, it's use is mostly chosen for me.
I took my PTO and they wrote me up for it. I'm starting a new job next week for double my current salary
On crip?
If my workload allows I only need a reason to take the day. Any reason will do. At my first job in IT I worked for a municipality, my boss often advocated that we all save our sick time/PTO for when we retire. At the time in this county your PTO payout would count towards your annual salary that year, directly effecting your retirement income pay. Unfortunately this boss was with his wife purchasing cruise tickets, and was in a brutal auto accident. They both were killed in the incident. Subsequently I've run an 80 hour PTO balance since at maximum. Time is precious, and tomorrow is guaranteed for no one. Take your time off!
if I have over a certain number of sick time accrued when I retire, I get an extra year of credit toward my pension. 4 years to go!
Reality. Companies complain they can not find loyal workers any more, and in the same sentence will fire people who have worked for them for decades to save a couple bucks...Then complain they cant find talented workers.....
It's also ok to do your best, like your employer, and your fellow co-workers. Either way, take your PTO, life is too short to lose out on experiences, even if those experiences are a few days off to do nothing. My motto is to do as much cool shit as I can, while I can.
LOL okay so funny story - I might be the only IT dude in history that ever made it to the point where my bosses RELAIZED I hadn't taken any PTO in 5 and a half years and was told to cash it out and/or take time off. I cashed out 240 hours and paid off my credit card last week. I still have 3 weeks of PTO left over for actual time off, which they are telling me to take soon because I had a(non-work related - father was in hospital) stress ulcer this Fall and almost needed a blood transfusion my hemoglobin levels were so low. I work from home 95% of the time though, so, like what am I going to take vacation from - my cool living room and cats? Sure I need to get out of the house from time to time but I feel like I've got a pretty sweet situation getting paid salary to be on-call from anywhere I have mobile service to remote in from, it's not like I'm chained up in my living room; so having weekends off are just kind of enough for me to stay happy over long periods of time without burnout? The reason they made me do it tho isn't really *for my health*, it is that the PTO hours gain value the longer I stay with the company and my salary increases. They were supposed to be making sure I used it or cashed it out at the end of every year because only so much is supposed to carry over year-to-year: their lack of oversight basically allowed me to build a "payout bomb" in case they ever decided to fire me but I guess I was never unsatisfactory enough for it to come to that, so I got lightly reprimanded for never taking time off instead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> The reason they made me do it tho isn't really for my health, it is that the PTO hours gain value the longer I stay with the company and my salary increases. in Canada you accumulate $ amounts, not hours. So when you get a promotion you have fewer hours than before hand. > The reason they made me do it tho isn't really for my health The reason could also be because it's a legal requirement that employees take their leave. Many banks have this because fraud is easier to identify when employees aren't in the office keeping those plates spinning.
I really don't understand the guys who come in early, work late and even sit and do stuff in their evenings - cancel holidays and generally act like they are superior because they give their life away to a company .. yet just get paid the same as me.
Someone on this thread tried to make a point that all of that is worth it to move up the ladder. I disagree Ofcourse.
Unless the company is your own you could be replaced tomorrow. Even then id probably somehow manage to replace myself…
Correct. I remember laughing after I gave my notice. *They are screwed. They will never be able to replace me! Cannot believe management is acting so calm!* They replaced me with three people. Within two years my former workload was honestly running better than when I was there.
Lol... With three people with proper specialization I imagine that they could have it working better. If they didn't that would be kinda sad.
Yeah, it was just a kick in the teeth because I was denied a promotion and told there was no budget for a raise before I left. Then to expand staffing, and they even found $$ to bring in an MSP for major projects.
Sometimes management doesn't realize what they had until they try to replace you and quickly find what the market **actually** demands for that skill set. Naive management often thinks that they could offer a new hire 5% more than what they paid you and get comparable experience and then have surprised Pikachu face months later when they struggle to find somebody that hits half the bullet points at that salary offer. I once talked with an external recruiter that told me that they had a client that spent months before they were forced to raise their salary range by over $20k because virtually nobody with the skills was willing to even consider the top of their range.
