No time to be sick

Why do we, as Americans, have such shitty vacation and sick policies?
Why, as one of the leading nations of the world, do we not care about
our own citizens?

This thought came to me yesterday as I came in to work sick. I was up
half the night on Tuesday because some new medication I'm taking has
me feeling worse than the issues it was supposed to manage. Yesterday
morning I woke up still feeling like crap. My first thought was "I'm
calling in!" Then I thought, "Shit, I don't have enough PTO time."
So I got up, got dressed and came in. I can't even tell you how many
times I've done this and how many time I've watched other people do
this. It's all too common. Wonder why we have things like the H1N1
"pandemic"? Because people don't have the sick leave to stay home
with their kids or to take care of themselves. The almighty dollar is
always more important to businesses rather than the health and welfare
of their employees.

The previous company I worked for did a lot of work in Europe. Every
summer, there was the August shut down. A month of time off for the
workers there. A MONTH! Of course that would leave all of us
overworked Americans feeling angry and jealous. Of course these same
people got another chunk of time over the holidays. To the Europeans,
they would never work on a holiday. They expect you to be with
family. Here, we were expected to be at work. SOMEONE had to be in
the office. What if there was an emergency? By the way, that company
only gave you 2 weeks of vacation and zero (yes, I said ZERO) sick
leave.

And what about maternity leave? If you're lucky, you get 6 weeks
UNPAID leave. That's your payment for giving birth. Six weeks of
unpaid leave. You're barely functioning as a human with your world
turned upside down and now you've got to return to work. I wonder
what productivity rates are for new mothers that get this kind of
leave? I was "fortunate" and had 3 months off with 60% pay thanks to
short term disability. My Canadian friends cannot believe that we do
this. They get an entire YEAR off for maternity leave. A year with
your job guaranteed when you return. I can't even imagine what that
must be like. And they get PAID for that as well. In my current job,
you have to be an employee for a year before you even qualify for
maternity benefits. And then they suck out a chuck of your PTO time
before they even tap into FMLA. Better keep your legs closed people!

When I was still in DC I worked for a lobbying firm. We had unlimited
sick leave and vacation time. Yes, you read that right. Unlimited.
People thought this was absolutely insane. It was. Insanely good for
me! But you know what? NO ONE took advantage of it. Yes, people
took time off, but no one came in to the office if they were sick.
People stayed home with their kids and didn't worry about it. People
took vacation time and the office was closed on every major holiday.
In return, we did bust our asses when we were in the office, but I do
think this is a prime example of giving the workers some credit.
Everyone is so worried that people will take advantage and never show
up or do a good job. If you do find those people, then FIRE THEM!
There are plenty of good people that WILL do the work and WILL respect
the policies.

My current job is very strict on PTO time. We accrue time with each
pay period (every two weeks). So over the year I think an average
employee racks up about 24 days of PTO. Not bad, right? But every
holiday during the year that the office is closed is removed from that
amount. So that's 6 days off the top. So you're down to 18 now which
still isn't all that bad. That's almost 4 weeks. But once you throw
in a family situation (like kids) and you're slowing losing days.
Kids get sick, you get sick. This year I had a family funeral. But
bereavement leave is only for immediate family so I didn't qualify for
that time off. It had to come out of my PTO. And again, you don't
get the lump sum of days at the start of the year. You are accruing
them all year long. And if you don't have the time in your bank, they
will deny you leave. No such thing as unpaid time. So you are slowly
upping your time each month and then whacking it back down when your
kid gets sick, someone dies, or god forbid you take a vacation. It's
a constant struggle. Which is why I am at work sick. Again. I've
got just enough time to cover me for the holidays. There is no time
to be sick.