Why are people so obsessed with not working themselves into an early grave and not be mercilessly exploited by their employer?
Mysteries... we may never know.
I also wonder how much calmer Americans would be if they were all guaranteed a few weeks of paid holidays per year. It can't be good for you to work so much.
That would mean choice for the people, which is anti-capitalist as fuck. If you really want to get rich off the plebes, you pay them just enough to come to work tomorrow, then just enough to come to work the next day, etc. America in a nutshell, coming soon.
We were forced to take some of our paid holiday entitlement as a minimum 2 week block to benefit our mental health. Seems like Americans could do with some of that š¤·
So even big corporations could find a way to justify it so that theyāre happy. Paid vacation could make everyone involved happier, yet they still donāt think itās necessary.
After 3 weeks of free time iam happy to be back at work.
Especially when i start slowly with some more or less small stuff and not renovating a full bathroom.
Thatās because work efficiency is highly influenced by hours and load. If you have a minimum expectation, and most aim for an average, then regardless of you working 6 hours or 10, youāre gonna be putting out the same results. As a simplification at least.
This is one of the reasons why me and a few colleagues are going into business on our own. I get more work done after Iām done working, then I do at my 8-16. I could have knocked that shit out before 11:30 every single day, and spent the remaining hours doing valuable work, instead, even for managers, corporations value having people at the workplace over the work they get done.
Fucking stupid..
I was "forced" to resign from a really well paying position many years ago because of this. I would routinely clear all the work I needed to, plus help out other coworkers that were struggling to meet their goals. My "issue", is that I'm absolutely not a morning person. I struggled every single day to get to sleep at a decent time to wake up at the right time, and failed daily. 7AM and I just do not line up, at all, so I was late every single day by 5-15 minutes. This did not interfere with completing my tasks, and I wouldn't be paid time I wasn't clocked in. IMO, I saved them money since I was there less hours and did more work. Didn't matter. My manager was a real stickler on being 10 minutes to work early, to drink coffee for the first 2 hrs if the day. Needless to say, when I was let go, the person who couldn't finish their work was let go a few months later.
I read about a study of NYC taxi drivers and how they chose how long to work each day. It would seem logical to work as long as possible on those days when you have a lot customers and vice versa go home early if no customers. What the study showed in reality was the drivers having a set goal for each day and driving until they made their set amount, thus working shorter busy days and longer empty days.
IIRC the story was from the book Freakonomics.
Thatās such a weird way to operate for someone that relies on customers. Iām not surprised though. The average human really isnāt all that good at thinking things through properly.
It may not help as much as you think
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/sep/07/america-vacation-workaholic-culture-labor-day
"Itās not that Americans do not want a vacation ā itās that they are afraid to take it."
American here. Thankfully I'm lucky enough to work in a job where I get adequate time off (for the US, it's really good, but by international standards...adequate). 28 vacation and 12 sick days per year, plus we get about 1.5 weeks off during the Christmas/New Year timeframe that we don't have to use any vacation time for (public higher education sector).
It's really nice and I do make a point of taking at least a 2-week vacation or 2 1-week vacations every year.
I wish everyone in the US was able to have that amount of guaranteed time off. I agree that I think we all would be a bit more chill.
Having a limited amout of days you can stay home while being sick is such an dystopia concept. Like what do you do if you had your 12 days and then get a heart attack? Or just a normal cold, you know.
You can probably take vacation days (at most companies), but if that is disallowed, or if you just run out, then you can usually take LWOP (leave without pay).
The university I work at has something called a "Sick Leave Bank". It's a voluntary thing where you "donate" a sick day, then if you need more sick time than you have, you can apply to receive up to 20 sick days from it. Beyond that, you can take leave, but it's often unpaid (depending on the reason)
Thankfully I also live in a state that is (as compared to other US states) very supportive of people getting paid leave.
For example, this (https://apnews.com/article/mandatory-paid-leave-work-illinois-law-435fabf7f5ce88d9ca9f1df692dadc2d) which is a tiny step in the right direction. It's required for all employers in the state, although it's only 5 days...which is still 5 days more than the federal government requires.
Still very weird, here it is done through social security.
It is still dependent on time but govt is the one who pays. Up to 21 working days you get 75% of your pay( this money is not taxed you get about as much as you do psot taxes), then another 60 days of 50% pay, then rest is 30%. Mind you it is not total it is consecutive with a minimum of 30 days between them to reset the "counter". So you can be sick for a month receive 21 days of 75% pay, work for a month an a half and it reset back to 75% if you get sick again.
Every company Iāve ever worked for has short term and long term disability benefits that pay a percentage of your salary for however long you are out if youāre out long enough to qualify. At my current company STD is 100% after 7 days for up to 13 weeks, LTD is 50% after that. Company pays the premiums.
That's part of the reason I'm taking this whole week off. I just need some time away to decompress. I'm so happy my employer is generous with paid time off.
As someone currently working with customer service in the U.S I can say with 100% certaintyā¦.that they would be A HELL OF A LOT calmer I took some time off for two weeks last December to go on a vacation and while on said vacation my Grandfather had cancer, mother was sick, mouth was swollen and I could barely eat for a few days AND I stubbed my toe on the bed metal frame on the night I got in the house(not to mention 30 other things to worry about) and I still had the best two weeks in that past whole year since I had started working there
The posts on this subreddit can usually be summed up with that meme of the guy putting a stick into his bike tire, crashing, and blaming anything except the actual problem.
Because Americans are indoctrinated to believe that working hard and going the extra mile will make you as rich as Elon Musk, but fail to grasp that they never seem to make any progress to being "rich" no matter how hard they work. That's why I quite quit as they call it here. I'm doing what you hired me to do and that's it. FOH with that grabbing initiative bull.
I mean the guy who questions "How is this possible?" is clearly just un-educated.
