What a slacker

Your boss did not give you vacation days. Your government/union did.

That's not strictly true. In the US there is in most states NO requirements for paid leave outside of a few protected types. But not vacation or sick. And we also are largely not unionized. We still have time off albeit MUCH less than Europeans and such.
Though I'd argue the norm of having any paid time off is a byproduct of labor/union battles in the past.
- We're given just enough scraps to avoid mass unionization. That's because the last time it happened we got The New Deal. This time it'll be the Economic Bill of Rights. The leftist platform hasn't changed for 80 years.
- Where did they say they were from the US?
- How the fuck is sick leave not protected. Y'all Americans need to be rioting over that shit. That's wild
- I dunno. I work a 35 hr week with 6 weeks paid vacation and 20 days paid personal leave each year... Oh, yeah, and it accumulates annually if I don't use any of it.
  Oh, and 17%>of my income is paid into retirement in addition to my salary, not out of my salary.
  It's a bit above the legal minimum, but it's still pretty normal here.
Bullshit, neither are true for most people in the US.
- 😂
I'd say you earned them as part of the agreed compensation in exchange for your work. That way you also cover circumstances where there's no union, and no government requirement, but the employer still offers PTO to be competitive with other employers. Which theoretically could also be driven by other people's unions or governments, but then that would be indirect.
Besides which, regardless of how the arrangement came to be, you earned your PTO.

Tell me you work in the US without telling me you work in the US.

Not calling you out specifically, but I see this phrase everywhere and don't understand its popularity. It would be more concise and equally "clever" to just say "Sounds like this guy works in the US". What is the appeal that everyone keeps typing this?
- AFAIK it's been a challenge some people did on... twitter I think?
  Basically it's "Tell me you're XYZ without telling me you're XYZ" and people responded with funny answers.
  At some point that got turned around and people satrted to use that sencence structure to indicate that the thing they are commenting on would have been a great answer for that challenge.
- Tell me you don't get memes without telling me you doing get memes...
- Memes gonna meme.
- It's a colloquialism of Internet denizens that I've seen floating around for many years. In fact it's somewhat baffling to me that you haven't seen it until now.
- Regurgitating memes isn't about being concise or clever lol
- It may be coming from those popular AskReddit threads, such as: Tell me what you do for a living without telling what you do for a living.
- Why did you type out "what is" when "what's" is shorter and as clear?
  and did you really need that "just" in there?

My current boss is by far the best one I've ever had.

It's me.

I've also got a great employee. That's me as well.

Yeah but the sexual harassment never stops!
- Goes to HR:
  "My boss grabbed my dick and shook the piss out of it in the bathroom! Then he made me go into a stall and wiped my ass to check if that risky fart he had noticed earlier was indeed just a fart!"
  "No shit?"
  "None!"
  Then he sits down and makes himself an award certificate for best personal hygiene and another for most caring boss and wonders if talking to himself really means he's crazy.
Any good office pranks?
- I wouldn't know. My office moves on 4 wheels and is full of tools. She's the one pulling the pranks on me and they're never good - just expensive.
I also choose this guy’s boss
I've heard from friends who are self employed that this is a double edged sword. When you have an employer and take vacation, it feels like you've earned it and are taking time off at the expense of your employer. But when you're self employed it feels like you're just not getting paid.
One of my friends didn't take any time off for something like 5 years before realizing how incredibly bad that was for him.
Are these people related? I smell nepotism
I'm currently at my best job, and it's because I have a union who can tell the boss to fuck himself for me.
Same. Technically I report to someone at the company I contract with but mostly that's just to let them know when I'll be in and when I won't.

I've got 9 weeks of vacation saved up, and I must take it you say?

Ok, I'll see you in 9 weeks!

What do you mean, 9 week is too long to be gone? Make up your mind!

In my younger days I witnessed this conversation
Guy was basically Brent (if you know you know) for a huge project. So on the 2st of Dec our boss phoned him and said he had 4 weeks to take before jan 1st. Brent's responce was cool see you next year and was told no I can't let you do that
We just looked at eacother in total amused confusion
- Was it me? Because I had that conversation back in '10 or '11. I ended up taking most of it off then took off the rest after the project "off the books" (but with an email paper trail because I've been burned before).

I'll never understand this. I regularly encourage my staff to use their PTO and only deny requests if multiple people want overlapping days. Even then, if we can rearrange the schedule to make it work, we will.

See, you have morals and empathy.
Most managers and owners don't.
- Most managers and owners in US don't.
- Even when you take morals and empathy out of the equation, you just generally get better results from people that aren't run down and miserable.
This is the way
I go so far as to get all involved parties together and discuss to see who has the greatest need. I also make a point of trying to make the person who doesn't get have as easy a time as possible on their next request.
It would supprise you how often the reason for the holiday is meh got to use em before the end of the year
- It's none of your fucking business what I'm taking my time off for.

IT manager of more than a decade here. Vacation days are earned. They're part of your pay. If you're not taking vacation days, you may as well be not cashing a paycheck. That's unacceptable.

If several folks request off the same day I'll gently ask if anyone is willing to swap. If they're not willing or able, it's OK. I'm paid more and I will work the overtime needed to cover them, because they earned it and it's their time. Period. The company will survive a few days of less stellar work so that my guys and gals can live their life and work a job where they feel confident that they're taken care of.

So glad my work has sick days too. Mental health is a good enough reason to use one and you don’t even need to use a reason. I do my best to show up for important things but I am so thankful I can call in sick or use a vacation day any time I want for the most part….
Fun fact, over here vacation days you don't take are paid out, at overtime rates.
- That's amazing! I'm able to sell up to 7 vacation days per year if I don't use them, but it's only my standard hourly rate.

your boss does not give them to you, it is your right (possibly only at a minimal level too)

In civilised countries yes. In the US that minimum (federally at least) is 0.
- 🍁?

