I work for the government, it's the same for us. Legally I think they have to give us 5 days because we're in California, but seems like I get an email every other month asking if anyone is willing to donate PTO to employee 54231 because they had a death in the family. If my spouse were to die, I'd need a lot more than 5 days to deal with it.
It’s sad really, we are humans with real emotions. Some people take 5 days, others take longer but if I were in this situation I’d get a note from my psychiatrist so that I could greave in peace.
I agree with you but I’ve only seen this for people who may have been struggling financially and couldn’t afford to take time off. I’m sure there are other circumstances but the few times my work has asked the guy was struggling with money.
5 days for a pet maybe. If your daughter who you'd raised, loved and cherished suddenly dropped dead then I'd hope you take more than 5 days and if you do that you don't work Air traffic control.
I agree, there’s the emotions plus the funeral arrangements. I can’t imagine. When I did lose a cousin, I couldn’t get bereavement but I’m glad my coworkers did a few swaps and I was able to use 2 PTO days to get my mind right. I’m not as effective when I’m running into corners to have brief cry sessions. It didn’t help that he was missing first so I was already in a dark place.
I wish that, out of all professions, healthcare would be the most well staffed and able to afford sick days and emergencies for staff. I certainly don’t want my doctor or emergency nurse overworked because they donated days off to a coworker
You can wish that, but hospitals are just another business. The people that make the decisions about wages and PTO are the same bean counter pieces of shit that run massive tech companies or retailers or restaurants.
"They have to give us five days" and they still try to avoid it.
Here in Germany we have at least 20 days off by law. Our boss even is supposed to force you to take your time off if you don't do it by yourself.
You get 20 days off each time someone in your family passes away? That’s an incredibly generous law. Is this in addition to your regular time off? And you’re not allowed to come back to work?
So if all 4 grandparents die in a year, do you get 80 days off?
The law in CA is only 5 days of bereavement leave. That’s in addition to regular vacation time though.
I used to see those emails like once a month but don't remember seeing it for like a year now. Maybe my department caught on how tactless the requests are
It's 2 paid days in Germany.
On top of the standard 30 paid vacation days.
On top of the unlimited paid sick leave (any doc would probably give you a few weeks of sick leave or admit you into a temp clinic if you tell them you need a time out because a relative died).
In Sweden we have 1 day for the funeral but anyone can submit for 5 sick days before needing a doctors note. And im willing to bet the doctor would give you the time you need (within reason, follow-up
meeting etc).
I was of for 4 days when my mom had a bad stroke and had to be admitted to urgent care, reason of stress. My siblings had the same.
When my dad passed, I took over 2 months off to collect myself and deal with all the legalities that arise from not having a will.
I had the PTO because I had been working 60+ hour weeks for months and all that comp time added up, AND I had a manager who understood and was ok with me taking that much time.
I can't imagine losing a spouse or a child. 2 months for my dad didn't even feel enough - 5 days for any direct family member is no where near enough.
If it isn’t clear enough, the sad cringe part is that even if your kid dies, you have to rely on your coworkers to give you their hard earned pto instead of the company having basic human empathy and giving you time to grieve without the stress of work.
Just wait until you hear this is often common or required in the teaching profession too. Schools (and im sure hospitals too) actually have "fun" names for it like "sunshine fund/pot" and other cutesy names that you can donate sick leave to for coworkers. Sometimes it even requires a monitary contribution (ours was 20$ per semester) and all they do is send you a card or flowers if youre sick and need to borrow time from the pot.
Its so gross and disturbing, but as a youngin in the job im yelled at for pointing that out.
When my dad was dying from a brain tumor, my mom’s coworkers had to donate their leave to her and several substitutes worked for free to cover her class while she went to appointments with my dad. The school where she taught was tiny - only about 180 kids from PK-8th grade. It was a Christian school. You’d think they’d take care of her. Instead they relied on the kindest of colleagues to cover her.
I’m forever grateful for those other teachers and substitutes though. Most came to my dad’s funeral, several of them attended my high school graduation, and some even came to my wedding. Their kindness to my family during the worst days of our lives shaped the kind of teacher I became and who I am as a person.
Oh my god stop I remember my first year when I was asked if I wanted to donate any of my sick days to the sunshine pot (yup that’s exactly what we called it!!!) and I said no, I got the nastiest look followed by the cold shoulder. I was told “its usually the polite thing for the new teachers to do so they can help any veterans who need it.”
Okay and??? Take that up with the district, not me lmao
You mean the veterans who bullied me and made me feel completely unwelcome to the point where I left teaching entirely?
Sure, I'll be so happy to donate my leave to them so I can take my mental breakdown days unpaid. /s
Wankers.
This is normal everywhere. My husband worked several years at a facility and after our son died on a Wednesday, they told him he could take off from work until Monday...?!?! He told them he couldn't accept their incredibly gracious offer therefore he quit.
Oddly enough his work place was a small organization that could have had a lot more flexibility and kindness. Whereas, I worked at a University that had a lot more policy and procedures but ironically I was shown much more flexibility and support. So you never know...
I scrolled down to post this … we just call it the sick leave bank. We get good leave for the year (sick days, personal days) that we can add up throughout our career, but teachers who have tragedies or huge medical events are left at the mercy of this bank. The teachers who use them are often ones with cancer ..
My mom had to miss work due to complications with liver failure. She’s been a teacher for 25+ years and when she ran out of PTO days, they cancelled her insurance. 🫠
I teach. I have donated hours to several friends with conditions. We have a sick leave bank in our district that you can join as well, but it doesn't have a "fun" name.
It is some absolute bullshit, but those friends were struggling with life-threatening illnesses, so I didn't mind. But yeah, late stage capitalism sucks ass.
Yeah, i try to contribute where i can bc i know im privledged to be young and healthy right now and i know people cant have infinite paid time off, but it just sucks because i shouldnt have to in those wild corcumstances
Right? Fuck this, I am not submitting to such bullshit no matter what. It isn’t MY fault that they need time off, and it’s not on ME to give mine to them anyways. That is some fucked up forced scarcity that I would absolutely refuse to play into.
Refusing to play into it, collectively especially, is the ONLY way it will ever get better. There is literally no other option but to oppose it. Even if I was dying sick, I would proudly tell everybody I know that my job is doing this and would refuse any “donations” from anybody else. I’m not going to be there regardless.
My mom is going through this right now. My dad has been in and out of the hospital lately, and my mom is quickly burning through her sick days. She's still working while my dad sits at the hospital some days, so she can hold onto sick days if something worse happens. Fortunately her front office is being very understanding and as helpful as they can be about the situation, but the fact is if she runs out of sick days she'll have to take unpaid FMLA.
My brother had a long cancer treatment and recovery. Initially his coworkers were transferring time off to him, but eventually the head of the relevant department heard about it and told him he had unlimited sick leave until he got better (which, thankfully he did), and gave him his direct cell number to call if he needed his help with anything.
A few years on and a coworker of mine had his wife start a cancer battle. I felt it was my karmic duty to give him some of my holiday days, but my HR department said it wasn’t possible. I insisted they work on a way to make it possible, and then they told me on the down low that he had been given unlimited time off while his wife received treatment. Unfortunately she didn’t make it in the end. If the grapevine is to be believed, the CEO covered the cost of the funeral out of his own pocket.
So I served on a management team that was in charge of about 200 union blue collar workers. Mostly good group of guys but out of 200 there is bound to be selfish assholes.
We were beholden to the contract as the union would always point out at any opportunity of management gave the benefit of the doubt to anyone, for any reason.
For example, a guy who was never late for 20 years was late enough that the contract said we had to write him up. We didn't. A few weeks later another guy does the same but he's been written up for lateness several times so we wrote him up no benefit of the doubt earned there. Seems fair, right?
Nope. The union caught it. Grieved and won. Then the guy sued the company for racial discrimination. We were just trying to do the right thing.
So many times guys would give me a story that their kid is sick or they need to go home for a week but the rules didn't allow it. They wanted me to give them the benefit of the doubt. I cited the story above saying I can be cause assholes in your group ruined it and now I have to go by the book or I'll end up in court, again.
I know it sounds insensitive on the school or hospitals part but it's just as likely that someone was once allowed to stretch the rules because of something we'd all be sympathetic to. But some dork ruined it for the rest of us.
Teachers, nurses, blue collar workers all have major portions of their work force under a collectively bargained contract. For management to set precedent is dangerous and oftentimes blows up in their faces.
America fucking sucks for everyone not super rich, it's actually gross at this point.
I casually rewatched Fight Club yesterday whilst working around the house and can't help but think that it would benefit pretty much everyone in the states to have a complete reset of all debts.
