Do (Did) You Get PTO Time Or Assigned Vacation & Sick Days?

OneEyedDiva

OneEyedDiva

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New Jersey
For those of you who work or used to work, what method was used to give you time off? Most of the people I know now, including my son, get paid time off (PTO) They accumulate a certain amount of hours a week. I'm not sure if that winds up being beneficial or a detriment as far as time off goes compared to receiving sick and vacation days. My longest gig was 28 years in the same office...first working for the city, then the state (14 years each). We got sick days, personal days and vacation days. Since my son and I were both sickly when he was young and I continued using a lot of sick time due to my heart condition when he got healthy, I never could accumulate much sick time.

We got three personal days per year and started out with two weeks vacation. The year before I retired (1997), I had 5 weeks vacation but only 7 sick days left. I retired at the end of January 1998. I used to tack vacation days onto weekends to stretch it out. I took all my vacation time but used the sick days so that my last working day was actually around January 21st.

So what did (do) you get? Sick & vacation or PTO?
 

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I got both sick and "annual leave" time. I'd accrued and held quite a bit of sick time, and on retirement I should have been able to cash it out for a bit over $50K. Sadly, due to a rule change about the time I received a political appointment that took me out of the Civil Service System... even though I went back this counted as a "break in service" and they refused to pay a red cent for my banked sick time.

If I'd known that I would have used both forms of leave quite differently, not using vacation time when kids got sick and such. Even though I'd been asking the question in writing for decades I never got an answer until retirement when they just ate the money.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
So what did (do) you get? Sick & vacation or PTO?
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Here in the UK, every employee gets paid holidays,
usually between, 21 to 28 days, increasing by one
day for every year you are with the company, but
there is a limit that I don't remember, plus there are
8 days of Bank Holidays, these are normally Mondays,
except for Good Friday, and Christmas and New Year,
the days off at these times, depend on when the date falls.

We also get paid sick leave, but this is very basic, less
than half pay, I believe, but if you are injured at work,
you will get full pay, though I am not sure for how long.

You can also get unpaid time off, but you are advised
to pay the National Insurance to protect your Pension.

This may not be how things are today, I have been retired
now for 18 years and things change, but the information
that I have listed is how it was when I was working, I am
not sure if it differs in different industries, but I don't think
that it does.

Mike.
 

OneEyedDiva said:
So what did (do) you get? Sick & vacation or PTO?
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My last place of employment (30 years), I didn't get any of that

Then;
After getting kicked upstairs. we just took paid days off (if we weren't swamped), no 'rule' per se
Quite the perk
Other times off, we just golfed (most every afternoon)
 
We operated 24/7/365, working 12 hour shifts... BUT, when dealing with accruing time, a day was only 8.4 hours.
Vacation time, 17.4 hours per month and Sick time , 8.4 hours per month
Holiday, you could work it and get double time, or take the paid day off. If you weren't scheduled, you got a day to take off in that month.
one personal day... but only 8 hours was paid.
Over Time, IF you worked late or picked up an extra shift, you got time 1/2, in a time bucket, and had to use it before any vacation time.
Then we had Administration time. If you had to work while the county offices were close due to weather or other reasons, you got double time. Hour of pay and an hour in a time bucket to take off, but had to be used within a year. We had to fight them, but got it changed to cover 24/day not just the regular office hours. I got stuck one weekend, and work 4 days straight, county was closed Friday and Monday.. Regular shift was on days, picked up 54 hours of OT for staying 3 nights, PLUS another 84 hours of ADMIN time....

To add to the confusion, At the end of the year you only could keep 30 days of vacation... AGAIN at 8.4 hours. Anything over 252 hours was converted to sick time. When I retired I had over 3500 hours of sick time, that added to my years of service.
 
One of the best benefits job I ever had was with the private foster care/adoption agency that contracted with the city.
Five weeks sick leave
Five weeks vacation
Twenty personal days
Good salary, I remember 10K and this was in the early '70's.

Left this job to move back to (((England)))
 
When I was working at local hospital, I got 4 PTO days if I didn't use them up ,couldn't roll them over for the following yr
In our dept getting vacation time was done by seniority, unfortunately the same 3 pharm techs who had been there the longest always got Thanksgiving, Xmas& Easter week off. The rest of pharm techs{ inc me} we looked at the calendar took whatever days were available. It also went by seniority
My family never understood why I couldn't come for Thanksgiving, or Xmas,even though I had been working there for 27yrs.I kept telling them I was # 7 on the list.
The only time I took more than the allotted days off is when my mom got out of the hospital. She lived in a retirement community in Hanover, NH,I spent 10 days with her. She thought I would lose my job, I told her' My supervisor let me have this time off, You are more important than my job'
 
Having lived and worked on different countries, my experience is that paid time off, or vacation was the norm. The difference was in the length of time you got. To generalize, in the US it started off with two weeks. Whilst in the UK at the time, it was 4 weeks. The best was Germany, where everyone got 6 weeks.

I worked for years and never, ever, took a day off (other than weekends). I loved my job, and there was always something new to learn. I saw that as a good thing. Looking back on it now, it was far from a good thing. You live, learn, and then die - right?
 