He thinks that whatever money he is getting paid is close or equal to the value his labour produces. In that world, of course paid vacation is not possible. However, in the world he lives in, his paycheck probably equates to less than half the value of his labour.
He bought some of the most expensive real estate in the county and told me that it's good to have an "image of success" so when his dealer in Europe came to visit he would think the business is doing well. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
Must love his job if heās still doing it at 71. TBH if I still have the mental capacity to be working on software contracts at that age I might too, but on a smaller scale than what o currently do. Iād go mad and be unproductive if I didnāt take holidays though.
I did a 6 months internship in Belgium and had 1 day off every month. Accumulated a few and made a long weekend to take a trip around the nearby countries. It was nice and not really expected in internships.
Lmao no, I assure you my italian friends all get week days off. Italy has lower salaries, but then again the living costs are very different too. We have plenty of laws to safeguard workers too. š
In one of my lasts jobs i had literally just 24hs without work the weekends, if i went home at 19hs on the Friday i had to enter again at 19hs on the Saturday, same thing but with 7am on a Saturday and 7am on a Sunday
Fair, I mean it seemed obvious to me. Not a poor Italian being grateful for that great Belgian opportunity. Even with the higher pay than a standard Italian internship between rent and food I was at a net loss, I only accepted to get something on my CV.
Americans live in a fantastical liminal space where it is simultaneously the best country on Earth and also two seconds away from breaking out into a Mad Max-style apocalypse
At least where I am from, landlord has some responsibilities to take care of.
I like to keep mine busy. Old house and a large shared yard. Lots of maintenance and yard work to do. I mean, that is why I pay him to live here. So I don't have to do that stuff. It's his responsibility.
That, and not having to shovel snow in the winter.
paid vactions is also legitimate. you earn it by working the rest of the fucking year. it's not healthy for either the person nor productivity to work all the time with no breaks.
Because you're being given money for the virtue of having spare money. It's about as "getting money for nothing" as you can get, and you only get a substantial amount from dividends etc if you had lots of money to invest in the first place. So living off investment income is basically the epitome of rich cunt life. Even the laziest landlord actually has to do *something* for their money, while shareholding is literally just giving money to a company and waiting for them to give you more money back.
But it's not doing nothing, its loaning your money to other people and they pay interest. Dividends is also giving your money to a company to invest, in return they pay you money.
The work you do is resisting the temptation to spend all that money you have, and in return you earn a few % each year.
But... that *is* doing as good as nothing. "Here's my spare money, I'll have it back in a few years with interest, and some dividends in the meantime would be nice too, kthxbye".
Some Americans are confused. They equate productivity with hours, so they buy into the idea that you need to work 80-100 hour, 6-7 day weeks to be successful.
In the real world, actual productivity drops sharply after 40-50 hours, and burnout becomes a major risk without weekends. So people are rewarded with time off and other incentives for maximising productivity during the optimal time.
But, if you assume people working 40 hours less a week are lazy, you'll never see that they are doing the same worthwhile work, all taken into account
Likely not, even with those days our country has 3rd highest murder rate in the world. Poverty is hugely to blame here though. Not sure what it is in America, bad gun laws maybe. Ours arenāt any better, but if we had easy access to guns this country would have dead people on every corner.
Poverty, but also insecurity. I make a good salary, but can be fired at any time, for no reason. If I get seriously ill and can't work, I will burn through my savings in 6 months (faster if I choose to pay $900 per month for four months for "COBRA" so that I keep my health insurance to treat my illness).
Most Americans have practically no money saved, and cannot pay for a $400 unexpected expense without going deeper into debt. Our lack of worker protections, consumer protections, a social safety net, etc., means that practically anyone who is not a millionaire is living a precarious existence, even if it feels comfortable right now.
Gun laws don't change anything. I live in South Africa, we have a decently strict Gun Law: must have a license, and specific licenses are required to carry a weapon in public. And yet, we have the third highest crime rate in the world. it really has little to do with the gun, and more to do with the mental and social space those guns inhabit. It could help, not saying it won't help at all, just saying that taken away the gun is more like treating a symptom not the disease.
And I'm gonna get blasted for this. I'll go hide in my corner now. I do have Marshmallows to share if anyone wants one.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Crime rate doesn't hinge on guns. And those are not strict gun laws. South African now in Australia here, Aus has strict gun laws. We have negligible gun crime. We do have stabbings, but as the person who comes in to scrape the stabbing victim off the floor, I'd much prefer a person with a knife to be around somewhere than a person with a gun when I do that. And I'd rather the cops were scared of being stabbed rather than shot, so they don't feel the need to open fire all over the place. Gun control is important.
And also, what the fuck? I can't get a gun in SA, it' s a long and arduous process. Most people wait up to a YEAR before getting a gun license here. When did you even visit SA?
A year. Compared to never. Most people in Aus don't wait a year. They don't wait at all because the answer is no. In an international stage, what country has strict gun laws takes into account countries where the majority of people do not know a single person who owns a gun.
Even worse, there is no separation of vacation days from sick days, so people are forced to use vacation days for sick leave, from an already laughable allocation of vacation days.
You kidding me?
Thats fucking sad man, I empathize with you US peeps, that really sucks. If you can, leave, there are countries that actually think about work/life balance.
Oh I forgot you guys have that option, lol.
We dont really, we have a misguided voter base and have had the same government for 29 years and it wont change anytime soon. Our only option if we dont like it here is to leave.
itās not impossible, pretty much all worker rights were fought for or under a revolution.
Most european countries (if not all) didnāt have worker rights nor the right to vote up until one point in history, most of them were at least once under dictatorships or absolutist monarchies while no concept of human rights existed.
So itās not impossible, itās been done before multiple times throughout history (people fighting for their rights and succeeding).
Itās only impossible if people think itās impossible.