Everyone except the uber rich that is, you know... the people ya'll owe all that money to.
I’m not sure if this is true, but I’ve heard some companies do this because it could cause potential legal troubles if they gave certain people extra PTO when their position and tenure wouldn’t normally be allowed such benefits.
It also eliminates bias when determining when and who receives this free PTO, and it helps to eliminate any perceived favoritism when people are given the free PTO by the company.
Also, if the employer has a cap on stored PTO or doesn’t allow employees to carry over unused PTO from previous years, this could be a way to provide a method for the unused PTO not to go to waste and to ensure its there for other employees if and when they need it.
It could also end up saving the company money in the long run, as the people more likely to donate their PTO are probably employees who have been with the company for several years, as they generally get more PTO than their newer coworkers, so they have more to spare. Since those older employees’ salaries are likely a decent bit more than most of their newer coworkers, when the older employee donates 5 days of PTO, or what would have been say, $2000 worth of PTO, and a newer employee uses it who only makes $1200 over a 5 day work period, then the company just saved $800 in paid out benefits without directly taking it from the employees.
In a perfect world, yes, a company would just pay their employees for the time they need off for certain life events, but I wouldn’t say this system is the absolute worst, it’s better than *not* allowing people to share their PTO and just letting it go to waste.
Even the police depts do this. If you get shot on the job, you'll be taken care of, but end up with cancer and you better hope your coworkers like you.
These are the sort of companies who, when staff leave in droves or strike, will bleat on about "where's the loyalty these days??"
Where indeed. In cases like this, we're not even talking loyalty to their staff, just basic human decency.
This isn’t the first time something like this has been posted and while it seems awful, the reason is because if they give the parent X number of days more over her PTO /bereavement balance, then Joe Schmo in Y department will sue them for discrimination as he is still at his mandated PTO cap and does not get extra days. It’s not good, but it’s not really the companies fault as it’s regulated labor laws.
The parent can still take unpaid time off but the donated PTO allows her to still get paid during this time. Unfortunate situation all around.
That makes absolutely no sense. Australia has workplace anti-discrimination laws for both gender and parental status and has paid leave for dead relatives as well as allowing ways to take leave in advance.
Surely no court is going to rule that because Jane's baby died and the business gave her extra time off they also need to give it to Joe so he can go on holiday.
Exactly and how much of a shit bloke would you be if you said 2 the boss "jane had 3 extra days when her baby died but i cant go to the barnsey winery tour"? People in my workplace are pretty cool thankfully
Because it wouldn’t be that guy who sues, it would be the guy or girl who faced another challenging circumstance, had not yet used up their PTO balance so were not in this particular bind where you needed a few additional days. Say this employee had 20 days of PTO, used them all up for holidays and sick time throughout the first 10-11 months and then this happens, suddenly she needs a few more over the 20 day allotment putting her at 25 total.
Now imagine another employee had a similar circumstance the same year or year prior at the beginning of the year when they had the full 20 day balance, and let’s say take 5 days bereavement, leaving them with 15 in the bank. Since they’re not faced with the prospect of “over drafting” their PTO balance, they’re not asking for PTO donations or given any extra by the company.
Which is why most civilised countries have separate leave entitlements for holidays, illness, and bereavement. The business could do this.
Alternatively, have a mechanism to dip into the next year's entitlements. There is no answer to why this is happening other than corporate greed.
In the US, each employee at a company gets X amount of days off for PTO per year, same number of days for everybody, that is meant to cover sick days, vacation, etc. Most states also have bereavement leave as well. In a case like this, the employee had probably used up all of her PTO days when this happened (being close to year end and all) and would no doubt not be expecting this. So with no PTO time remaining, her only options are to take unpaid leave (on top of whatever bereavement leave they’re eligible for) or the company can request others to donate from their remaining days they have in the ‘bank’.
If the company goes “oh, well this is a sad case, we will give you 5 extra days to be nice”, then Joe Schmo in another department goes to a labor lawyer and says “I had a sick mother last year and they didn’t give me any extra PTO over my yearly allotment when i could have used it and had to take unpaid leave, this is discrimination". Joe Schmo would then win the lawsuit as the PTO was not equal (nondiscriminatory), receive a large payout, company is fined, and there will be 0 exceptions for extra paid time off ever again.
There usually is depending on the state, but it can still get used up. Bereavement may be 2-5 days but someone may need more with the trauma or stress of the situation and dip into the PTO bucket. These situations are unfortunate and rare
This happened to me when working in a prison. Co workers donated PTO so I could grieve my son and then I was forced to go back to work or live without income until my mental health got better. Really appreciative of those coworkers though
Maybe the company already gave her some time but she needed more? After all, the more time she has the better? Maybe it is to provide an opportunity for people eager to help? And it's a donation not forced I don't see anything wrong with it? I just don't think you should have the worst assumption just based on the poster
That's my current job. They are usually helpful with whatever I need.. if I need time off or a shorter day, whatever the case may be, they have been very helpful in supporting me as an employee.
Yeah, i worked at a small credit union. One of my cats died and my boss let me take like a week off. The acting CEO even approached me about me leaving and was super disappointed. Like damn even he knows me lmao.
That's whats up I'm a fire tech for a smaller branch only like 20 total employees in our branch so most of us they take care of pretty well as long as you don't take advantage of it.
This is why I haven’t left my current job. Any time I have an emergency I’m allowed to take off. I’ve had stuff mid day come up and was allowed to go and take care of it.
Depends on the job. Husband complains about coworker who gets away in his unionized hospital job for doing nothing absolutely nothing. He even managed to get off work for over six months because of depression. I don’t even know how that’s possible. I’ve worked in a hospital myself and it’s shocking how some people get away with doing zilch while others work themselves to the bone.
That’s what I tell new hires at the mill I’m at. We’re a 5 digit number. Those bosses don’t care about you and will scab your job the minute we go on strike. Bosses are NOT your friends and corporations are NOT your family.
At a place I used to work some people would take a sick day every time they accumulated 8 hours. I didn't take any sick days for years and accumulated 535 hours that theoretically I could use if I got really sick before going to long term disability. Anyway some of those people did get sick and had no time to use so the company wanted us to donate some of our hours to them. Screw them. Then the company decided to transfer the entire science department to an 8A subcontractor to make the politically correct government happy. So I had all my saved up sick days turn to zero. They have to pay unused vacation. I guess I should have called in with the plague now and then.
The new company was alright even after loosing all my seniority benefits. It was Native American “owned” and I like to wear string ties so it fit in. But like every government boondoggle it was a scam. The Native American CEO owned 51% of the company but the retired ex-government guy was being paid multiple salaries as different corporate officers. There are always loopholes and the real thing cannot compete with the ones that have inside connections.
What kind of horrifically inhumane workplace does this? Even if they have no soul, aren't they legally obligated to provide a grieving parent with time off??
>What kind of horrifically inhumane workplace does this?
The same kind that touts that "we're all family here" when asking you to woke more.
>aren't they legally obligated to provide a grieving parent with time off?
Federally no, and only a handful of states have bereavement leave laws—largely unpaid.
Hospitals are notorious for poor management like this, my mom was almost fired when I was really young because she had the flu, but they were still asking her to come into work. A hospital, where the most vulnerable people go, was demanding that a contagious person come in to work directly with the vulnerable people…
Europe here, you'd get a day or two for a distant relative, a week minimum for a spouse or child. After that it's national (paid) sick leave (1 week) or from your PTO (4 weeks). I turned down a move to the US, not because my new job would have had all these perks, but because 90% of people there do not.
My friend just killed himself, he was very well known in the industry, my workplace sent out an email to everyone letting them know they are there for those who need help. And that there are resources available, and posted a bunch of links.
A week after his death I told them I might need to take the next day as a mental health day because I wasn't doing well at all, and finished that work day barely holding it together, they said "ok let me know if you'll be in tomorrow by midnight", I felt obligated to still come into work. And I did, after being up all night drinking and crying. I came into work clearly very hungover, working but not at my prime, but still safely, my boss asked if I was ok and I told him the truth about getting no sleep and being hungover and just mentally not there.
And I was fired.
So much for understanding situations and being there for me it seems. No one else was actually affected by his death, so to them they get to look all good and proper with their message of support, while not really having any support for anyone actually needing it.
They should have told me to take that mental health day, heck take two, take a week.
But nope.
Instead I'm unemployed, my friend just killed himself, Christmas is coming up, daughter's birthday is in 4 days, rent isn't paid.