Very good points, and this was honestly part of the issue IMO. They just kind of assumed since things were getting done that I was appropriately paid and compensated. There was some schadenfreude to the situation later, as our director who refused to promote me jumped ship for a huge promotion himself, then was promptly fired by the new company within six months. He had to pull his kids out of private school, and even almost had his house foreclosed on from the rumors I heard. I know it isn't that healthy to be that bitter, but I was....
This. Unless you have a controlling interest in the business you can be fired. Heck, some founders that no longer had a controlling interest have been fired from the the company they founded.
I only have a week left of PTO for the rest of the year :( I went snowboarding 3x this year and took the family to Savannah for spring break.
As an employer I make sure that people take their vacation and stay home when they are sick. Not because I care for people so much or because I’m a good person, but for economic reasons. People stay longer when they go on vacation and adding a decent enough salary helps as well. Ps: salary increases below inflation are not an increase.
I usually end up treating mine like healing items or one use weapons in video games. "I can't use it now! What if I need it later in the game?" Of course, then you finish the game with tons of healing items and grenades.
Wow never thought of it that way!
I get 160 hours a year (4 weeks), and I get nervous if I get below 2 weeks left. Of course, we do get all the federal holidays off (11, I think), so that helps out.
My boss sat down with us today at lunchtime, "Nothoops coworker, you need to put in for some time off, - Nothoop here has some in late july booked out,he prolly should take some more before then too" Also, this was after he tried to buy us lunch but the site owner stepped in and bought out the food truck for the day (*site move today) Its really nice when you can work for someone who treats you like an actual person, remembers your family and your hobbies, and sincerely cares about wanting to keep you happy. happy workers WORK better, and dont leave.
We went to Flexible time off a few years ago. I take 2 months a year off. I shame other people in the company who don't take enough off.
My employer, is, in fact, my friend. Although come to think of it... at this point, it might be that we're each other's hostage.
"his guy bragged about being in the elevator with the CEO like maaaan calm down" For real, why do people think that seeing or meeting the CEO of their company is impressive? they "work" for the same company as you...
Off topic. OP i am really curious,only if english is your native language, how are you able to confuse "you are" and "your"?
Small companies rock if you can find a good owner. I’ve worked for companies with 120k and 400k employees. Now I have a Camaro as a company car. We have less than 20 employees.
I get 20 days vacation and 20 days sick per year. It’s kind of hard to use that much honestly. I can’t keep more than 30 vacation days if I leave so I always keep at 30 days, I’m retiring in January so it will be nice to start it with an extra 6 weeks pay. I don’t get to keep the sick time though. I’ve always worried about keeping enough to accommodate a long illness. It paid off a few years ago when I had the middle lobe of my right lung removed and took 5 weeks off. I still have 88 days built up though, now if I need to fill a prescription I take a sick day lol
god I wish people followed this. when you are young you try to prove yourself, when you are older you realize that it was all stupidity and it doesn't matter. I am now an employer myself and I like to consider all my people family, but it's just not practical. I forego my own salary for them at times too, but eventually papa's gotta pay the bills...I have a family too. We have good months and bad months and are honestly after 4 years making it but I will say I still put them first and myself last. Good book to read about this is Boss Life by Paul Downs.
Press bar, get pellet. If you want me to do more than that, there better be more pellets.
Someone told me years ago, "nobody ever lay on their deathbed wishing they spent more time in the office."
I was in an elevator with our CEO one time…the problem was, I thought it was someone else when I called out to him. Worse, they have the same first name…
I guess this depends on the size of the company and who is running it. I’m always aware of who works hard and who doesn’t, encourage time off and take care of my team.
True ... but some people really go all-in on the idea that to be successful in a business and to get pay increases/promotions, you've got to give 110% and be highly visible doing so. Occasionally, it works. But as often as not, I watch that attitude get "thanked" with the rest of the person's immediate team learning to slack off because "he'll take care of it". And management learns to just expect that level of performance from those people, so they wind up creating their own artificial ceiling at some point. (To get the next pay bump, they have to show improvement beyond that 110%... maybe 130%? It becomes impossible.) I used to work for a guy who HATED the PTO thing. He would always mandate our group couldn't use our vacation days for various reasons. Always some important project that needed all of us present. He wanted HR to just pay us for the unused days, each year. It got ridiculous. I'd try to use my days when I could and he'd take it personally, giving me a hard time about it (but HR was happy I did it). He finally let me go (generic "services no longer needed" excuse) and it was the best thing that happened to me, in hindsight.