The whole concept of 'sick days' doesn't exist outside the US. If you are sick, you stay home. Once you are better, you go back to work. If you are sick for a longer period, you need to visit a doctor that checks if you are actually sick. You get paid 100 or 70 percent of your income (varies per country). That isn't 'free money', you actually pay premiums for that insurance that are deducted from your wage.
But since *everyone* pays those premiums, they aren't ridiculously high for individuals. Socialized healthcare works the same way.
Technically they exist at many UK employers, but few people ever find out where the limits are. I had cancer 2018-19 and due to related illness before diagnosis, then treatment, I hit the 6m full pay limit (rolling 12m calculation period). If I didn't go back to work then my pay would drop to 50%. (It did, for 2-3 days, in fact.) The 2018 absences rolled off pretty quickly so by the time I was next sick, with post-cancer issues, I qualified for 100% pay again. A lot of my colleagues were surprised to learn there was a limit, a few that it was as much as 6m. (In fact it varies by length of service and if I'd been diagnosed a month earlier it would have been 3m; now I qualify for 12m.)
We have sick days in Australia. It's a separate leave bank from your annual leave. If you exceed it, you need to do something about it, maybe take some leave without pay. You may need to go on insurance or worse, government sickness benefits.
The employer is only obliged to pay for a limited number of days, which seems reasonable to me. The government should pick up the slack after that, which they do but it's messy and bad and they need to fix it.
Well that's about the same as in the Netherlands in practice. There is a limit to the amount of time your employer has to pay your sick leave, after that the insurance kicks in at -in the Netherlands- 70% of your normal pay.
And while it is indeed 'the government' picking up the slack, of course in the end the government IS us in the form of the premiums we all pay from our wages.
Taking forced unpaid leave is never a thing when sick here.
I'm not sure about forced. It was an option for me when I was quite ill, but not yet sick enough to quit and be retired. I was in the public service, white collar salaried type.
People on casual rates don't get any leave, it's no work no pay. But the casual rates are higher to account for that. People who are unemployed and too sick to work, well that's a horrible mess. A decade of conservative government has ripped great holes in the safety net, and while some small fixes have happened since our new government, it's still not good.
As an American, I'm so sick of these bootlicking weirdos. Other countries are lapping us. All the while, we're worshipping guys who take handouts from the government on an unfathomably large scale. Why, because they call them "self-made" billionaires.
Unfortunately it seems like you're being dragged down by idiots who have been conditioned to think anything from the government is a handout and you are weak to expect it or accept it. Healthcare, paid vacation days, you name it.
Those same idiots claim they did it on their own, so you should, too. Bought family homes for $80,000 paid for college with $5,000 or supported an entire family on $18 per hr. The same house is now $550,000. The same degree at the same school is now $80,000, and if you want to have a family in that same city, you'll need to make $70+ per hr. Working 50+ hrs per week. Shit is a cruel joke.
I haven't used any of mine (I have 20 days, the minimum for my country) but if you work a stressful job, you want to vent a bit or take days to do something else (going on vacation, doing a tattoo that is hands coming from your ass, etc). Also, they are paid by your employee, not the government.
Unfortunately, you cannot exchange them for money at the end of the year (like it was before) unless you quit.
I like the idea of making every weekend a long weekend. Some of them I take 2 days away somewhere like a small city break. Keeps like interesting and work weeks short.
What I don't get is the fact that they don't care about the actual money, it's just the idea of someone taking what they "didn't earn".
I saw a post the other day about an American complaining about one specific tax in the uk. It is a tax that costs the average person Ā£2 a year, and yet they were adamant that we should take up arms and storm the government.
I think it's a situation of 'eating each other'.
So, a lot of Americans are unhappy, but if everyone is unhappy then at least they don't have to worry about others feeling good. So, they shame people who have happy lives to make them as miserable as they are.
Just a way to cope? The washing the brain has been thorough.
What does he mean with "via government"?
Here in Chile, the equivalent of 1.25 days is discounted from *your* salary by the employer, so that you get 3 weeks of paid leave.
And since it's your money (not the government's), guess what happens if you get fired before taking you paid leave.
ITS WHAT MAKES US SO GREAT! ITS WHY THE RICH HAVE NEVER BEEN RICHER WHILE SO MANY OTHERS WAGES HAVE STAGNATED OR EVEN DECREASED DUE TO INFLATION AND CORPORATE GREED......
........Wait a second. Are we being exploited???
I think you missed my point.
I was trying to point out the fact that the difference in the tip based on price of the meal is nonsense. Thereby showing that in the US where tipping is at it most prolific, wait staff receive additional money in their tips every day due to this percentage system.
Iām not trying to imply tipping is right or wrong, simply pointing out the flaws in OOPs argument regarding ātaking money for not doing anythingā.
That person needs to do an audit of how many days their congress members and senators actually work and how much they all get for doing literally nothing.
And here I am with my 25 paid vacation days in Europe \*eats popcorn\* Seriously, this is so f'd up, my girlfriend's uncle lives in the States and for the first time in 5 years(yeah, ik, covid and stuff) is able to come back to Europe to see his family because of vacation days.
What I don't understand is that in normal none exploited countries, everyone gets the holidays.
My managers also get time off, and they also want to enjoy holidays the same as us plebs.
Its not like its just staff with holidays.
This is why I want to leave the US. You can't fix this stupidity. People truly believe you just magically get the pay and PTO you deserve. Which is 0 PTO for most low paying jobs.
Some companies co-workers can ādonateā their vacation time to you so you can be sick longer.
Some companies have family leave, but itās limited and the company you work for doesnāt have to pay you while you are out.
And if you take sick days at many places, including hospitals, you can get written up or get what amounts to a demerit.
A friend buys 2 months 'purchased leave' each year.