Mike said:
One thing that I didn't list, was if you worked
a Bank Holiday, you were paid Double Time,
plus you got a, "Day off in Lieu", so treble time
really.

Mike.
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I had similar with a previous employer. If I worked a Bank Holiday I had a choice of how to be paid.

Triple time for working the Bank Holiday.
Or double time and a paid day off in Lieu.
Or single time for working, along with being paid double time for the day I later took off in Lieu.
 
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I could accumulate a total of 2 weeks in paid vacation and sick time annually. I usually used all of it at the end of each year (of my employment) to go on vacation with my kids, minus any days I had to take off if one of the kids got too sick to go to the sitter. (daycare was not a common thing)

The 2 weeks included 7 days = 40 hours sick time, and 7 days = an additional 40 hours vacation time that my employer was required to offer per labor laws. No law said I had to take it, but I usually did. And every year started fresh, so your 2 weeks or 80 hours pay for not working was gone if you didn't take it before the end of the previous year.

I don't remember anything called PTO back then; just vacation and sick days. And, back then, you could be fired if you were off sick for 3 days in a row. That wasn't legal, but it was done.
 
In total here we get around 40 days per year holiday accrued from 3-4 weeks entitlement plus all the offical Bank Holidays... also we get one week per year for Paid sickness time... that's just generally speaking. Clearly there are some companies who provide even better holiday entitlement, and some who provide worse...
 
160 hours sick time. Unused could be accumulated so in the event of a long term illness pay at the salary rate would continue until exhausted. If anticipating a long recovery pay could be at 1/2 to extend the benefit. Last part if unused could be sold back at average benefit pay over the years of service.

6 weeks vacation time
12 paid holidays
And as management comp time off for overtime hours.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
So what did (do) you get? Sick & vacation or PTO?
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In the UK, we get a maximum of 28 days of paid statutory leave. Employers can provide additional paid leave beyond the statutory requirement. If someone works 4 days a week, they get 4 x 5.6 = 22.4 statutory paid days off work. Someone working 5 days a week gets 5 x 5.6 = 28 days.

I get 33 paid days off: the 28 statutory days plus 5 additional paid days that my employer gives me due to my length of service. These statutory and additional days are generally called "holiday pay."

When I take a day off work, I also get paid for overtime based on the average overtime I worked over the previous several weeks. I forget the exact number of weeks used for this calculation.

In the UK, if I take paid time off and become ill during that time, I can opt to take it as 'sickness pay' and reclaim my paid day or days off to use at a later date.
 
Nope. This why I tell my kids, "Do not get stuck in doing what I did for a living" and also why I tried so desperately to change careers. But after 50, who the heck wants you, right?

People have this crazy idea that we're all INDEPENDENT, making our OWN choices. Honey, when you have multiple kids, multiple disabled people in your extended family and a nut-job rabid ex-spouse who should have been in therapy for 10 years, you can never be an INDEPENDENT person making your own choices. You are always trying to protect the children from the influence of the nut-job, IMO.

This is why I am, like Bernie, a Democratic Socialist. (I hope I don't violate the "no politics" rule by saying that.) I do believe in being fiscally conservative, like home prices are freakin' too high in most areas, but I also very strongly believe in taxing the billionaires so that we have a REAL safety net and not a series of over-flowing homeless shelters and food banks giving away MOLDY bread.

Tax the billionaires and the crypto-kings. Tax them all. No more of this New Feudalism which has been brought to us by Silicon Valley kings. Let it die again just like in olden times because billionaires like wars, they can make $$$ off of them, and they send the sons and daughters of the poor out to fight them.
 
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VintageBetter said:
...Tax the billionaires and the crypto-kings. Tax them all. No more of this New Feudalism which has been brought to us by Silicon Valley kings. Let it die again just like in olden times because billionaires like wars, they can make $$$ off of them, and they send the sons and daughters of the poor out to fight them.
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is: "Silicon Valley Kings"

sb: "Wall Street corporations and banks"

Silicon Valley successes drew big money types from the East like flies to turds. The rise of the Internet just poured gasoline on that fire. And that also drew endless wealth seeking real estate corporations and their army of jack up prices brokers to the area that has made it unrecognizable from that of even a couple decades ago, driving many away due to rising costs, only to be replaced by myriad immigrants and wealthy from not only across the USA but also the world. I strongly dislike what this area I've lived in since 1971 has become. Note, I'm a downtown Lost Angeles born native.
 
When I worked for the county(and later, with the state) I got vacation time, 12 paid holidays, and sick time which accrued based on a formula using your length of service. When I retired from the county my unused sick time was put into a health maintenance fund that I could use to pay for medical expenses.
 
'Big blue' was pretty good when it came to holidays and time off for illness. Generally, you could 'self certify' for periods of illness up to a week. More than that you needed a doctor's note. For this second week and more you could claim 'sick pay' which was deducted from your salary. For long term illness, salary was reduced and over 6 months, you could retire due to ill health.

The company were also very supportive for 'compassionate leave' in the case of an event such death or illness of a close relative. This did not count against annual leave or sick leave.
 