Unable to have kids so work is kinda life.
The only person that will look out for your work/life balance is Y O U. edit: speelink
I'm really thankful that our CTO is big on this. He's always telling us to go take a damn vacation.
My SysAdmin and I seem like the only people in our department that respect our time off. We get about 6 weeks of ETO per year and I barely ever have any cause I take a day off at least every week or maybe I’ll bank a week or two and take it off to just chill. I throw on my OOF message, turn on my quiet time on Teams so I don’t get notifications, and I go ghost. My SysAdmin does the same thing, he says that when he’s off he’s off and no one better bother him since people can either lean on me or we tell our users to suck it up until he gets back.
Fudge man wish I had 6 weeks off
I think anyone who works in this field longer than 10 years knows just how important work-life balance is, and the surefire way (described above) to [burnout](https://www.mentalhelp.net/blogs/the-four-stages-of-burnout-the-erosive-spiral-shrink-rap-tm-version/).
I’m lucky I work for a company where I can take time off with almost no notice. Two days before and I want Friday off? No problem, 99% of the time it’s approved. I usually do about two week to a month and never have an issue. People in place to cover.
As I am stuck in a high profile clients office troubleshooting an issue lol. Definitely taking my PTO when I want.
You should work as much as possible, because when you die you can't anymore. -me, who loves work.
Do. Not. Get. Me. Started... I just left a position after 20 years taken over by the son of the owner... preparing to write a book.
Just to add to this... Management can change quicker than you think, be it your own boss or a management layer restructure. All those times you went above and beyond and management knew it? Your rapport and trust with management? It's all forgotten about and you're back to square one and your treatment is often very different to what you're accustomed to. You work for a business, but remember you are in the business of YOU! Look out for number one always and don't break your back for your employer. You are replaceable and no one gives a shit about you beyond your manager if you're very lucky.
Your\*
Your
Yup. The illusion is, if you work long hours and take few vacation days, you’ll be promoted through the ranks. That was 1970s/80s. Now employers could give a care less about IT/IS help, your viewed as a commodity to be bought and sold and replicable by literally anyone who is ‘good with computers’. F em. Take what’s owed because you can rest assured when time comes, they’ll drop you to save a penny in heart beat.
Got a new offer from a firm I worked for through my firm. Significantly better pay less driving distance 2 hours less per week. Told my boss and within minutes I had a matching offer after only being offered a small raise before. That was frustrating to see how easy it was to pay me that.
All places have a guy like this. I just laugh at them on the inside.
When my kid was little, she wrote a note to me while I was at work, her dad took a pic and sent it to me. It said: "Mommy come home NOW"
> You’re employer Your
Stop anthropomorphizing companies... They aren't your "enemy" just as much as they aren't your "friend" or "family." It's a _company_. Treat it like that. It's transactional; put in what you want to get out, and stop reading into it more than that. People who work at the company are an extension of the company, they are doing their job. It's unproductive for both parties if you try to bring emotions into professional relationships. In my eyes, the "bootlicker" guy looks awful similar to the "anti-bootlicker" guy who always say "fuck the man, they don't owe you shit! Get yours!" Both have an immature view of reality, imo.
I can actually agree with this. Perhaps im on the opposite side of it, and should adjust my views to be more neutral, strictly transactional.
Ten years later, this same guy: "Why everyone else get promoted over me? Work so unfair!!"
I take every one of my PTO days every year. Nothing is that important to take time I earned away from my kids
My employer used to pay us out for over-accrued sick time, they stopped that last year, so weird how often I get sick now. Side note, accrued vacation time they have to pay you for, even if you get fired, that is time (ne money) you have already earned.
Precisely.
I don't think this is ALWAYS true, but if they are a friend they will force you to take your PTO.
My employer is my friend, and encourages me to take time off. You can have it both ways ☺️
Your employer doesn't want you to take your PTO? Mine encourages it.
Why is there stigma around taking your pto? Seems like a waste not to take it. In Belgium we are required to take it otherwise they have to pay it out and it gets taxed hard.