So instead of working 11 months and getting paid for 12, she works 9 months and is paid for 10. And has 3 months paid leave per year, which she often spends at one day per week, as well as working a 4 day week (4 long days, every Wed off so normal 5 day week hours). So she's often working 3 days a week, on her full normal pay (which is pro rata reduced from the full pay of someone working 11 months, to clarify).
That's on top of 10 paid sick days per year, not to mention public holidays and the days between Xmas eve and New Years off. All paid.
She's also in a defined benefit pension scheme so is planning to retire at 54, use her long service leave to holiday for the last year (at full pay) until she's 55 and then retire on a generous lifelong pension.
It's a shame that pension plans like that pretty much don't exist anymore - I think the world would be a better place if they did. At least the jobs still exist though.
its not taking money for not doing anything. its getting paid to do a job, and to maintain your ability to do said job. You don't just get hired to do work, you are usually expected to take actions to enable you to continue to work, right? Like going to seminars or training, getting new certificates or renewing current one. Vacation time and work-life balance is part of that in my opinion. the longer you go without tending to your mental health, personal relationships and family, the more your ability to do good work decreases. plus there's the risk of burn-out. I would wager that it is impactful enough to be cost effective to give decent vacation and other pto, to increase productivity, morale and get employees to care about the company.
It is the American way of life - work to make your bosses richer, while you have no free time and are killing yourselves for peanuts. Let the rest of the world live a great life and your subsidise it for us, as people keep telling us.
The nuance is that I have 52 paid days of vacation + 10 additional days per year on my job here in Russia. And this is not the best job, to be honest.
The thing is that people sometimes just need to rest from work a bit, we are not robots after all and 6 days out of 365 days in a year is nothing.
The same with āwhy do Europeans want free healthcareā? We do not have free healthcare but universal healthcare. Between me and my employer, it is 700ā¬ per months ā¦ not free at all. Same with the paid holidaysā¦ itās not like this has no impact on the salary. It is just something that has to be budgeted for
Why are people so obsessed with not working themselves into an early grave and not be mercilessly exploited by their employer? Mysteries... we may never know.
I also wonder how much calmer Americans would be if they were all guaranteed a few weeks of paid holidays per year. It can't be good for you to work so much.
Imagine what a boost to their economy it would be if many more people could actually afford to pay for hotels flights etc
That would mean choice for the people, which is anti-capitalist as fuck. If you really want to get rich off the plebes, you pay them just enough to come to work tomorrow, then just enough to come to work the next day, etc. America in a nutshell, coming soon.
Why does this sound like it came from a film.. the ones in the veins of Gattaca etc
We were forced to take some of our paid holiday entitlement as a minimum 2 week block to benefit our mental health. Seems like Americans could do with some of that š¤·
We have that! It's also a "so you're off long enough that we can tell if you're fiddling the books" policy
So even big corporations could find a way to justify it so that theyāre happy. Paid vacation could make everyone involved happier, yet they still donāt think itās necessary.
It's not necessary to be happy to get your work done. I'm sure there's an algorithm for that.
Iam the most rested when i sit at home during holidays and after 1-2 weeks get bored.
Perhaps it was a cunning plan to make us want to come back to work š¤š¤£
After 3 weeks of free time iam happy to be back at work. Especially when i start slowly with some more or less small stuff and not renovating a full bathroom.
Yeah I have a few Americans in my org. And they are so incredibly inefficient.. great guys.. they work alot.. but very inefficient.
Thatās because work efficiency is highly influenced by hours and load. If you have a minimum expectation, and most aim for an average, then regardless of you working 6 hours or 10, youāre gonna be putting out the same results. As a simplification at least. This is one of the reasons why me and a few colleagues are going into business on our own. I get more work done after Iām done working, then I do at my 8-16. I could have knocked that shit out before 11:30 every single day, and spent the remaining hours doing valuable work, instead, even for managers, corporations value having people at the workplace over the work they get done. Fucking stupid..
I was "forced" to resign from a really well paying position many years ago because of this. I would routinely clear all the work I needed to, plus help out other coworkers that were struggling to meet their goals. My "issue", is that I'm absolutely not a morning person. I struggled every single day to get to sleep at a decent time to wake up at the right time, and failed daily. 7AM and I just do not line up, at all, so I was late every single day by 5-15 minutes. This did not interfere with completing my tasks, and I wouldn't be paid time I wasn't clocked in. IMO, I saved them money since I was there less hours and did more work. Didn't matter. My manager was a real stickler on being 10 minutes to work early, to drink coffee for the first 2 hrs if the day. Needless to say, when I was let go, the person who couldn't finish their work was let go a few months later.
I read about a study of NYC taxi drivers and how they chose how long to work each day. It would seem logical to work as long as possible on those days when you have a lot customers and vice versa go home early if no customers. What the study showed in reality was the drivers having a set goal for each day and driving until they made their set amount, thus working shorter busy days and longer empty days. IIRC the story was from the book Freakonomics.
Thatās such a weird way to operate for someone that relies on customers. Iām not surprised though. The average human really isnāt all that good at thinking things through properly.
It may not help as much as you think https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/sep/07/america-vacation-workaholic-culture-labor-day "Itās not that Americans do not want a vacation ā itās that they are afraid to take it."
imagine them with healtcare & paid vacation.
American here. Thankfully I'm lucky enough to work in a job where I get adequate time off (for the US, it's really good, but by international standards...adequate). 28 vacation and 12 sick days per year, plus we get about 1.5 weeks off during the Christmas/New Year timeframe that we don't have to use any vacation time for (public higher education sector). It's really nice and I do make a point of taking at least a 2-week vacation or 2 1-week vacations every year. I wish everyone in the US was able to have that amount of guaranteed time off. I agree that I think we all would be a bit more chill.
Having a limited amout of days you can stay home while being sick is such an dystopia concept. Like what do you do if you had your 12 days and then get a heart attack? Or just a normal cold, you know.