At my work if I don't book at least 75% of my holiday days by like a month after renewal my boss starts to really moan at me.

The meme must be an American thing.

You in Germany? There is some kind of tax thing, so it costs money if people don't take there holidays in the year itself, so companies are mostly quite keen with you raking all holidays.
- UK. But it's actually a German company. Everywhere I've worked has been pushy about you using your holiday though (managers obviously don't want it to hit the end of the year and suddenly everyone wants to use it instead of loosing it) but the 75% almost as soon as it renews is the most extreme example I've come across.

Interesting. At my place HR explicitly encourages using up all of our paid vacation days every year

HR wants the liability gone, your boss wants your ass in the seat 24/7. Neither are looking out for you.
- I am fortunate enough to have a manager that only gives a shit about deadlines being met. I'm 100% WFH and can work at whichever hours I choose. Though I feel I must mention I neither live nor work in the US
- Or, your boss is more checked out than you and legitimately, gives no shits
Are you allowed to carry over PTO hours? I might just be a pessimist, but my immediate thought is if they ever have to let anybody go, they don't want to pay-out accrued PTO hours.
At my previous place, there was one employee that NEVER took PTO for some insane reason. Had saved up like 2 months of PTO.
He was told by HR he had too many hours and needed to use some PTO time. This specific scenario is not unheard of.
However, a month or so after he came back from a month and a half of PTO, he got laid off for reasons unknown to me.
Rumors are they didn't want to pay-out the PTO.
Honestly it doesn't make sense, they had to pay him for the PTO anyways, but when has HR made sense?
- Oh that's definitely because they don't want to pay it out at the end of the financial year. But at least it kind of sometimes ends up working in the employee's favor
It’s at their convenience though. Want Christmas week off? Too bad. What Labor Day week off? Too bad.

I get 5 sick days a year. I can roll over sick days, allowing up to 13 sick days a year. If I use more that 2 in a row, I need a doctors note. If I use 5 sick days in a row I forfeit my bonus pay for that month. Fuck me right?

You should know better than to get sick!
Easy, take 4.95 sick days and go pick up something from the office on Friday afternoon
Sounds like your country has really shitty workers rights.
- Yeah thats why foreign companies have their manufacturing here where they can underpay and abuse stupid americans.

I have some weird memories being 12 and wanting to be American haha.

I would never

Let be honest, Hollywood is a hell of a good propaganda, I mean, it's where the shit happens
- Yeah I bet it was because of movies / TV shows
TBF, there are a lot of upsides to living in the US. It's the "fine print" that usually fucks people though :p

I pretty much order my staff to take time off.

Government job I had gave 10 sick days a year. Use or lose. I'd do extended weekends. Boss said he'd noticed a pattern of me calling in sick on Fridays. Well duh. Started alternating Mondays. He gave up.

Had one that let you accumulate one sick day per month, but if you didn't use them they rolled over. First few years I didn't use all of them, and then one year I used thirteen sick days in one year (most of them for kids home sick from school) and got lightly scolded for it in a performance review.
I wanted to say "Bitch why do you allow rollover at all if you don't want us using more than we can possibly accumulate in one year?!" Looked it up in the contract and it said nothing at all about maximum sick days usable in a year. Of course if you have sick days left when you leave, they pay out at one third, but FUCK that, I earned that time, I'm not taking a one third payout. And they didn't EVER give merit raises for those years I barely called out sick.
So the next year I took even MORE sick days, and afterwards made sure not to leave any unused, even if I wasn't sick, because fuck them.
In a perfect societ, we would have paid and unpaid leave instead of sick leave
- In the US, a lot of companies have started doing this.
  I just got PTO, no separate vacation or sick leave.

Oh geez this thread is full of cynical amuricans

Hard not to be cynical when we're treated like shit because our parents, grandparents, and dipshit neighbors keep enabling the billionaire oligarchs in stealing our money and our time. Yeah I'm fucking cynical, mate.

"Not a team player", gripes and mumbles the boss as he drives towards the Wells Fargo Center that weeknight, he and the other executives have a luxury suite to watch the 76ers and Flyers, season tickets!

Meanwhile I fear stress with my boss after coming back from vacation. Because I have not planned enough vacation days this year yet.

My holiday year renews in April. If I've not got 75% of mine booked by June they moan at me everyday until I get it booked. I'm pretty sure that if I don't book it up the policy is that they'll just book me off (at times it suits them of course).

Awww. Give the weenie a hankie when you get back

With the US is it the vacation rules are mostly not required. Many states have different rules, and the more conservative the state, the more anti worker the rules are.

And all the jobs I've worked, I've never seen any pushback for taking vacation. But that's because I work in a white collar industry that is competitive and I can find another job if I wanted to. The less skilled you are, and the lower the opportunities are in the industries around you, the more opportunity exists for shitty employers.

The interesting thing is, that I currently work for a Scottish company, and their vacation rules are worse than mine because I am guided by California labor laws, and they're under shitty UK labor laws.

Whats shitty about UK labour laws vs californian?
- The main difference from a vacation standpoint is that the vacation days are allocated per calendar year, and must all be used in that calendar year. You're given x amount on January 1st and they must all be used by December 31st.
  In California, vacation days are treated as an accruing asset. They can't reset my vacation days at the turnover of a calendar year . The vacation hours build up over time. This means there's not an end of the year rush to use vacation days, there is no use it or lose it, and if I'm ever laid off the company has to pay me for all the vacation days I've accrued. The California system is a much better system than the one the employees have in Scotland.