Lying About Vacation Days: Cough, Cough, I'm On Vacation
On CBSNews.com, Evil HR Lady Suzanne Lucas makes the point that it's unfair for workers to do so -- to call in sick and use a sick day as a vacation day. But, one survey says 47 percent of workers have done it, and that may not reflect well on the workers, but it also may not reflect well on the way of the particular workplace:
Yes, people want more vacation. That's obvious. But secondly, they feel they are not being treated fairly.Here's how I make the jump from lying about why you are out of the office to unfairness. Yes, when you accept a job, they tell you how much vacation you have. (Incidentally, younger workers have much less vacation than older works). They also tell you how many sick days, bereavement days and holidays you have. So, it should be a surprise that when you use all your vacation days by June, you can't take the week between Christmas and New Year's off. That part is obvious.
But when employees start to lie, that indicates they believe they are being treated unfairly. And as evidence of this, 20 percent of employees have been denied vacation time, when they asked. And a previous survey by Beyond.com showed that 48 percent of people don't feel they can easily take vacation -- either there is too much work or the boss doesn't make it easy.
So, getting a day off (one that you have earned), can be difficult. But, if you say, "Gosh, I'm sick," there's nothing a boss can do about that. Sick is sick. (Not that your job is protected for regular run-of-the-mill illness, but most companies won't fire you for a single absence.) And if Grandma died you have to take time now, no matter if it's busy season or not. (Although people who lie about bereavement should be careful. Eventually you run out of false dead relatives.) And bereavement policies are generally ridiculous in the first place, offering 1 to 3 days to deal with the death of a spouse, parent or child.
Managers should be managing performance and not by the clock anyway. (For exempt employees. For non-exempt employees, legally, managers have to track hours.) If you promote an atmosphere where employees feel respected and valued, they won't have to resort to lying to get time off. If someone has been putting in extra hours to get a key project done, or has accomplished something grand, even if it was within regular hours, rewarding that person with an extra vacation day can go a long way towards building trust and respect within the office.
Every year at this time, suddenly 75% of the secretary pool at work is sick. Nearly every year at this time I leave 20+ hours of sick time unused. If they just called it Paid Time Off (PTO) and allowed us to use it for whatever we want, I believe that it would alleviate a lot of the issues with non-exempt employees burning off the sick hours at the end of the year because they feel like they are losing part of their benefits if they don't. I never take all my vacation time either. I will roll over 45 hours of vacation hours this year. One of these days I'll get around to using them...maybe.
sara at December 24, 2012 5:37 AM
Most place my freinds work dont let you roll much, if any sick/vaca time from one yr to the next.
If you're at a 'use it or lose it' job you're gonna use it
lujlp at December 24, 2012 6:35 AM
My employer (a large public university in the South) closes the entire university between Christmas and New Year's with the exception of the people required to keep things working smoothly. They found out it was cheaper to pay people to stay home and turn the air conditioning to the economy mode.
Turns out its cheaper that way...
I R A Darth Aggie at December 24, 2012 6:41 AM
My previous employer went from 21 days PTO for any reason to 15 days vacation and 6 days sick leave (and you can't roll over one minute from one year to the next). You gotta be kidding me. So, employees get punished for being well? And the chronically sick guy gets to take all his time off?
The response is obvious: people who have previously never been sick a day in their lives are now sick - you guessed it - six days a year, exactly. And as far as I am concerned, the company deserves exactly what they got.
gharkness at December 24, 2012 7:03 AM
"So, employees get punished for being well? And the chronically sick guy gets to take all his time off?"
Exactly!!!! I've never called in sick when I wasnt sick - but it has been tempting at times. I currently have 10 days a year vakay (cannot be rolled over) and zero sick days. Yup that's zero. They do that so if you take more than three days off (unscheduled) for being sick thy force you to use FMLA (thanks Clinton!). Which means even for us salaried exempt folks - a loss of pay for those days.
But let's say I want to go to Europe for three weeks. May I take those days off "unpaid" if I don't have enough vakay since I can't "roll over" from other months? Nope. I'd be forced to quit and get rehire and start my benefits back at square one.
I work weekends sometimes. I get no comp time. I worked 17 hours a few Mondays ago. No comp time. Didn't get Christmas eve off or the day after thanksgiving off and we live four hours away from relatives (so there went three of my ten vakay days right there.