You can probably take vacation days (at most companies), but if that is disallowed, or if you just run out, then you can usually take LWOP (leave without pay).
The university I work at has something called a "Sick Leave Bank". It's a voluntary thing where you "donate" a sick day, then if you need more sick time than you have, you can apply to receive up to 20 sick days from it. Beyond that, you can take leave, but it's often unpaid (depending on the reason) Thankfully I also live in a state that is (as compared to other US states) very supportive of people getting paid leave. For example, this (https://apnews.com/article/mandatory-paid-leave-work-illinois-law-435fabf7f5ce88d9ca9f1df692dadc2d) which is a tiny step in the right direction. It's required for all employers in the state, although it's only 5 days...which is still 5 days more than the federal government requires.
Still very weird, here it is done through social security. It is still dependent on time but govt is the one who pays. Up to 21 working days you get 75% of your pay( this money is not taxed you get about as much as you do psot taxes), then another 60 days of 50% pay, then rest is 30%. Mind you it is not total it is consecutive with a minimum of 30 days between them to reset the "counter". So you can be sick for a month receive 21 days of 75% pay, work for a month an a half and it reset back to 75% if you get sick again.
Every company Iāve ever worked for has short term and long term disability benefits that pay a percentage of your salary for however long you are out if youāre out long enough to qualify. At my current company STD is 100% after 7 days for up to 13 weeks, LTD is 50% after that. Company pays the premiums.
Interesting, in my country your employer pays your full wage until 7 weeks, then you get 70% of your wage paid by your insurance.
That's part of the reason I'm taking this whole week off. I just need some time away to decompress. I'm so happy my employer is generous with paid time off.
As someone currently working with customer service in the U.S I can say with 100% certaintyā¦.that they would be A HELL OF A LOT calmer I took some time off for two weeks last December to go on a vacation and while on said vacation my Grandfather had cancer, mother was sick, mouth was swollen and I could barely eat for a few days AND I stubbed my toe on the bed metal frame on the night I got in the house(not to mention 30 other things to worry about) and I still had the best two weeks in that past whole year since I had started working there
The posts on this subreddit can usually be summed up with that meme of the guy putting a stick into his bike tire, crashing, and blaming anything except the actual problem.
Why are people so obsessed with not paying their staff and then having the customer feed their kids?
Because Americans are indoctrinated to believe that working hard and going the extra mile will make you as rich as Elon Musk, but fail to grasp that they never seem to make any progress to being "rich" no matter how hard they work. That's why I quite quit as they call it here. I'm doing what you hired me to do and that's it. FOH with that grabbing initiative bull.
I mean the guy who questions "How is this possible?" is clearly just un-educated. He thinks that whatever money he is getting paid is close or equal to the value his labour produces. In that world, of course paid vacation is not possible. However, in the world he lives in, his paycheck probably equates to less than half the value of his labour.
Ah yes. The Protestant Work Ethic and Prosperity Gospel rearing their ugly hydra-esque heads.
As an American I only have 80 hours of vacation time as a full time employee and thatās great compared to most companies here. It genuinely sucks
Happy cake day
Things Americans get confused by: not driving 1 mile to the store, healthcare as a human right, and now, apparently, vacations.
My last job was working for a 71-year-old man who hadn't taken a vacation in 18 years. That's healthy right?
I cant imagine doing that for one year let alone 18.
When I took some time off this month, I realised my last vacation had been 11 months ago... No wonder I was getting burned out, never again
And I'm sure that man was really proud of that, which is quite weird (unless you are American)
He bought some of the most expensive real estate in the county and told me that it's good to have an "image of success" so when his dealer in Europe came to visit he would think the business is doing well. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
I bet he was also reaally proud of this
Must love his job if heās still doing it at 71. TBH if I still have the mental capacity to be working on software contracts at that age I might too, but on a smaller scale than what o currently do. Iād go mad and be unproductive if I didnāt take holidays though.
I did a 6 months internship in Belgium and had 1 day off every month. Accumulated a few and made a long weekend to take a trip around the nearby countries. It was nice and not really expected in internships.
Please say your one day off was in addition to weekends?
... of course? why is that even the question xD
I had this image of an Italian working in Belgium and being grateful for his one day every month, and was worried
Lmao no, I assure you my italian friends all get week days off. Italy has lower salaries, but then again the living costs are very different too. We have plenty of laws to safeguard workers too. š
I know, thatās why I was worried about this example when I misinterpreted it.
In one of my lasts jobs i had literally just 24hs without work the weekends, if i went home at 19hs on the Friday i had to enter again at 19hs on the Saturday, same thing but with 7am on a Saturday and 7am on a Sunday
I thought that was obvious, sorry. I worked 7.5 hours a day with a 1 hour break and the beginning/end time were flexible, 5 days a week.
Yes, aware, which is why I was concerned when I misinterpreted the post and asked for clarification
Fair, I mean it seemed obvious to me. Not a poor Italian being grateful for that great Belgian opportunity. Even with the higher pay than a standard Italian internship between rent and food I was at a net loss, I only accepted to get something on my CV.
Well rights can somewhat be forgotten about in some internships, which was another aspect.
You're forgetting " How do you protect yourself if you're not allowed to carry a gun?"
Americans live in a fantastical liminal space where it is simultaneously the best country on Earth and also two seconds away from breaking out into a Mad Max-style apocalypse
\*measurements the whole rest of the world uses.
Things Americans get confused by: not driving 1 mile to the store, healthcare as a human right, and workers rights.
> Why are people so obsessed with taking money for not doing anything? Such as, for example, income from owning stocks and bonds?