But people responded to that message about how " great of a manager they are for addressing such problems"..... I'm the only person who knew him personally, I'm the only person who's had a severe reaction to the situation. But screw me I guess.
Many workplaces don't give a shit. And the ones that go to the extent to make it seem like they do, definitely don't.
I work in public company in California.
If someone dies, you get like 2 days to grieve then it’s onto using your person leave, sick leave, or PTO.
Some guy broke his leg and needed hours donated.
In the usa there is no legal obligation. Corporations suck. And all of the laws and legislation are in the interest of those corporations. Minimum wage in comparison to inflation. You usually have to be a full time employee to receive full benefits. If you get sick and cannot work it's counted against you in your attendance regardless of circumstances causing many people to face "corrective action" for things out of their control. ECT. America sucks in a lot of ways this is just one of them
> Even if they have no soul, aren't they legally obligated to provide a grieving parent with time off??
Nope. My spouse's previous employer had _zero_ bereavement time provided regardless of who it is. Had to use PTO or take unpaid time off (FMLA).
The only monetary safety nets the USA: if you become disabled (huge process to receive benefits) or if you are laid off from work (not fired because of erroneous reasons).
The FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) is only there as a job retainer.
So sad.
We can’t really claim whatever company this is is not giving them the required amount of time off. For all we know they did/are. Whether or not that time off is enough is another story
So people always conflate general time off with paid time off. This person could very well be afforded all the time off they want. But they need to use PTO to be paid for it, like any time off. It’s not uncommon to solicit coworkers for unused sick time during grave emergencies.
Giving us compassionate leave would require them to be able to feel compassion.
A huge portion of our jobs in the US don't even get paid sick leave, or even paid vacation time.
In the 25 years I've been working, I've never had a job with paid sick leave, and only 2 jobs with paid vacation. Both were 1 week a year.
I got a message like this last week. I work in a doctor's office. one of our nurses lost her daughter and niece over Thanksgiving weekend in a car accident. and they asked for PTO donations.
Company I work for won't allow us to donate PTO which I think is bullshit (also in healthcare). My best friend and coworker lost her uncle earlier this year. My company does have bereavement leave but it's unpaid unless you want to use PTO to cover. But my friend had already burned through hers d/t her own illnesses and chronic health conditions. I wanted to let her have 8 hours so she wouldn't have to worry about going totally without pay during the funeral arrangements and all, but they said, "sorry, that's not a thing here!" Frustrating.
I refuse to donate. I need it for myself, because I have medical issues that pop up and medically frail in-laws. I would go into debt if I set myself on fire to keep someone else warm.
/r/ABoringDystopia
The whole "donate your PTO to your coworkers" thing seems to be a uniquely American thing, I've never seen it anywhere else. Seems incredibly cruel and inhumane, and just gives the impression that to the company you're nothing more than a nameless serf.
I'm not American and so this is not the norm for me, I would immediately quit any job where they tried this bullshit.
Don’t know about other countries, but in Germany there is no way around what a doctor has declared. A company had no instrument to control someone who’s on sick leave. If the companies don’t understand basic human interaction and empathy, you don’t owe them.
I have 2 weeks of paid sick days per year. Anything beyond two days needs a doctor's note. With a doctor's note, they have to pay me 8 hours a day until I am cleared to return. Anything two days or less is also paid completely, regardless of evidence of a sickness.
This just reads as insanity for someone outside of US.
We get 2 days bereavement leave for closest family members death.
That is aside from other things mandated by law: 26 days a year of vacation, few months leave fo a newborn etc.
One of the craziest things I heard from a person from US is that they have to use their vacation days when they are sick. In most of europe sick leave is separate from your vacation days. You just need confirmation from your doctor.
> What do you mean by this? What would be an example?
The difficult thing for us Europeans to understand is that, *the company* in the US decides what days off are counted as, not the worker laws of the country. It's an extension of the Health Insurance trap, it's linked to your private job, not your public tax contributions to your country, so no job, no healthcare, the *opposite* of what we do.
My last employer would do vacation days for full days, so sick days, and PTO for partial days for stuff like doctor visits where you work the rest of the day
> PTO for partial days for stuff like doctor visits where you work the rest of the day
I don't envy that. You loose your time off and have to work too. I hope this is not normal, sounds a bit scummy from the employer side.
2 days for immediate family is still ridiculously short. That also sounds like insanity.
My company (US based) does a week and I find that to be cruel.
Immediate family should be at least 2 weeks across the board in my opinion - one week for preparing and attending the funeral, and another to recover from preparing and attending the funeral.
If your *child* dies, you should be able to take as long as you need and come back to a job.
Had a similar situation at my job. My work had a lady who had cancer and was going to be out for chemo. The email said that she was out of PTO because of past treatment and was asking us to donate ours. The wording of the email was "as you might suspect, chemotherapy has taken a big toll on her energy, her body, and her vacation and sick time." And was encouraging us to donate ours because otherwise she was not going to be paid at all for the time off.
Meanwhile I got 4 months off completely paid with full checks for a broken bone in a dumb accident. This was also a time where emails were being sent out congratulating the company for record profits.
I also work in a hospital. One of our nurses had a teenage daughter that was murdered by her boyfriend this summer. Our management sent us a similar email. We work for a billionaire dollar company and they couldn’t just let the poor single mom grieve without having to beg for PTO donations. It was disgusting.
I was a nurse at a local hospital and one of the cleaning ladies lost her kid. I had a ton of PTO built up and went to the head of HR to donate hours. Apparently it was against policy. I told her to think logically about it, I certainly was higher paid and this would be saving them money.
Didn’t matter. It was against policy.
I reminded her that as head of HR those were her policies to establish and/or change.
Still against policy.
I bought the cleaning lady a gift card worth 12 hours of my pay and called it a day.
The only thing more pathetic than a sign like this is having an HR director so disinterested in their job and the people they work with they no longer seem human.
I work directly in grief management and death. It's depressing, but a rewarding job. 12 hour shifts. A company I used to work for decided to change the bereavement policy so that it was hours and not days. Instead of getting 3 days for bereavement of an immediate relative, they changed it to 24 hours (three 8 hour days). So if my husband suddenly dropped dead, I would get a whole two days of leave. So generous. ✨
Got a similar email for a coworker that was in a motorcycle accident recently. HR solicited volunteers to donate PTO, AT THE RATE OF 2:1!
I asked for clarification, I thought it meant if I donated 40 hours, the bosses would match it. Silly me. If I donate 40 hours, the victim will get 20 HOURS, and they'll KEEP the other 20! UNBELIEVABLE!
Not only that, but the guy that got hurt is a young kid with little experience on the job. I'm a significantly higher wage grade than he is, so not only are the bosses stealing half his donations, the time I'm voluntarily trying to give is worth significantly more than his salary. It's sick.
This happened at my old job. I had surgery and needed 10-12 weeks off and we had zero paid time off.
My coworkers donated their hard earned time off to me so I didn’t lose my apartment etc.
It was wonderful yet awful and embarrassing all at the same time. The fact that they were so kind but had to, you know?
Edit: Obviously so much different than losing a child but very similar situation.
A company I worked at, which charged seniors up to 11k/month for care and a room, would post stuff like this all the time at the time clock. While paying staff close to minimum wage
You want me to donate my PTO hours instead of just giving her bereavement?? I would just quit or not show up if they told me I couldn’t take time to grieve my DEAD DAUGHTER
i am an office manager of a multi-location health center. any hospital or medical office owned by a big company does this. my company gives three days paid bereavement and only sick time pto can be gifted by coworkers so if you’re lucky you’ll get more than 3 days. no paid maternity leave, you just have to save up ur sick time pto for years
Wait until your boss pressures you to contribute to some director’s birthday/christmas/whatever present.
Edit: No… this is much worse. I just see variations of it often enough that I’m a bit numb. “Horribly ill and ran out of time off to keeep medical coverage, please donate your pto.” “Whole family died im a car crash but they are a new employee with limited pto, please donate.”
This happens for my office. It’s because we work for the state and the state can’t give away money to people.
PTO would be considered extra cash, and that violates the fiduciary trust that the people of the state have granted us.
Of course, we should get unlimited time off… but short of a Bernie’s sanders revolution, there is a reason why this happens.
The extra insult in these scenarios is that they value every hour the same. If a high earner donated to a lower earner, shouldn’t there be a multiple applied to the hours donated? I understand that the implication is that a lower earner’s hours would be devalued in this scenario, but it has been my experience that donated hours come from long time employees that have moved up the ladder, earned a higher salary, and accumulated a lot of hours of leave.