Am I grateful to have a job - absolutely. But do I struggle with calling in sick a day here or there.... When I am not? Yes. I haven't done it yet. But right now I am working to be self employed hopefully soon. If I am going to work like this - it had minus well be for myself where at least my financial rewards are more in line with the amount of work put in.
Feebie at December 24, 2012 7:43 AM
But when employees start to lie, that indicates they believe they are being treated unfairly. And as evidence of this, 20 percent of employees have been denied vacation time, when they asked.
I don't get this. By her math, 4 out of 5 times vacation is granted without question. And 1 out of 5 times it seems that the boss says, "Sorry, we can't spare you that week -- can you schedule for another time?" That doesn't seem unfair.
I agree that there shouldn't be personal, vacation and sick days -- just accrued time off. It's easier for everyone. But there are times where it's all hands on deck. Other times everyone wants to take vacation the same week.
If someone has been putting in extra hours to get a key project done, or has accomplished something grand, even if it was within regular hours, rewarding that person with an extra vacation day can go a long way towards building trust and respect within the office.
Yes, I do that, with the caveat, "All I ask is that you pick a day during a time when it's slow."
Kevin at December 24, 2012 8:12 AM
I must have gotten lucky with the company that hired me: 20 regular vacation days per year (but you can't carry a balance higher than 30 days), plus 5 days of sick leave (unlimited accrual). Things like that tend to make me want to stay put. I'm a little surprised other firms don't consider more the impact of non-pay benefits on retention.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at December 24, 2012 8:41 AM
Most places Ive worked at use PTO time and dont care how it's used. You can usually roll it over, at least for a period of time, so it doesnt force everybody to use it all up at the same time.
A few places I worked that had 'sick days' had a use it or lose it policy, and the management actually expected that you might use it for extra vacation.
I like PTO time. Sick time is only a benefit if you get sick, so why should employees be less rewarded for their health (I worked a company that addressed this: they paid you unused sick days at the end of the year).
meloni at December 24, 2012 8:42 AM
The joy and heartache of working for yourself is that you're always at work, if you want to be. I had abdominal surgery last summer, and was back at the keyboard the next day. Why? I like to eat.
KateC at December 24, 2012 8:56 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/12/24/lying_about_vac.html#comment-3529450">comment from KateCA migraine stops me, but otherwise, I drug myself up, tie myself to my chair and work my ass off, same as when I'm not sick.
Amy Alkon at December 24, 2012 8:59 AM
There are two other problems with vacation time.
1) Two weeks, which is standard for a lot of American companies, isn't enough time off. A lot of people end up needing to use vacation time for things like waiting for the cable guy or a sick kid, so that leaves people with something like 4 days of real vacation time. And yes, they knew this when they took the job, but it's still not enough to avoid burnout. With one job I had, it was ALWAYS busy because were so short-staffed, so people were always taking sick days as vacation days.
2) Jobs don't work the way they used to. Even hourly workers aren't always getting paid for the hours they work. At my last job, we had to get the time approved beforehand. But most of the time we couldn't know until the last minute whether we would need to work late on a project, so we worked a lot of hours that we never got paid for. In addition, a lot of work happens outside the office. Professional work isn't like factory work. People spend a lot of time out of the office thinking and planning and researching, and they're not being paid for that time. It's no surprise that people are willing to lie to get some of that time back.
My husband's office has a rational policy: They don't have one. They trust people to take the time they need, with the understanding that anyone who abuses that trust will be suffering the consequences. Interestingly, people seem to take less time off when they are working under an honor system.
MonicaP at December 24, 2012 9:05 AM
I get 80 sick hours a year automatically on the anniversary of my hire date. And I earn 4.6 vacation hours every two weeks/pay period. We are allowed to roll over unused time every year up to a certain amount. Once we hit that point we either have to cash out the time (at 80% to 90% of its value) or forfeit earning new time. We then get three flexible days per year that is PTO for any reason that is use it or lose it and 16 hours of flexible time where you can take a few hours of your shift off without it counting against your other PTO. It's not super easy to get vacation time off just because of staffing needs (hospital), but it's not impossible and it's rare I'm unable to get timeoff when I need it.
BunnyGirl at December 24, 2012 9:35 AM
In the last 10 years or so, every place I have worked is use it or lose it (both vacation & sick time). This year is the firs time I have a really gotten bit by it. I am am losing 4 days. We were "too busy" for me to take them since I had not put them in by the "guarantee time" which is 3 months. (e.g. If I wanted today off (12/24) I would be pretty much guaranteed it off if I put in for vacation by 9/24).