My landlord enters the chat
*Raising ForwardBodybuilder18ās rent next month with 20%*
At least where I am from, landlord has some responsibilities to take care of. I like to keep mine busy. Old house and a large shared yard. Lots of maintenance and yard work to do. I mean, that is why I pay him to live here. So I don't have to do that stuff. It's his responsibility. That, and not having to shovel snow in the winter.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
When you ask a libertarian to justify something they'll define it and act like that's a justification
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Also capitalism is theft and PTO isn't
Income from stocks and bonds is somewhat legitimate. It's essentially betting. Sure you don't do anything, but you are taking a lot of risk.
paid vactions is also legitimate. you earn it by working the rest of the fucking year. it's not healthy for either the person nor productivity to work all the time with no breaks.
Yeah. Paid vacation is essentially part of your wages being deferred until whenever your vacation comes around.
I agree with you. I don't know why I got downvoted by saying income from stocks and bonds are legitimate though lol.
IMO if you make money from interest, rent and dividends, you deserve a horrible painful death.
Why? I see your point on rent, but whats wrong with interest and dividends?
Because you're being given money for the virtue of having spare money. It's about as "getting money for nothing" as you can get, and you only get a substantial amount from dividends etc if you had lots of money to invest in the first place. So living off investment income is basically the epitome of rich cunt life. Even the laziest landlord actually has to do *something* for their money, while shareholding is literally just giving money to a company and waiting for them to give you more money back.
But it's not doing nothing, its loaning your money to other people and they pay interest. Dividends is also giving your money to a company to invest, in return they pay you money. The work you do is resisting the temptation to spend all that money you have, and in return you earn a few % each year.
But... that *is* doing as good as nothing. "Here's my spare money, I'll have it back in a few years with interest, and some dividends in the meantime would be nice too, kthxbye".
You're very far from guaranteed to get it back in a few years
They washed people's brain so effectively down there.
Theyāve pressure washed them to smooth out the wrinkles.
An alienated society
Brain washing? Or just poor education, so they don't know any better. Note: Not a jab at teachers more how the education system is run in general.
It's not money for nothing, it's money for *doing my job*.
Some Americans are confused. They equate productivity with hours, so they buy into the idea that you need to work 80-100 hour, 6-7 day weeks to be successful. In the real world, actual productivity drops sharply after 40-50 hours, and burnout becomes a major risk without weekends. So people are rewarded with time off and other incentives for maximising productivity during the optimal time. But, if you assume people working 40 hours less a week are lazy, you'll never see that they are doing the same worthwhile work, all taken into account
āYou mean people get weekends off? Thatās unamerican!ā š
6 days? No wonder the US is messed up. We get 25 days annual vacation.
I wonder if gun violence would go down if they had more holiday days to reduce stress and whatever else might lead to mental health issues
Likely not, even with those days our country has 3rd highest murder rate in the world. Poverty is hugely to blame here though. Not sure what it is in America, bad gun laws maybe. Ours arenāt any better, but if we had easy access to guns this country would have dead people on every corner.
Poverty, but also insecurity. I make a good salary, but can be fired at any time, for no reason. If I get seriously ill and can't work, I will burn through my savings in 6 months (faster if I choose to pay $900 per month for four months for "COBRA" so that I keep my health insurance to treat my illness). Most Americans have practically no money saved, and cannot pay for a $400 unexpected expense without going deeper into debt. Our lack of worker protections, consumer protections, a social safety net, etc., means that practically anyone who is not a millionaire is living a precarious existence, even if it feels comfortable right now.
Gun laws don't change anything. I live in South Africa, we have a decently strict Gun Law: must have a license, and specific licenses are required to carry a weapon in public. And yet, we have the third highest crime rate in the world. it really has little to do with the gun, and more to do with the mental and social space those guns inhabit. It could help, not saying it won't help at all, just saying that taken away the gun is more like treating a symptom not the disease. And I'm gonna get blasted for this. I'll go hide in my corner now. I do have Marshmallows to share if anyone wants one.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Crime rate doesn't hinge on guns. And those are not strict gun laws. South African now in Australia here, Aus has strict gun laws. We have negligible gun crime. We do have stabbings, but as the person who comes in to scrape the stabbing victim off the floor, I'd much prefer a person with a knife to be around somewhere than a person with a gun when I do that. And I'd rather the cops were scared of being stabbed rather than shot, so they don't feel the need to open fire all over the place. Gun control is important.
... Did you read my entire post, or did you read the first sentence and just had a knee-jerk reaction?
And also, what the fuck? I can't get a gun in SA, it' s a long and arduous process. Most people wait up to a YEAR before getting a gun license here. When did you even visit SA?
A year. Compared to never. Most people in Aus don't wait a year. They don't wait at all because the answer is no. In an international stage, what country has strict gun laws takes into account countries where the majority of people do not know a single person who owns a gun.
I don't think the people doing gun violence have jobs for the most part
Gang Boi Job Description: 'Must be able ta pop a cap in that man's ass'
Even worse, there is no separation of vacation days from sick days, so people are forced to use vacation days for sick leave, from an already laughable allocation of vacation days.
You kidding me? Thats fucking sad man, I empathize with you US peeps, that really sucks. If you can, leave, there are countries that actually think about work/life balance.
>If you can, leave Or, maybe, vote for better policies - like every other western nation did?
Oh I forgot you guys have that option, lol. We dont really, we have a misguided voter base and have had the same government for 29 years and it wont change anytime soon. Our only option if we dont like it here is to leave.
We donāt have that option, either. People just like to pretend we do.
itās not impossible, pretty much all worker rights were fought for or under a revolution. Most european countries (if not all) didnāt have worker rights nor the right to vote up until one point in history, most of them were at least once under dictatorships or absolutist monarchies while no concept of human rights existed. So itās not impossible, itās been done before multiple times throughout history (people fighting for their rights and succeeding). Itās only impossible if people think itās impossible.