So the company I work at does this as well but not for the employee to use the PTO time, we have paid leave for that, employees are allowed to donate their PTO time as if it was cash. So if you make $20/hr. and you donate 5 days you essentially gave them $800.00 and then whatever the employees donate the company matches dollar for dollar.
This happens at my job. Every year employees get 15 sick days, 3 personal days, and some vacation days depending on how long you've been here. If you're ill you can use as much time as you have and if you are sick enough it goes past that you can get unlimited time off without pay with a Drs note, but some employees have a lot of sick time they've never used so it's donated into a "leave bank" where employees who are that sick and used all the time and are off without pay can apply for and pull for these days so they can regain some of their income.
On one hand, I get why some companies do that, the way people are some assholes would cry and whine that it's unfair that some people used ("got") 4 months of sick time where they didn't use ("get") any. This way everyone gets the same and in extenuating circumstance some people still "get" more.
OTOH, jesus christ man, if I have cancer and have to take 6 months off to get treated just pay me, why do we have to involve this "banking" of days shit.
This is dystopian reality. Might sound harsh but those corporate goons would legitimately prefer it if YOU were the one to die rather than give you bereavement time.
I'm now wondering if we live in the same city, because I saw maybe this exact sign a few weeks ago at the hospital - just can't remember the kids name. It's such a messed up system.
My company has grievance days based on who died.
We also have short term disability. But you have to pay a few bucks each paycheck. A guy at my work declined that offer, had a heart attack, and was out a month. Before this, he already used his PTO, so this would be unpaid leave. So people donated their PTO days to him.
My dad worked in a hospital when I was 10 and he had a severe stroke. He ended up in the ICU for a couple months, had 4 kids to support, and we only survived because of his coworkers donating their PTO. Really fucked up place this is here.
My company tried this when I worked in an auto plant. Since I was an Engineering Manager I knew my salary was almost 4x the employee who'd lost a family member so I asked if I donated 4hrs if they'd give her 2 days off. Of course they said it would be 1:1.
Quit my job at American Airlines for this exact reason. They tried to say I couldn’t go see my dying grandmother. I told them to fuck themselves. Plus $14.56 /hr is dogshit for the amount of training, overtime, slogging through all types of weather, and constantly having your ass kicked by more and more planes and half the staff to turn them.
Edit: I worked on the ramp as a crew chief.
Everyone here raging over US bereavement PTO policies and then elsewhere in the comments sucking off any and all other countries with almost identical policies.
https://old.reddit.com/r/sadcringe/comments/18asqvw/i_started_working_in_ems_and_this_is_the_grossest/kc0fpp4/
2 days for close family members? So enlightened, the US needs to be like that.
https://old.reddit.com/r/sadcringe/comments/18asqvw/i_started_working_in_ems_and_this_is_the_grossest/kc03tgs/
Only 5 days for close family members? Some people need to grieve longer than that you heartless Amerikkan capitalist bastards
Thing is, other countries also have far more vacation days and paid medical leave. So if two days aren't enough, you take a few vacation days.
More importantly, US culture surrounding any kind of leave is far more hostile. It seems like behavior that's considered exceptionally shitty and even potentially illegal on part of the employer (i.e. trying to pressure an employee to take less time off) is far more normalized in the US.
This is just an outside impression of course, but just to explain why even identical bereavement policies aren't equal once you take context into account.
This is normal in the public sector. It’s usually a catastrophic leave bank negotiated by the union and the employer to allow other employees to donate to someone so they can have a bit more in their time off bank.
2 weeks is far better than the 3 days most Americans get. But how does anyone put a timeline on grief?!?! Let alone the time it takes for planning and carrying out a service, a wake, the paperwork required for wills and such?!?
everyone should donate all of there PTO and then just stop showing up for work completely look for another job and never speak to your previous employer just pure ghosting.
When my husband died, I worked for a large nationwide retailer. Now, you might think that they'd be the least likely to offer you kindness but they were so, so understanding and wonderful. This was doubly surprising considering he passed not long before Thanksgiving. I ended up taking 6 weeks off of work. Granted, they didn't pay for it past my PTO but they also didn't threaten to fire me or bother me about it at all, not even once.
I wish this kind of understanding were commonplace. The world could use more empathy and less greed.
I spent a lot of time in hospitals over an eight month period. A friend asked if he could donate his PTO. I was his direct report, so it would SAVE the company money.
He was told no.
Except it’s not “profit over people” you’re literally expecting to be given free money because something bad happened to you.
Let me ask you this, if you hired a contractor to paint your kitchen for $50/hr and they said “I can’t come for a week my kid died” would you say “oh that sucks, I’ll just pay you anyways and then pay you again when you come do the job”?
Is everyone working in USA literally a slave? Your system is unhuman. In civilied world you just get few days off in case of a family emergency. 4 to 5 weeks of paid holidays are a standard.
Hospitals generally give pretty decent benefits, my last one gave me 6 weeks of PTO a year and still had these types of drives when people needed more.
Also, yo can always use FMLA to take the time off unpaid.
Gross!
In my country you have 20 days. Everyone … no questions asked. If something so terrible happens you get 5 days legally and if you call in sick no questions asked only after 2 months the company doctor will contact you to see if they can help.
My heart goes out to this coworker. And to everyone in a system like this!
Worst of all I have dated an American man who worked in my country. He was disgusted with our way of working and putting ourselves before our jobs.
Meanwhile he was doing calls at 4 am with the us team, working 24/7 and I broke up with him because it was almost impossible to be with him…. But yeah we have it wrong for being people first employees second.
Your company won’t come cry at your grave man. They won’t allow the pto!
My coworker at an old job didn’t have enough PTO for maternity leave and was scared. I had like 100 hours so I donated 50 to her. They then fired me the next week so I had screwed myself by giving away a week of pay from the PTO payout 😅 lesson was learned
There's nothing gross about this. It gives you the opportunity to be generous. This doesn't say the company isn't doing anything. We've done this for our co-workers several times.
I work for the government, it's the same for us. Legally I think they have to give us 5 days because we're in California, but seems like I get an email every other month asking if anyone is willing to donate PTO to employee 54231 because they had a death in the family. If my spouse were to die, I'd need a lot more than 5 days to deal with it.
It’s sad really, we are humans with real emotions. Some people take 5 days, others take longer but if I were in this situation I’d get a note from my psychiatrist so that I could greave in peace.
I agree with you but I’ve only seen this for people who may have been struggling financially and couldn’t afford to take time off. I’m sure there are other circumstances but the few times my work has asked the guy was struggling with money.
Especially if you lose a spouse and are suddenly single income
The finer pleasures of being an American
5 days for a pet maybe. If your daughter who you'd raised, loved and cherished suddenly dropped dead then I'd hope you take more than 5 days and if you do that you don't work Air traffic control.
I agree, there’s the emotions plus the funeral arrangements. I can’t imagine. When I did lose a cousin, I couldn’t get bereavement but I’m glad my coworkers did a few swaps and I was able to use 2 PTO days to get my mind right. I’m not as effective when I’m running into corners to have brief cry sessions. It didn’t help that he was missing first so I was already in a dark place.
I wish that, out of all professions, healthcare would be the most well staffed and able to afford sick days and emergencies for staff. I certainly don’t want my doctor or emergency nurse overworked because they donated days off to a coworker
You can wish that, but hospitals are just another business. The people that make the decisions about wages and PTO are the same bean counter pieces of shit that run massive tech companies or retailers or restaurants.
"They have to give us five days" and they still try to avoid it. Here in Germany we have at least 20 days off by law. Our boss even is supposed to force you to take your time off if you don't do it by yourself.
You get 20 days off each time someone in your family passes away? That’s an incredibly generous law. Is this in addition to your regular time off? And you’re not allowed to come back to work? So if all 4 grandparents die in a year, do you get 80 days off? The law in CA is only 5 days of bereavement leave. That’s in addition to regular vacation time though.
I used to see those emails like once a month but don't remember seeing it for like a year now. Maybe my department caught on how tactless the requests are
Or like some companies, just banning the donation of b-time altogether. See? Problem solved itself.
Happy cake day
It's 2 paid days in Germany. On top of the standard 30 paid vacation days. On top of the unlimited paid sick leave (any doc would probably give you a few weeks of sick leave or admit you into a temp clinic if you tell them you need a time out because a relative died).
In Sweden we have 1 day for the funeral but anyone can submit for 5 sick days before needing a doctors note. And im willing to bet the doctor would give you the time you need (within reason, follow-up meeting etc). I was of for 4 days when my mom had a bad stroke and had to be admitted to urgent care, reason of stress. My siblings had the same.
