this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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[–] SirQuackTheDuck 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While the average American is lucky to get 11 vacation days from their employer each year

Doesn't this also decrease if you get sick?

I got properly ill the day before I went on holiday, and was out for about a week. All those sick days didn't count against my vacation days.

Furthermore, my vacation days are (to an extend) transferable, which meant I had 31 vacation days this year. That just seems normal policy here (25 vacation days is fairly common in mid-range jobs).

[–] RustedSwitch 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t think your experience is that common.

Companies generally charge sick days one way or another.

[–] SirQuackTheDuck 1 points 1 year ago

First two days of sick leave are by default unpaid, but then social systems kick in and the employer has to pay at least 70% of income (or min wage, whichever is higher).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It depends on the employer/ job. It became a thing in the 90s to put all time off in one pool for sick and vacation. It is a very US capitalist thing to use punishment & reward to modify behavior.

[–] Mog_fanatic 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would guess this varies a ton from place to place as you are legally not obligated to do this in many states. In my situation for example, you have to use vacation for sick days. It's all one bucket of time. If you're very lucky your manager may not count a sick day against your paid time off but technically it should count as the same. So if you get sick for 2 days, you usually have to use 2 days of your vacation/paid time off time for the year.

Also in my current place. Your vacation does not roll over. It gets paid out at the end of the year. So if you somehow don't use the time you're given they will just pay you as tho you worked all those hours. This is to discourage those from saving their time for like a month long vacation.

[–] SirQuackTheDuck 1 points 1 year ago

Understandable, just like in the EU each country has their own rules concerning vacation days and PTO, but they're likely closer to the Dutch rules than the "general" US rules if what I've been reading on Lemmy and Reddit.

It gets paid out at the end of the year.

Luckily this is protected, since paying out days off is taxed at 52% in the Netherlands, so you'd lose half the income for not going on holiday.