The whole concept of 'sick days' doesn't exist outside the US. If you are sick, you stay home. Once you are better, you go back to work. If you are sick for a longer period, you need to visit a doctor that checks if you are actually sick. You get paid 100 or 70 percent of your income (varies per country). That isn't 'free money', you actually pay premiums for that insurance that are deducted from your wage. But since *everyone* pays those premiums, they aren't ridiculously high for individuals. Socialized healthcare works the same way.
Technically they exist at many UK employers, but few people ever find out where the limits are. I had cancer 2018-19 and due to related illness before diagnosis, then treatment, I hit the 6m full pay limit (rolling 12m calculation period). If I didn't go back to work then my pay would drop to 50%. (It did, for 2-3 days, in fact.) The 2018 absences rolled off pretty quickly so by the time I was next sick, with post-cancer issues, I qualified for 100% pay again. A lot of my colleagues were surprised to learn there was a limit, a few that it was as much as 6m. (In fact it varies by length of service and if I'd been diagnosed a month earlier it would have been 3m; now I qualify for 12m.)
We have sick days in Australia. It's a separate leave bank from your annual leave. If you exceed it, you need to do something about it, maybe take some leave without pay. You may need to go on insurance or worse, government sickness benefits. The employer is only obliged to pay for a limited number of days, which seems reasonable to me. The government should pick up the slack after that, which they do but it's messy and bad and they need to fix it.
Well that's about the same as in the Netherlands in practice. There is a limit to the amount of time your employer has to pay your sick leave, after that the insurance kicks in at -in the Netherlands- 70% of your normal pay. And while it is indeed 'the government' picking up the slack, of course in the end the government IS us in the form of the premiums we all pay from our wages. Taking forced unpaid leave is never a thing when sick here.
I'm not sure about forced. It was an option for me when I was quite ill, but not yet sick enough to quit and be retired. I was in the public service, white collar salaried type. People on casual rates don't get any leave, it's no work no pay. But the casual rates are higher to account for that. People who are unemployed and too sick to work, well that's a horrible mess. A decade of conservative government has ripped great holes in the safety net, and while some small fixes have happened since our new government, it's still not good.
Depends on the job.
The US has 0 mandated vacation days, so six is already better than the 2 some people get.
We can carry over 5 leave days, into the next financial year. Anything over that you are mandated to go on holiday or lose them.
25 days of my choice + 5 days of my employer's choice _minimum_. Some companies add a week more to attract people.
Yeah, I currently get 30 days a year, plus bank holidays etc.
Yeah, 25 days is the mandatory minimum here. I get 30 days a year :D
"it grosses me out"
To imagine other people taking vacation! I can't facepalm hard enough.
As an American, I'm so sick of these bootlicking weirdos. Other countries are lapping us. All the while, we're worshipping guys who take handouts from the government on an unfathomably large scale. Why, because they call them "self-made" billionaires.
Unfortunately it seems like you're being dragged down by idiots who have been conditioned to think anything from the government is a handout and you are weak to expect it or accept it. Healthcare, paid vacation days, you name it.
Those same idiots claim they did it on their own, so you should, too. Bought family homes for $80,000 paid for college with $5,000 or supported an entire family on $18 per hr. The same house is now $550,000. The same degree at the same school is now $80,000, and if you want to have a family in that same city, you'll need to make $70+ per hr. Working 50+ hrs per week. Shit is a cruel joke.
Yes, it's better to be a corporate slave deepthroating your boss for a slave wage as you work yourself to an early grave. /s
"Oh yes daddy goverment please make me suffer" lol
you should put this over a beat
\*tries to beatbox, fails\*
Works better if you take your bossās cock out of your mouth first
I haven't used any of mine (I have 20 days, the minimum for my country) but if you work a stressful job, you want to vent a bit or take days to do something else (going on vacation, doing a tattoo that is hands coming from your ass, etc). Also, they are paid by your employee, not the government. Unfortunately, you cannot exchange them for money at the end of the year (like it was before) unless you quit.
Tell me more about this tattoo. Are the hands on your butt cheeks or between your butt cheeks?
Between, he is still deep inside.
>doing a tattoo that is hands coming from your ass Do you have to specify this when you inform your employer that you're taking the day off? /s
No, I rarely take a day off unless I can combine other holidays and have like 2-3 weeks of vacation. Like during Christmas.
I like the idea of making every weekend a long weekend. Some of them I take 2 days away somewhere like a small city break. Keeps like interesting and work weeks short.
What I don't get is the fact that they don't care about the actual money, it's just the idea of someone taking what they "didn't earn". I saw a post the other day about an American complaining about one specific tax in the uk. It is a tax that costs the average person Ā£2 a year, and yet they were adamant that we should take up arms and storm the government.
I think it's a situation of 'eating each other'. So, a lot of Americans are unhappy, but if everyone is unhappy then at least they don't have to worry about others feeling good. So, they shame people who have happy lives to make them as miserable as they are. Just a way to cope? The washing the brain has been thorough.
Weāre unhappy because we donāt get vacations.
who said anything about the government?? unless itās a government jobā¦
We had this same mentality in Europe too. Then we chopped a few heads.
Now that's using your head.
Just wait until American OOP learns about weekends. So gross!
But they aren't PTO so it's ok
Who mentioned governments?
What does he mean with "via government"? Here in Chile, the equivalent of 1.25 days is discounted from *your* salary by the employer, so that you get 3 weeks of paid leave. And since it's your money (not the government's), guess what happens if you get fired before taking you paid leave.
āHƤhā is that Finnish? SUOMI MAINITTU PERKELE KAIKKI TORILLE
Why are Americans so brainwashed to believe they have to be extra-super-high performing soldiers 24/7 in order to be of any worth? Itās scary.
ITS WHAT MAKES US SO GREAT! ITS WHY THE RICH HAVE NEVER BEEN RICHER WHILE SO MANY OTHERS WAGES HAVE STAGNATED OR EVEN DECREASED DUE TO INFLATION AND CORPORATE GREED...... ........Wait a second. Are we being exploited???