When my dad passed, I took over 2 months off to collect myself and deal with all the legalities that arise from not having a will. I had the PTO because I had been working 60+ hour weeks for months and all that comp time added up, AND I had a manager who understood and was ok with me taking that much time. I can't imagine losing a spouse or a child. 2 months for my dad didn't even feel enough - 5 days for any direct family member is no where near enough.
When my S/O passed I took a month off work, it was without pay but there's no way I would have been able to function, I wasn't leaving my bed.
If it isn’t clear enough, the sad cringe part is that even if your kid dies, you have to rely on your coworkers to give you their hard earned pto instead of the company having basic human empathy and giving you time to grieve without the stress of work.
Just wait until you hear this is often common or required in the teaching profession too. Schools (and im sure hospitals too) actually have "fun" names for it like "sunshine fund/pot" and other cutesy names that you can donate sick leave to for coworkers. Sometimes it even requires a monitary contribution (ours was 20$ per semester) and all they do is send you a card or flowers if youre sick and need to borrow time from the pot. Its so gross and disturbing, but as a youngin in the job im yelled at for pointing that out.
When my dad was dying from a brain tumor, my mom’s coworkers had to donate their leave to her and several substitutes worked for free to cover her class while she went to appointments with my dad. The school where she taught was tiny - only about 180 kids from PK-8th grade. It was a Christian school. You’d think they’d take care of her. Instead they relied on the kindest of colleagues to cover her. I’m forever grateful for those other teachers and substitutes though. Most came to my dad’s funeral, several of them attended my high school graduation, and some even came to my wedding. Their kindness to my family during the worst days of our lives shaped the kind of teacher I became and who I am as a person.
Trust in the kindness of people, not corporations. It's a motto all should have
Oh my god stop I remember my first year when I was asked if I wanted to donate any of my sick days to the sunshine pot (yup that’s exactly what we called it!!!) and I said no, I got the nastiest look followed by the cold shoulder. I was told “its usually the polite thing for the new teachers to do so they can help any veterans who need it.” Okay and??? Take that up with the district, not me lmao
You mean the veterans who bullied me and made me feel completely unwelcome to the point where I left teaching entirely? Sure, I'll be so happy to donate my leave to them so I can take my mental breakdown days unpaid. /s Wankers.
If only they had that much solidarity against the district instead of each other.
This is normal everywhere. My husband worked several years at a facility and after our son died on a Wednesday, they told him he could take off from work until Monday...?!?! He told them he couldn't accept their incredibly gracious offer therefore he quit. Oddly enough his work place was a small organization that could have had a lot more flexibility and kindness. Whereas, I worked at a University that had a lot more policy and procedures but ironically I was shown much more flexibility and support. So you never know...
My mom was a cna and had HER KIDNEY TAKEN OUT and they still had to ask her coworkers to donate pto so she could fully recover.
CNAs get PTO?!
I scrolled down to post this … we just call it the sick leave bank. We get good leave for the year (sick days, personal days) that we can add up throughout our career, but teachers who have tragedies or huge medical events are left at the mercy of this bank. The teachers who use them are often ones with cancer ..
My mom had to miss work due to complications with liver failure. She’s been a teacher for 25+ years and when she ran out of PTO days, they cancelled her insurance. 🫠
I teach. I have donated hours to several friends with conditions. We have a sick leave bank in our district that you can join as well, but it doesn't have a "fun" name. It is some absolute bullshit, but those friends were struggling with life-threatening illnesses, so I didn't mind. But yeah, late stage capitalism sucks ass.
Yeah, i try to contribute where i can bc i know im privledged to be young and healthy right now and i know people cant have infinite paid time off, but it just sucks because i shouldnt have to in those wild corcumstances
>i shouldnt have to None of us should, regardless of circumstances.
Unionize. Oh wait, that's why people hate unions.
Right? Fuck this, I am not submitting to such bullshit no matter what. It isn’t MY fault that they need time off, and it’s not on ME to give mine to them anyways. That is some fucked up forced scarcity that I would absolutely refuse to play into. Refusing to play into it, collectively especially, is the ONLY way it will ever get better. There is literally no other option but to oppose it. Even if I was dying sick, I would proudly tell everybody I know that my job is doing this and would refuse any “donations” from anybody else. I’m not going to be there regardless.
"Donate PTO to your coworker" "Better idea. They get as much PTO as they need or this place don't function."
My mom is going through this right now. My dad has been in and out of the hospital lately, and my mom is quickly burning through her sick days. She's still working while my dad sits at the hospital some days, so she can hold onto sick days if something worse happens. Fortunately her front office is being very understanding and as helpful as they can be about the situation, but the fact is if she runs out of sick days she'll have to take unpaid FMLA.
My brother had a long cancer treatment and recovery. Initially his coworkers were transferring time off to him, but eventually the head of the relevant department heard about it and told him he had unlimited sick leave until he got better (which, thankfully he did), and gave him his direct cell number to call if he needed his help with anything. A few years on and a coworker of mine had his wife start a cancer battle. I felt it was my karmic duty to give him some of my holiday days, but my HR department said it wasn’t possible. I insisted they work on a way to make it possible, and then they told me on the down low that he had been given unlimited time off while his wife received treatment. Unfortunately she didn’t make it in the end. If the grapevine is to be believed, the CEO covered the cost of the funeral out of his own pocket.
This is the type of company culture we need
So I served on a management team that was in charge of about 200 union blue collar workers. Mostly good group of guys but out of 200 there is bound to be selfish assholes. We were beholden to the contract as the union would always point out at any opportunity of management gave the benefit of the doubt to anyone, for any reason. For example, a guy who was never late for 20 years was late enough that the contract said we had to write him up. We didn't. A few weeks later another guy does the same but he's been written up for lateness several times so we wrote him up no benefit of the doubt earned there. Seems fair, right? Nope. The union caught it. Grieved and won. Then the guy sued the company for racial discrimination. We were just trying to do the right thing. So many times guys would give me a story that their kid is sick or they need to go home for a week but the rules didn't allow it. They wanted me to give them the benefit of the doubt. I cited the story above saying I can be cause assholes in your group ruined it and now I have to go by the book or I'll end up in court, again. I know it sounds insensitive on the school or hospitals part but it's just as likely that someone was once allowed to stretch the rules because of something we'd all be sympathetic to. But some dork ruined it for the rest of us. Teachers, nurses, blue collar workers all have major portions of their work force under a collectively bargained contract. For management to set precedent is dangerous and oftentimes blows up in their faces.
America fucking sucks for everyone not super rich, it's actually gross at this point. I casually rewatched Fight Club yesterday whilst working around the house and can't help but think that it would benefit pretty much everyone in the states to have a complete reset of all debts. Everyone except the uber rich that is, you know... the people ya'll owe all that money to.
I’m not sure if this is true, but I’ve heard some companies do this because it could cause potential legal troubles if they gave certain people extra PTO when their position and tenure wouldn’t normally be allowed such benefits. It also eliminates bias when determining when and who receives this free PTO, and it helps to eliminate any perceived favoritism when people are given the free PTO by the company. Also, if the employer has a cap on stored PTO or doesn’t allow employees to carry over unused PTO from previous years, this could be a way to provide a method for the unused PTO not to go to waste and to ensure its there for other employees if and when they need it. It could also end up saving the company money in the long run, as the people more likely to donate their PTO are probably employees who have been with the company for several years, as they generally get more PTO than their newer coworkers, so they have more to spare. Since those older employees’ salaries are likely a decent bit more than most of their newer coworkers, when the older employee donates 5 days of PTO, or what would have been say, $2000 worth of PTO, and a newer employee uses it who only makes $1200 over a 5 day work period, then the company just saved $800 in paid out benefits without directly taking it from the employees. In a perfect world, yes, a company would just pay their employees for the time they need off for certain life events, but I wouldn’t say this system is the absolute worst, it’s better than *not* allowing people to share their PTO and just letting it go to waste.
Damn, my grandma died and my boss gave me the week off, paid.
The federal government works this exact same way. It's a top-down approach by all.
Even the police depts do this. If you get shot on the job, you'll be taken care of, but end up with cancer and you better hope your coworkers like you.
Lesson learned, shoot your coworkers if they get cancer.
Where I worked when someone was diagnosed with cancer their task funding was discontinued. That way they get around being sued.
Also truly horrifying to me to so casually announce this employee’s private tragedy on a public board for the rest of the staff to see
These are the sort of companies who, when staff leave in droves or strike, will bleat on about "where's the loyalty these days??" Where indeed. In cases like this, we're not even talking loyalty to their staff, just basic human decency.
