I'm just curious, because some of the people that work here seem to average 4-6 days a month. Ridiculous. There's no way some of them have any sick days left.

Is this normal now days?

Smittyfubar said:

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I'm just curious, because some of the people that work here seem to average 4-6 days a month. Ridiculous. There's no way some of them have any sick days left.

Is this normal now days?

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Depends on where you work and how much time you accrue each month

We have "earn it and burn it" people that use their day of sick leave and day of vacation every month. Then they are screwed when they actually get sick and they have to go into "leave without pay" mode.

I'm on vacation now to burn some days I didn't get around to using and I still have a lot of sick leave banked.

I've taken my sick leave and vacation down to zero a few times due to major medical stuff in the past. I don't want to do that again. I'll carry over the maximum allowable amount of vacation into the next fiscal year.

I'm just not wired to take time off to go fishing or hunting or play video games all day or whatever these people do that burn leave.

But I'm also not a millennial or a Zoomer so it's not a surprise.

I don't think I could ever work in the big corporate world where you have to track PTO, vacation, and sick days.
I work for a very small company and we have no "time off" policy. If I want time off I take it. If I'm sick I stay home. In 20+ years I've probably missed 7 days for actually being sick. Most of those were with covid.

My company doesn't have "sick days", but has several other categories for time off:

• PTO: Use for whatever you want. Accrual amount depends on tenure or what you negotiated when getting hired.
• VTO (Volunteer Time Off): 9 hours you can use to volunteer somewhere on your own (food bank, etc)
• Floating Holiday: 9 hours you can use for anything. Most use it for a religious holiday since we don't get any of those except Christmas or a birthday.

I typically take off about 4 or 5 weeks per year, usually 1 to 2 weeks at a time for extended vacations. Regarding sick time, I don't remember the last time I was actually sick enough to "call in sick" and use PTO, except for maybe when I had COVID during the pandemic, but most of that was spent working from home anyway.

Excluding an hour here or there for a doctor or dental appointment, I take maybe two or three sick days a year.

We don't have "sick days" or holidays. We have accrued PTO that all gets used for any time away from the office.

I work nights and weekends fairly routinely so I take off when I want whether I'm sick or not.

I especially love the work from home crowd that misses zoom meetings because they are "sick." Get out of bed and join the meeting.

Ryan the Temp said:

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Smittyfubar said:

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I'm just curious, because some of the people that work here seem to average 4-6 days a month. Ridiculous. There's no way some of them have any sick days left.

Is this normal now days?

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There is always a segment of the workforce who views sick time as extra vacation days and will burn every minute of their accruals as soon as they get it.

As for me - I haven't taken a sick day in somewhere around 10+ years.

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At this point, I view sick time as vacation days. Over the last decade, I've only been sick on one occasion where I needed to stay home.

We get 6 sick days/year and can roll that over up to 30 days total. I've been at 30 days for awhile. So now I just take the 6 days a year to go do things I want to do like go play a morning midweek round of golf.

One nice thing about my current company is that if I hit the cap on PTO, sick, or flex time, anything above that automatically pays out on my next paycheck at an effective hourly rate.

I wish they'd do that. I'd gladly take it.

Don't think I've ever felt bad enough to stay home from work. Even when I tested positive for covid, didn't feel bad enough to not work.

I officially have 40 hrs of family illness, 40 hrs of personal illness, and 180 hrs of vacation leave per year. I don't have to track it anywhere. I don't know how much I use. If I'm sick I stay home and usually work a little. If my kids are sick they're big enough to stay home alone. I do plan my vacations to match the allowed leave.

Ogre09 said:

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TXAG 05 said:

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Don't think I've ever felt bad enough to stay home from work. Even when I tested positive for covid, didn't feel bad enough to not work.

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Getting your coworkers sick sucks. Stay home.

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But I don't get sick

Smittyfubar said:

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I'm just curious, because some of the people that work here seem to average 4-6 days a month. Ridiculous. There's no way some of them have any sick days left.

Is this normal now days?

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My employer now offers onsite dialysis and chemo treatments to keep the slackers from missing work.

My wife has 9 weeks vacation/year, 8 days sick leave, 10 days bereavement if somebody dies, plus volunteer time. Plus Holidays. 31 years tenure gets you crazy vacay.

Ryan the Temp said:

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Smittyfubar said:

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I'm just curious, because some of the people that work here seem to average 4-6 days a month. Ridiculous. There's no way some of them have any sick days left.

Is this normal now days?

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There is always a segment of the workforce who views sick time as extra vacation days and will burn every minute of their accruals as soon as they get it.

As for me - I haven't taken a sick day in somewhere around 10+ years.

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My company updated their policy a few years ago that all leave, sick, PTO, whatever is the same pool.

Man I'm glad I am no longer a part of a company with such rigid policies.

I just about come and go as I please, even time wise. I use 15-20 days for actual family vacations where I'm 100% disconnected (this year was cruise at spring break, black hills for 6 days in june, costa rica last month for a week, and scottsdale/moab for a week coming in october.)

I also WFM Fridays, so all told I'm in the office maybe 180 days a year.

I probably take 2-3 actual sick days per year. I take some time as well to care for sick kids or elderly parent.

"Officially" I have 3 weeks of PTO to use however I want. I told my CEO 7 years ago that I'm just going to take off when I want and, if he feels like I'm abusing it, to let me know I'm taking too much.

Never been a topic of conversation since then.

I don't get sick days, vacation days, PTO, or any of that crap.

I am the owner of the business. I work 24/7/365. Which is probably good because I would cheat and try to scroew myself into more days or fewer days.

Work as a sales floor manager for a lumber yard, so the majority of employees are hourly. We use an accrual based PTO structure that's also based on tenure with the company.

The "usual suspects" of employees who constantly call in sick, and the employees who constantly ask if they can leave early because business is slow are also the same employees complaining when their paycheck hits for that week and "they don't have any money".

I have other employees that will show up on time for their shift, but look like absolute death. Coughing up lungs. Fever shakes. And I have to almost force them into their cars to get them to go home to take care of themselves. These employees rarely get sick, and when they do, they try to tough it out.

My comp is heavily commission biased so any time I'm not working I'm pulling money out of my own pocket. It's hard enough for me to take vacation much less "call in sick". We don't have a set policy because we don't need it. Don't produce and you'll get plenty of time off

If you call in sick more than once a month on average, you're wrong. Take a Tylenol and go to work.

If you never call in sick, you're wrong too. Nobody wants you there if you're genuinely sick.

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There is always a segment of the workforce who views sick time as extra vacation days and will burn every minute of their accruals as soon as they get it.

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When i worked in a local gov't office, there were a couple ladies who systematically burned through every minute of sick time or FMLA, and would then have to come in when they were actually sick to spread it around as much as they could. One was in HR, of course.

It's always women w kids that use up their sick time.

I applaud companies that give PTO in general, a certain number of days in the last 12 months, as their benefit.

I'm not here to work and cover bc little Aiden/Cayden/Jaydyn is always fighting an ear infection.

Unlimited FTO is the life ...unless you have a #$%^ boss who actually manages it like you still have a PTO bank.

Sick and normal PTO just got grouped all together by company, they just gave everyone an extra week. I love it. Not sick often and get more PTO, and encouraged to use it all unlike unlimited. As a manager it's nice as well...my team can do wtf they want with the time alloted. And we don't care if you need to leave for 2hrs for a Dr appt. Just get your crap done. My companily's benefits aren't very good besides this, but they got that right.