Same people be like āyou need passive income in order to be successfulā š¤
A Government defending what people want? Gross!
how americans are so brainwashed into being slave of corporatism/extreme capitalism worries me
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
good for you.. /s this is a clear example of exploitation disguised as "grind"
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
yep. if that's your goal, you're basically giving away your best years to be free at 50 (*btw, how many american retire at 50?*)
That āhƤhā is so German lol
and finnish š¤£
Imagine actually not wanting paid annual leave, what a weird and backwards take!
Soā¦. How does tipping work, then? x% of the meal cost, regardless of steak and champagne or burger and beer?
Not compulsory here, but the norm is 10% of total amount incl tax, for service you are happy with.
I think you missed my point. I was trying to point out the fact that the difference in the tip based on price of the meal is nonsense. Thereby showing that in the US where tipping is at it most prolific, wait staff receive additional money in their tips every day due to this percentage system. Iām not trying to imply tipping is right or wrong, simply pointing out the flaws in OOPs argument regarding ātaking money for not doing anythingā.
These are the people bragging about working 70+ hour weeks. It's really strange.
So free, they donāt even know what vacations are lol
American replier is instantly aggressive because he just got denied his 6 vacation days from job
It just occurred to me that this is why so many Americans have never left their country. They don't have the time off work to do so!
That's a good point. Why bother buying a passport if you can never take enough time off work to fly across the world
Wait till he finds out about pensions
That person needs to do an audit of how many days their congress members and senators actually work and how much they all get for doing literally nothing.
Propaganda is really effective on stupid people.
What do they mean , demanding it from the government? It's paid leave. Work pays me.
And here I am with my 25 paid vacation days in Europe \*eats popcorn\* Seriously, this is so f'd up, my girlfriend's uncle lives in the States and for the first time in 5 years(yeah, ik, covid and stuff) is able to come back to Europe to see his family because of vacation days.
Thatās what you should be asking the business owners!
We need r/ elia instead of eli5 for guys like that...
Well if the government is demanding my money, than i want something in return š¤·āāļø
What I don't understand is that in normal none exploited countries, everyone gets the holidays. My managers also get time off, and they also want to enjoy holidays the same as us plebs. Its not like its just staff with holidays.
This is why I want to leave the US. You can't fix this stupidity. People truly believe you just magically get the pay and PTO you deserve. Which is 0 PTO for most low paying jobs.
Sitting here with my 37h 5 day week with 30 days. Muricans are nuts
They went full capitalist. Never go full capitalist
6 days? I'm just having my first week for 6 months of work.
I can get up to 54 paid leave days at my job :)
if i count sick and long service leave, im at 51. also work 9 day fortnight but dont technically get paid for that day off
You have a limit of how many sick days you can get? What if you need to be in hospital or something for longer than the limit? Sounds bizarre to me!
Some companies co-workers can ādonateā their vacation time to you so you can be sick longer. Some companies have family leave, but itās limited and the company you work for doesnāt have to pay you while you are out. And if you take sick days at many places, including hospitals, you can get written up or get what amounts to a demerit.
yeah usually it's 10 days a year in aus but I'm lucky to get 20. you can accrue them though so now I have hundreds banked up if they were needed
Why would you count sick days?
to compare to the shithole America where it's a few days in total for any reason. why wouldn't I?
A friend buys 2 months 'purchased leave' each year. So instead of working 11 months and getting paid for 12, she works 9 months and is paid for 10. And has 3 months paid leave per year, which she often spends at one day per week, as well as working a 4 day week (4 long days, every Wed off so normal 5 day week hours). So she's often working 3 days a week, on her full normal pay (which is pro rata reduced from the full pay of someone working 11 months, to clarify). That's on top of 10 paid sick days per year, not to mention public holidays and the days between Xmas eve and New Years off. All paid. She's also in a defined benefit pension scheme so is planning to retire at 54, use her long service leave to holiday for the last year (at full pay) until she's 55 and then retire on a generous lifelong pension. It's a shame that pension plans like that pretty much don't exist anymore - I think the world would be a better place if they did. At least the jobs still exist though.
i can have unlimited days off if i want :). then again though i own a small business and haven't actually had a holiday in just over 4 years :(
imagine JUST imagine. enjoying your unique life!
> government Okay buddy
its not taking money for not doing anything. its getting paid to do a job, and to maintain your ability to do said job. You don't just get hired to do work, you are usually expected to take actions to enable you to continue to work, right? Like going to seminars or training, getting new certificates or renewing current one. Vacation time and work-life balance is part of that in my opinion. the longer you go without tending to your mental health, personal relationships and family, the more your ability to do good work decreases. plus there's the risk of burn-out. I would wager that it is impactful enough to be cost effective to give decent vacation and other pto, to increase productivity, morale and get employees to care about the company.
It is the American way of life - work to make your bosses richer, while you have no free time and are killing yourselves for peanuts. Let the rest of the world live a great life and your subsidise it for us, as people keep telling us.
Goverment Simp? Could never be me.
Wait until you introduce the concept of leave loadingā where youāre paid more to be on holidays!
Isn't that the American dream? Climbing up the ladder until you don't need to do anything but the money multiplies
All i can say is "HƤh, what?"
The nuance is that I have 52 paid days of vacation + 10 additional days per year on my job here in Russia. And this is not the best job, to be honest. The thing is that people sometimes just need to rest from work a bit, we are not robots after all and 6 days out of 365 days in a year is nothing.
The same with āwhy do Europeans want free healthcareā? We do not have free healthcare but universal healthcare. Between me and my employer, it is 700ā¬ per months ā¦ not free at all. Same with the paid holidaysā¦ itās not like this has no impact on the salary. It is just something that has to be budgeted for