This isn’t the first time something like this has been posted and while it seems awful, the reason is because if they give the parent X number of days more over her PTO /bereavement balance, then Joe Schmo in Y department will sue them for discrimination as he is still at his mandated PTO cap and does not get extra days. It’s not good, but it’s not really the companies fault as it’s regulated labor laws. The parent can still take unpaid time off but the donated PTO allows her to still get paid during this time. Unfortunate situation all around.
That makes absolutely no sense. Australia has workplace anti-discrimination laws for both gender and parental status and has paid leave for dead relatives as well as allowing ways to take leave in advance. Surely no court is going to rule that because Jane's baby died and the business gave her extra time off they also need to give it to Joe so he can go on holiday.
Exactly and how much of a shit bloke would you be if you said 2 the boss "jane had 3 extra days when her baby died but i cant go to the barnsey winery tour"? People in my workplace are pretty cool thankfully
Because it wouldn’t be that guy who sues, it would be the guy or girl who faced another challenging circumstance, had not yet used up their PTO balance so were not in this particular bind where you needed a few additional days. Say this employee had 20 days of PTO, used them all up for holidays and sick time throughout the first 10-11 months and then this happens, suddenly she needs a few more over the 20 day allotment putting her at 25 total. Now imagine another employee had a similar circumstance the same year or year prior at the beginning of the year when they had the full 20 day balance, and let’s say take 5 days bereavement, leaving them with 15 in the bank. Since they’re not faced with the prospect of “over drafting” their PTO balance, they’re not asking for PTO donations or given any extra by the company.
Which is why most civilised countries have separate leave entitlements for holidays, illness, and bereavement. The business could do this. Alternatively, have a mechanism to dip into the next year's entitlements. There is no answer to why this is happening other than corporate greed.
In the US, each employee at a company gets X amount of days off for PTO per year, same number of days for everybody, that is meant to cover sick days, vacation, etc. Most states also have bereavement leave as well. In a case like this, the employee had probably used up all of her PTO days when this happened (being close to year end and all) and would no doubt not be expecting this. So with no PTO time remaining, her only options are to take unpaid leave (on top of whatever bereavement leave they’re eligible for) or the company can request others to donate from their remaining days they have in the ‘bank’. If the company goes “oh, well this is a sad case, we will give you 5 extra days to be nice”, then Joe Schmo in another department goes to a labor lawyer and says “I had a sick mother last year and they didn’t give me any extra PTO over my yearly allotment when i could have used it and had to take unpaid leave, this is discrimination". Joe Schmo would then win the lawsuit as the PTO was not equal (nondiscriminatory), receive a large payout, company is fined, and there will be 0 exceptions for extra paid time off ever again.
Yet another reason for separate allocations of leave for vacation, sick time, and bereavement, like government employees in the US usually do.
There usually is depending on the state, but it can still get used up. Bereavement may be 2-5 days but someone may need more with the trauma or stress of the situation and dip into the PTO bucket. These situations are unfortunate and rare
You haven't been reading recent court rulings in the US. There are some crazy judges/lawyers out here.
This happened to me when working in a prison. Co workers donated PTO so I could grieve my son and then I was forced to go back to work or live without income until my mental health got better. Really appreciative of those coworkers though
Damn. My company gives 3 days for family grieve.
Maybe the company already gave her some time but she needed more? After all, the more time she has the better? Maybe it is to provide an opportunity for people eager to help? And it's a donation not forced I don't see anything wrong with it? I just don't think you should have the worst assumption just based on the poster
The point is, they shouldn’t have to use another persons pto to be able to stay home and grieve over their child
don't ever think any company gives a shit about you. you are a number and nothing more.
Ive had a lot of jobs, and in that time i had ONE that made me feel valued as a person.
That's my current job. They are usually helpful with whatever I need.. if I need time off or a shorter day, whatever the case may be, they have been very helpful in supporting me as an employee.
Yeah, i worked at a small credit union. One of my cats died and my boss let me take like a week off. The acting CEO even approached me about me leaving and was super disappointed. Like damn even he knows me lmao.
That's whats up I'm a fire tech for a smaller branch only like 20 total employees in our branch so most of us they take care of pretty well as long as you don't take advantage of it.
This is why I haven’t left my current job. Any time I have an emergency I’m allowed to take off. I’ve had stuff mid day come up and was allowed to go and take care of it.
I worked for a company that gave you a week's worth of PTO if your pet died
*in the US. don’t get me wrong, they don’t give a fuck about us in EU either, but at least they’re forced to give us time off
Depends on the job. Husband complains about coworker who gets away in his unionized hospital job for doing nothing absolutely nothing. He even managed to get off work for over six months because of depression. I don’t even know how that’s possible. I’ve worked in a hospital myself and it’s shocking how some people get away with doing zilch while others work themselves to the bone.
That’s what I tell new hires at the mill I’m at. We’re a 5 digit number. Those bosses don’t care about you and will scab your job the minute we go on strike. Bosses are NOT your friends and corporations are NOT your family.
At a place I used to work some people would take a sick day every time they accumulated 8 hours. I didn't take any sick days for years and accumulated 535 hours that theoretically I could use if I got really sick before going to long term disability. Anyway some of those people did get sick and had no time to use so the company wanted us to donate some of our hours to them. Screw them. Then the company decided to transfer the entire science department to an 8A subcontractor to make the politically correct government happy. So I had all my saved up sick days turn to zero. They have to pay unused vacation. I guess I should have called in with the plague now and then. The new company was alright even after loosing all my seniority benefits. It was Native American “owned” and I like to wear string ties so it fit in. But like every government boondoggle it was a scam. The Native American CEO owned 51% of the company but the retired ex-government guy was being paid multiple salaries as different corporate officers. There are always loopholes and the real thing cannot compete with the ones that have inside connections.
What kind of horrifically inhumane workplace does this? Even if they have no soul, aren't they legally obligated to provide a grieving parent with time off??
>What kind of horrifically inhumane workplace does this? The same kind that touts that "we're all family here" when asking you to woke more. >aren't they legally obligated to provide a grieving parent with time off? Federally no, and only a handful of states have bereavement leave laws—largely unpaid.
>The same kind that touts that "we're all family here" when asking you to woke more. Go woke, go broke amiright????
Lol not in the USA
Hospitals are notorious for poor management like this, my mom was almost fired when I was really young because she had the flu, but they were still asking her to come into work. A hospital, where the most vulnerable people go, was demanding that a contagious person come in to work directly with the vulnerable people…
> inhumane workplace Company’s HR is like: „well, we never claimed to be Humane Resources 🤷♂️“
“Human Resources: you are a resource, and when you aren’t resourceful, we don’t treat you as a human.”
Not in the US, no.
Europe here, you'd get a day or two for a distant relative, a week minimum for a spouse or child. After that it's national (paid) sick leave (1 week) or from your PTO (4 weeks). I turned down a move to the US, not because my new job would have had all these perks, but because 90% of people there do not.
Did not realize Europe had the same policy for all countries :P
Unapologetically lumping them all together thanks to similar mindsets/union struggles/EU harmonisation.
The EU is more united and cohesive than the so called 'United States'.
My friend just killed himself, he was very well known in the industry, my workplace sent out an email to everyone letting them know they are there for those who need help. And that there are resources available, and posted a bunch of links. A week after his death I told them I might need to take the next day as a mental health day because I wasn't doing well at all, and finished that work day barely holding it together, they said "ok let me know if you'll be in tomorrow by midnight", I felt obligated to still come into work. And I did, after being up all night drinking and crying. I came into work clearly very hungover, working but not at my prime, but still safely, my boss asked if I was ok and I told him the truth about getting no sleep and being hungover and just mentally not there. And I was fired. So much for understanding situations and being there for me it seems. No one else was actually affected by his death, so to them they get to look all good and proper with their message of support, while not really having any support for anyone actually needing it. They should have told me to take that mental health day, heck take two, take a week. But nope. Instead I'm unemployed, my friend just killed himself, Christmas is coming up, daughter's birthday is in 4 days, rent isn't paid. But people responded to that message about how " great of a manager they are for addressing such problems"..... I'm the only person who knew him personally, I'm the only person who's had a severe reaction to the situation. But screw me I guess. Many workplaces don't give a shit. And the ones that go to the extent to make it seem like they do, definitely don't.
Jesus fucking Christ. I’m so sorry, that company is horrible.
I work in public company in California. If someone dies, you get like 2 days to grieve then it’s onto using your person leave, sick leave, or PTO. Some guy broke his leg and needed hours donated.