As an hourly employee I always had vacation days that were determined by your time with the business, never had sick days during those years. As a salaried employee I was still teathered to the company policy for earning vacation days but was able to take sick days as needed.

When I became part owner of a business I changed the company policy so hourly employees could take three sick days a year. If they didn't use the days I would pay them out as comp time. I also changed the vacation policy so an employee could earn up to sick weeks vacation, prior to that it was only three weeks.
 
My last job of 27 years was as a "salaried employee" in the private sector which meant no overtime pay even though I averaged anywhere from 1 to 4 hours worked every day beyond the 8 hours your pay was based on. You were also expected to work and sometimes travel, when necessary, on weekends and holidays with no extra pay. They were kind enough to give you a comp day if you had to work a holiday.

As with most jobs in the U.S. you started with 2 weeks paid vacation per year, that increased to 3 weeks after 5 years, then maximum of 4 weeks after 10 years. You were allowed to rollover vacation days but you had to "use them or lose them" the following year. We had paid holidays: New Years day, MLK day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas eve, and Christmas Day. That is a total of 8 paid holidays.

As far as sick days, they were paid but frowned upon. You were expected to work unless you were practically unable to stand up. Your promotion opportunities were almost non existent if you averaged more than a couple sick days per year. The unwritten rule was come to work sick or use a vacation day. When you would have your annual performance review you likely got no salary increase if you had taken more than 5 sick days the previous year, that is unless you could prove you were sick enough to be in the hospital.
 
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When I worked for a company, I got 8 sick days per year ,and 3 weeks vacation but most of my work, I was self employed so didnā€™t work when I felt ill and took as much time off for vacation that I wanted with no regrets.
Was that a run on sentence?
 
C50 said:
As an hourly employee I always had vacation days that were determined by your time with the business, never had sick days during those years. As a salaried employee I was still teathered to the company policy for earning vacation days but was able to take sick days as needed.

When I became part owner of a business I changed the company policy so hourly employees could take three sick days a year. If they didn't use the days I would pay them out as comp time. I also changed the vacation policy so an employee could earn up to sick weeks vacation, prior to that it was only three weeks.
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You had a very generous vacation policy. I'm surprised that one of my kids still only gets two weeks a year at her level. Would it really destroy overall productivity to give her three weeks?
 
Tom52 said:
My last job of 27 years was as a "salaried employee" in the private sector which meant no overtime pay even though I averaged anywhere from 1 to 4 hours worked every day beyond the 8 hours your pay was based on. You were also expected to work and sometimes travel, when necessary, on weekends and holidays with no extra pay. They were kind enough to give you a comp day if you had to work a holiday.

As with most jobs in the U.S. you started with 2 weeks paid vacation per year, that increased to 3 weeks after 5 years, then maximum of 4 weeks after 10 years. You were allowed to rollover vacation days but you had to "use them or lose them" the following year. We had paid holidays: New Years day, MLK day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas eve, and Christmas Day. That is a total of 8 paid holidays.

As far as sick days, they were paid but frowned upon. You were expected to work unless you were practically unable to stand up. Your promotion opportunities were almost non existent if you averaged more than a couple sick days per year. The unwritten rule was come to work sick or use a vacation day. When you would have your annual performance review you likely got no salary increase if you had taken more than 5 sick days the previous year, that is unless you could prove you were sick enough to be in the hospital.
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I just did some quick math, and I think that with 5 sick days allowed that means employees were allowed to be genuinely ill for only 2% of all work days, or else use vacation time for more.

IDK. Is that fair, especially if you have children and parents may have to take time off to stay home with them? IDK.

On the other hand, if people were successfully there 98% of their scheduled work days, that's a solid "A" for attendance, IMO.

Even being there 95% of the time would be an "A", IMO. I hope employers are updating their policies so people can stay home and not spread viruses, yet work at home. I wonder if the employees have ever been polled about how they feel about working with the virus-spreaders?
 
VintageBetter said:
I just did some quick math, and I think that with 5 sick days allowed that means employees were allowed to be genuinely ill for only 2% of all work days, or else use vacation time for more.

IDK. Is that fair, especially if you have children and parents may have to take time off to stay home with them? IDK.

On the other hand, if people were successfully there 98% of their scheduled work days, that's a solid "A" for attendance, IMO.

Even being there 95% of the time would be an "A", IMO. I hope employers are updating their policies so people can stay home and not spread viruses, yet work at home. I wonder if the employees have ever been polled about how they feel about working with the virus-spreaders?
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VintageBetter, my experiences were pre-covid and I have also wondered how my former employer handled the epidemic. I would assume they would have been forced to adapt to the accepted practices at the time. When I was there the President was a real micro manager, never allowing someone to work from home. He didn't trust anyone, my job could have easily been conducted remotely but that would never fly at the time.
 
Had lots of sick days but only used a few in 29 years as a community college instructor. Was able to use the credit towards paying for health insurance after I retired. This paid for insurance until almost the time Medicare kicked in.

The Personal Days I got I always used up as these could not be cashed in at retirement. I used these for the few days after my semester and Final Grades were submitted.
 

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