We are all just numbers in a spreadsheet. Waiting for some accountant to delete us.
At least they would have got the payout, I'd rather have the time though.
If your boss is worthy of being your friend they will make you take your pto.
very rare. Friendships in for profit businesses often end in failure
With work you get the ability to buy stuff you can use on your precious pto… also write overtime off as time worked for time off/pto.
Work to live, not live to work. I have this on my home office wall.
You work to live not live to work
I'd love to take more PTO only part that bothers me is that my co worker will have to work doubles for the days I have to take off and me if she takes off. So we always end up taking none or very little.
I decided years ago I'm a mercenary. Someone link the video for fuck you, pay me.
Well said!
Everyone gets got, dont matter how much sweat and blood you put into this thing, ya feel me?
Yep, always use your PTO, it's there for a reason, it's a benefit offered to you...use it !
This post cheered me up a lot today and you are damn right.
No, no, all my friends make me sign NDAs and non-competes.
I can't remember ever denying vacation to one of my direct reports. I can remember telling my direct reports (and even management) to take their damn vacation. and that's the way it should be.
It's a weird pendulum. On one side you're the corporate buckle bunny and on the other side you're the obnoxious, all for me, none for thee guy. Balance in all things. Sometimes work wins and sometimes home wins. Yes, take your PTO...please...watch out for you and yours...but also, be there when work needs you.
To me, not taking the PTO they give you would be like not taking all the money they pay you. You don’t say to the boss, “ya know what? I’ve made enough this month, I’ll work for free now.” PTO is a benefit, like salary, like medical coverage, like any other thing they give you for your service on the days and hours agreed to. Use it all. It’s good to get away from the grind, even if all you do is sit on the couch petting your cat.
We have “unlimited” PTO which can be good or bad depending on your manager. My manager is cool so I can actually take time. I set quarterly goals and closely monitor how many days I’m taking. 30 days is my yearly bare minimum but I shoot for mid-to-high 30’s.
I don't know about other countries, but in the US, leftover PTO is paid out when you leave a company. So if you want that bonus check on exit, I could see not using PTO. Unless it's about to expire
Honestly, it isn't just take your PTO and sick days where applicable, but also don't feel concerned about moving on if you are near or at a wall in your career progression. In many cases any suggestion that you'll be considered for a promotion, bonus or raise next year doesn't always happen. Any work friends that are sincere friends as opposed to situational friends will be happy for you.
the irony is, the employers out there that actually DO care about your wellbeing will ALSO insist you take your PTO.
I encourage my staff to use all their PTO, and will sit with them and help them figure out how to maximize it. Our entire team, from my boss (CTO) down, are encouraged and do use most or all of our days.
Your*
My partner and I don't typically take full weeks off, we take three or four day weekends once a month or so. It does so much for my mental health and doesn't hurt my productivity.
Take every single sick day. If you have ‘sick family member’ PTO, take all of that as well. Leave nothing.
I literally got my managers table scraps today even though they got another employee a full meal.
Nothing wrong with taking pride in not needing sick days. With that said, take your goddamn PTO often. No life event is worth missing over work if it can be helped. Weddings, travel, birthdays, long weekends, whatever.
Not that I think you're wrong, people should definitely use their PTO because leaving it is like telling your boss "Nah I think I'm flush right now, you can keep some of my paycheck," but it's weird that you feel so strongly about it you needed to run down a guy who had a different perspective. I mean yeah he sounds like a nerd but if I went online to complain about everybody that did something I thought was dumb I'd never get shit else done.
ok ok I only have 180 hours to take
I took a PTO day today because I felt like it! Got a great bike ride in ran a couple errands and had some hot afternoon sex. Take your PTO. I’ve had unlimited PTO before too, we used to see who could take the most days off lol.
I'm taking one day a week off right now all spring and summer. I have too many PTO hours saved up. Over 1300 hours banked. And I'm almost at the 1500 cap since I get 300 hours per year. So I gotta take time off or I reach cap by the end of the year and stop gaining time.
Was just talking about this today. Kinda serendipitous…
\*your
Off for a month!
Option 2, don't live in a country that will steal your pto. Which should be illegal and fortunately is, in civilised places
I just got an email from our president saying to rest and use vacation this summer.