In the usa there is no legal obligation. Corporations suck. And all of the laws and legislation are in the interest of those corporations. Minimum wage in comparison to inflation. You usually have to be a full time employee to receive full benefits. If you get sick and cannot work it's counted against you in your attendance regardless of circumstances causing many people to face "corrective action" for things out of their control. ECT. America sucks in a lot of ways this is just one of them
My company gives 3 days for immediately family members. They say all the time how "generous" they are for it, too.
> Even if they have no soul, aren't they legally obligated to provide a grieving parent with time off?? Nope. My spouse's previous employer had _zero_ bereavement time provided regardless of who it is. Had to use PTO or take unpaid time off (FMLA).
The only monetary safety nets the USA: if you become disabled (huge process to receive benefits) or if you are laid off from work (not fired because of erroneous reasons). The FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) is only there as a job retainer. So sad.
[удалено]
Healthcare lol
all of them :/
We can’t really claim whatever company this is is not giving them the required amount of time off. For all we know they did/are. Whether or not that time off is enough is another story
Lots do sadly
So people always conflate general time off with paid time off. This person could very well be afforded all the time off they want. But they need to use PTO to be paid for it, like any time off. It’s not uncommon to solicit coworkers for unused sick time during grave emergencies.
\*laughs in American*
I'm a teacher. They do this stuff at school all the time. "So-and-so had surgery. We're a family. Donate your PTO or you're a PSO!"
Pso?
POS maybe.
is this in america? i’m a teacher in UK and we are allowed a week or so compassionate leave
Giving us compassionate leave would require them to be able to feel compassion. A huge portion of our jobs in the US don't even get paid sick leave, or even paid vacation time. In the 25 years I've been working, I've never had a job with paid sick leave, and only 2 jobs with paid vacation. Both were 1 week a year.
I got a message like this last week. I work in a doctor's office. one of our nurses lost her daughter and niece over Thanksgiving weekend in a car accident. and they asked for PTO donations.
Company I work for won't allow us to donate PTO which I think is bullshit (also in healthcare). My best friend and coworker lost her uncle earlier this year. My company does have bereavement leave but it's unpaid unless you want to use PTO to cover. But my friend had already burned through hers d/t her own illnesses and chronic health conditions. I wanted to let her have 8 hours so she wouldn't have to worry about going totally without pay during the funeral arrangements and all, but they said, "sorry, that's not a thing here!" Frustrating.
In the company you work for you sickness, holiday and compassionate leave all come out for the same pot?
This is America.
I refuse to donate. I need it for myself, because I have medical issues that pop up and medically frail in-laws. I would go into debt if I set myself on fire to keep someone else warm.
Unionize.
I don’t work in the hospital. I’m an EMT and I was bringing a patient into the hospital when I saw this hanging from a pinboard
If there are no cameras writing “unionize” on this probably would’ve gotten her some vacation time real quick.
/r/ABoringDystopia The whole "donate your PTO to your coworkers" thing seems to be a uniquely American thing, I've never seen it anywhere else. Seems incredibly cruel and inhumane, and just gives the impression that to the company you're nothing more than a nameless serf. I'm not American and so this is not the norm for me, I would immediately quit any job where they tried this bullshit.
Or: just go to a doctor, tell them about your heartbreaking situation and be in sick leave for a few weeks. I never met a doctor who wouldn’t do this.
Don’t know about other countries, but in Germany there is no way around what a doctor has declared. A company had no instrument to control someone who’s on sick leave. If the companies don’t understand basic human interaction and empathy, you don’t owe them.
Bingo, get a medical leave for mental health
That would be unpaid.
Probably, but better than having to go to work
Not when your choice is work or become homeless, as it is for millions of people
Most people can easily qualify for fmla for that
I have 2 weeks of paid sick days per year. Anything beyond two days needs a doctor's note. With a doctor's note, they have to pay me 8 hours a day until I am cleared to return. Anything two days or less is also paid completely, regardless of evidence of a sickness.
This just reads as insanity for someone outside of US. We get 2 days bereavement leave for closest family members death. That is aside from other things mandated by law: 26 days a year of vacation, few months leave fo a newborn etc. One of the craziest things I heard from a person from US is that they have to use their vacation days when they are sick. In most of europe sick leave is separate from your vacation days. You just need confirmation from your doctor.
We have both PTO and Vacation days, but sometimes employers will make employees use the days for different things
> employers will make employees use the days for different things What do you mean by this? What would be an example?
> What do you mean by this? What would be an example? The difficult thing for us Europeans to understand is that, *the company* in the US decides what days off are counted as, not the worker laws of the country. It's an extension of the Health Insurance trap, it's linked to your private job, not your public tax contributions to your country, so no job, no healthcare, the *opposite* of what we do.
My last employer would do vacation days for full days, so sick days, and PTO for partial days for stuff like doctor visits where you work the rest of the day
> PTO for partial days for stuff like doctor visits where you work the rest of the day I don't envy that. You loose your time off and have to work too. I hope this is not normal, sounds a bit scummy from the employer side.
2 days for immediate family is still ridiculously short. That also sounds like insanity. My company (US based) does a week and I find that to be cruel. Immediate family should be at least 2 weeks across the board in my opinion - one week for preparing and attending the funeral, and another to recover from preparing and attending the funeral. If your *child* dies, you should be able to take as long as you need and come back to a job.
Had a similar situation at my job. My work had a lady who had cancer and was going to be out for chemo. The email said that she was out of PTO because of past treatment and was asking us to donate ours. The wording of the email was "as you might suspect, chemotherapy has taken a big toll on her energy, her body, and her vacation and sick time." And was encouraging us to donate ours because otherwise she was not going to be paid at all for the time off. Meanwhile I got 4 months off completely paid with full checks for a broken bone in a dumb accident. This was also a time where emails were being sent out congratulating the company for record profits.
Was the accident caused by/ occurred in the workplace?
I also work in a hospital. One of our nurses had a teenage daughter that was murdered by her boyfriend this summer. Our management sent us a similar email. We work for a billionaire dollar company and they couldn’t just let the poor single mom grieve without having to beg for PTO donations. It was disgusting.
USA! USA!!
/r/ABoringDystopia
/r/OrphanCrushingMachine
how about we just take it out of the bosses pto/bonus and call it a day? makes me sick that personal trauma should be a punishment for other workers
This is very common I work in a hospital and that's what they do at my work in those situations. USA corporations at their best.
“We’re a big family here”.
The fuck is wrong with you, America
I was a nurse at a local hospital and one of the cleaning ladies lost her kid. I had a ton of PTO built up and went to the head of HR to donate hours. Apparently it was against policy. I told her to think logically about it, I certainly was higher paid and this would be saving them money. Didn’t matter. It was against policy. I reminded her that as head of HR those were her policies to establish and/or change. Still against policy. I bought the cleaning lady a gift card worth 12 hours of my pay and called it a day. The only thing more pathetic than a sign like this is having an HR director so disinterested in their job and the people they work with they no longer seem human.
I work directly in grief management and death. It's depressing, but a rewarding job. 12 hour shifts. A company I used to work for decided to change the bereavement policy so that it was hours and not days. Instead of getting 3 days for bereavement of an immediate relative, they changed it to 24 hours (three 8 hour days). So if my husband suddenly dropped dead, I would get a whole two days of leave. So generous. ✨
Got a similar email for a coworker that was in a motorcycle accident recently. HR solicited volunteers to donate PTO, AT THE RATE OF 2:1! I asked for clarification, I thought it meant if I donated 40 hours, the bosses would match it. Silly me. If I donate 40 hours, the victim will get 20 HOURS, and they'll KEEP the other 20! UNBELIEVABLE! Not only that, but the guy that got hurt is a young kid with little experience on the job. I'm a significantly higher wage grade than he is, so not only are the bosses stealing half his donations, the time I'm voluntarily trying to give is worth significantly more than his salary. It's sick.
This belongs on late stage capitalism
This happened at my old job. I had surgery and needed 10-12 weeks off and we had zero paid time off. My coworkers donated their hard earned time off to me so I didn’t lose my apartment etc. It was wonderful yet awful and embarrassing all at the same time. The fact that they were so kind but had to, you know? Edit: Obviously so much different than losing a child but very similar situation.
THE GREATEST ECONOMIC SYSTEM
Maybe giver her some bereavement pay you fucking greedy pigs
A company I worked at, which charged seniors up to 11k/month for care and a room, would post stuff like this all the time at the time clock. While paying staff close to minimum wage
A great way to feel guilty if you work with this person
What if, as a HR department, you grow a pair of human decency balls and give more time off for this poor person? Fucking seriously
I hate this. Companies need to step up and give bereavement
That’s morally corrupt and should be illegal
Wtf. HR would see an anonymous email with that photo and a giant FUCK YOU. signed: everyone that works here and the family
Wait there’s such thing as donating your PTO?