One of the problems I have seen with both systems is people who use all the combined PTO or sick time -- and then really become sick. What does the company do? insist that they come in even though they are quite sick? Give them a free day off?
The Former Banker at December 24, 2012 10:48 AM
I read an instructional book about poker once. Second paragraph: At many tables, it's considered almost ethical to cheat.
It's been twenty-five years since I was a typical company employee, but over that time the names of these sick days have changed. At one company I'm with now, there are PTO's and UPTO's... Paid time off and unpaid time off days. Everybody knows what's what, and hypocrisy has been minimized. If you aren't getting your work done, if deadlines are missed, your boss will respond as needed.
That's fair, right? We're talking about private arrangements between individuals and companies, aren't we?
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 24, 2012 11:09 AM
Hubby is hourly, but his company does PTO. If you use it up and need more, you don't get paid. Easy enough.
I've called in sick when I wasn't. I've also gone in feeling like crap cause I had to to finish something that had to be done. It evens out.
momof4 at December 24, 2012 11:52 AM
The bank I worked for had a 5 day sick and default 12 days off starting the first year. They also had quasi-government agency rules that you had to take a five contiguous day off. Most people swindling accounts can't arrange something that shifted money around and didn't take a regular touch by them. You could carry over up 10 days of vacation, but no sick time. When they let me go, I had 11 vacation days paid.
Most of us were salaried. If you had to work weekends, you had a choice of filing an expense report for excess mileage (and they usually bought or paid for lunch as well) or taking a comp day.
The next company did 17 days PTO to start. Most of the staff was hourly, but those of us who salaried were screwed for the excess hours and weekends.
My latest company, we were bought out October 1. You get 15-20 days vacation, no carryover, depending on "prior" years of service. They supposedly aren't watching sick days. The CEO said "if you're sick, you're sick." Some of us are noticing that there might be abuse of the sick policy already. I'm just worried the other fuckheads will ruin it for the rest of us.
Jim P. at December 24, 2012 1:12 PM
Same deal for me as Bunnygirl. Just quit my job at the hospital last Saturday though. Never took a sick day, and only ever took two scheduled days off, but that's because they made it damn near impossible to take time off. I told them my daughter was having surgery, so they could schedule me if they wanted to but I could guarantee that I wouldn't be there. Now I have 140 hours of PTO waiting to cash out after my departure. Wonder if I'll ever see it?
Juliana at December 24, 2012 1:28 PM
I've been at my job long enough that I get 3 weeks of vacation plus 5 sick days and a floating holiday every year. I can roll my vacation days over, but only until I've accrued 4 weeks (160 hours.) Yet when I try to take off a single day, like say Christmas Eve, my boss tell me that we already have too many people who requested that day off. Imagine my surprise when our entire department is here today. So yeah, if my boss won't let me use my vacation days and lies about why, I might say if I say I'm sick in order to get a day off when I need it. I haven't done it, but I might. I was able to take 6 of the 15 days I had coming to me this year.
Boldly Beth at December 24, 2012 1:40 PM
sigh, in this Obamanation some of us don't have jobs to bitch about not getting enough time off . . .
Charles at December 24, 2012 2:04 PM
And of course, there hasn't been a single day off the last 9 years. I've driven the kids to the Dr with a trashcan between my knees for my own puke.
momof4 at December 24, 2012 7:34 PM
M4,
That means you need to tell your boss he has to do your job for two days and just drive away.
I know you're talking about parenting. I'm pretty sure the rest of us are talking about paid employment. And they are separating the paid employment from the parenting duties.
Jim P. at December 25, 2012 6:56 AM
I haven't had to lie about taking a sick day or a vacation day as a sick day. I called in once and told my boss, "listen, I need a mental health day." He said "sick or vacation day?" I said how about a sick day? He said sure. And sure enough, my paystub showed it as a sick day. Unfortunately, that company shut its doors four years ago. Now, I'm temping and hoping this job becomes permanent. Either that or I'll have to find another. And then I'll do something I haven't done in a long time - I'll call in well. It'd be: "Hi. I've been sick ever since I started working here, but today I'm well, so I won't be in anymore."
Flynne at December 25, 2012 8:31 AM
Waiting for the cable guy? Your job should pay you for this? spoiled much?
KateC at December 25, 2012 8:42 PM
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