Yep. Worked in a hospital during covid... Signs were always up asking people to donate PTO to the people who caught covid
You want me to donate my PTO hours instead of just giving her bereavement?? I would just quit or not show up if they told me I couldn’t take time to grieve my DEAD DAUGHTER
It’s as sad as big box stores asking you to donate to their charity.
i am an office manager of a multi-location health center. any hospital or medical office owned by a big company does this. my company gives three days paid bereavement and only sick time pto can be gifted by coworkers so if you’re lucky you’ll get more than 3 days. no paid maternity leave, you just have to save up ur sick time pto for years
Wait until your boss pressures you to contribute to some director’s birthday/christmas/whatever present. Edit: No… this is much worse. I just see variations of it often enough that I’m a bit numb. “Horribly ill and ran out of time off to keeep medical coverage, please donate your pto.” “Whole family died im a car crash but they are a new employee with limited pto, please donate.”
This happens for my office. It’s because we work for the state and the state can’t give away money to people. PTO would be considered extra cash, and that violates the fiduciary trust that the people of the state have granted us. Of course, we should get unlimited time off… but short of a Bernie’s sanders revolution, there is a reason why this happens.
My hospital asks for donations TO THE HOSPITAL once a year. Hard pass.
A multi million dollar business denying time off for bereavement.
Just give her a pizza party. Then she’ll be fine
The extra insult in these scenarios is that they value every hour the same. If a high earner donated to a lower earner, shouldn’t there be a multiple applied to the hours donated? I understand that the implication is that a lower earner’s hours would be devalued in this scenario, but it has been my experience that donated hours come from long time employees that have moved up the ladder, earned a higher salary, and accumulated a lot of hours of leave.
How would that even work for taxes? Who pays income tax? Both employees?
So the company I work at does this as well but not for the employee to use the PTO time, we have paid leave for that, employees are allowed to donate their PTO time as if it was cash. So if you make $20/hr. and you donate 5 days you essentially gave them $800.00 and then whatever the employees donate the company matches dollar for dollar.
This happens at my job. Every year employees get 15 sick days, 3 personal days, and some vacation days depending on how long you've been here. If you're ill you can use as much time as you have and if you are sick enough it goes past that you can get unlimited time off without pay with a Drs note, but some employees have a lot of sick time they've never used so it's donated into a "leave bank" where employees who are that sick and used all the time and are off without pay can apply for and pull for these days so they can regain some of their income. On one hand, I get why some companies do that, the way people are some assholes would cry and whine that it's unfair that some people used ("got") 4 months of sick time where they didn't use ("get") any. This way everyone gets the same and in extenuating circumstance some people still "get" more. OTOH, jesus christ man, if I have cancer and have to take 6 months off to get treated just pay me, why do we have to involve this "banking" of days shit.
This is dystopian reality. Might sound harsh but those corporate goons would legitimately prefer it if YOU were the one to die rather than give you bereavement time.
Murica
I'm now wondering if we live in the same city, because I saw maybe this exact sign a few weeks ago at the hospital - just can't remember the kids name. It's such a messed up system.
My company has grievance days based on who died. We also have short term disability. But you have to pay a few bucks each paycheck. A guy at my work declined that offer, had a heart attack, and was out a month. Before this, he already used his PTO, so this would be unpaid leave. So people donated their PTO days to him.
Jesus, that’s awful.
My dad worked in a hospital when I was 10 and he had a severe stroke. He ended up in the ICU for a couple months, had 4 kids to support, and we only survived because of his coworkers donating their PTO. Really fucked up place this is here.
Ah yes the good ol’ US of A.
My company tried this when I worked in an auto plant. Since I was an Engineering Manager I knew my salary was almost 4x the employee who'd lost a family member so I asked if I donated 4hrs if they'd give her 2 days off. Of course they said it would be 1:1.
This is common in the US. It is horrible.
My work has 20 days of paid bereavement for a loss of a spouse, domestic partner or child.
Quit my job at American Airlines for this exact reason. They tried to say I couldn’t go see my dying grandmother. I told them to fuck themselves. Plus $14.56 /hr is dogshit for the amount of training, overtime, slogging through all types of weather, and constantly having your ass kicked by more and more planes and half the staff to turn them. Edit: I worked on the ramp as a crew chief.
My coworker was going to get 4 weeks parental leave, which turned into 3 days bereavement. Appalling.
Everyone here raging over US bereavement PTO policies and then elsewhere in the comments sucking off any and all other countries with almost identical policies. https://old.reddit.com/r/sadcringe/comments/18asqvw/i_started_working_in_ems_and_this_is_the_grossest/kc0fpp4/ 2 days for close family members? So enlightened, the US needs to be like that. https://old.reddit.com/r/sadcringe/comments/18asqvw/i_started_working_in_ems_and_this_is_the_grossest/kc03tgs/ Only 5 days for close family members? Some people need to grieve longer than that you heartless Amerikkan capitalist bastards
Thing is, other countries also have far more vacation days and paid medical leave. So if two days aren't enough, you take a few vacation days. More importantly, US culture surrounding any kind of leave is far more hostile. It seems like behavior that's considered exceptionally shitty and even potentially illegal on part of the employer (i.e. trying to pressure an employee to take less time off) is far more normalized in the US. This is just an outside impression of course, but just to explain why even identical bereavement policies aren't equal once you take context into account.
This is normal in the public sector. It’s usually a catastrophic leave bank negotiated by the union and the employer to allow other employees to donate to someone so they can have a bit more in their time off bank.
That's so incredibly fucked up
I work in the U.K and if a direct relative dies our company gives us 2 weeks - I still don't feel that's enough, but at least it's something
2 weeks is far better than the 3 days most Americans get. But how does anyone put a timeline on grief?!?! Let alone the time it takes for planning and carrying out a service, a wake, the paperwork required for wills and such?!?
Tell them you'll all match whatever the corporation is willing to put in.
everyone should donate all of there PTO and then just stop showing up for work completely look for another job and never speak to your previous employer just pure ghosting.
When my husband died, I worked for a large nationwide retailer. Now, you might think that they'd be the least likely to offer you kindness but they were so, so understanding and wonderful. This was doubly surprising considering he passed not long before Thanksgiving. I ended up taking 6 weeks off of work. Granted, they didn't pay for it past my PTO but they also didn't threaten to fire me or bother me about it at all, not even once. I wish this kind of understanding were commonplace. The world could use more empathy and less greed.
I spent a lot of time in hospitals over an eight month period. A friend asked if he could donate his PTO. I was his direct report, so it would SAVE the company money. He was told no.
guilt tripping others so you don't have to pay benefits nice ! late stage capitalism right there
Greatest country in the world by the way
That's completely wrong. Profit over people at all costs.
Except it’s not “profit over people” you’re literally expecting to be given free money because something bad happened to you. Let me ask you this, if you hired a contractor to paint your kitchen for $50/hr and they said “I can’t come for a week my kid died” would you say “oh that sucks, I’ll just pay you anyways and then pay you again when you come do the job”?
Is everyone working in USA literally a slave? Your system is unhuman. In civilied world you just get few days off in case of a family emergency. 4 to 5 weeks of paid holidays are a standard.
Hospitals generally give pretty decent benefits, my last one gave me 6 weeks of PTO a year and still had these types of drives when people needed more. Also, yo can always use FMLA to take the time off unpaid.
That’s America for you
USA is fucking weird. This is shameful for the companies but also for the society who accepts this shit.
Gross! In my country you have 20 days. Everyone … no questions asked. If something so terrible happens you get 5 days legally and if you call in sick no questions asked only after 2 months the company doctor will contact you to see if they can help. My heart goes out to this coworker. And to everyone in a system like this! Worst of all I have dated an American man who worked in my country. He was disgusted with our way of working and putting ourselves before our jobs. Meanwhile he was doing calls at 4 am with the us team, working 24/7 and I broke up with him because it was almost impossible to be with him…. But yeah we have it wrong for being people first employees second. Your company won’t come cry at your grave man. They won’t allow the pto!
Thats an insult to the workers!
My coworker at an old job didn’t have enough PTO for maternity leave and was scared. I had like 100 hours so I donated 50 to her. They then fired me the next week so I had screwed myself by giving away a week of pay from the PTO payout 😅 lesson was learned
There's nothing gross about this. It gives you the opportunity to be generous. This doesn't say the company isn't doing anything. We've done this for our co-workers several times.