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My lost PTO


petitepedal

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One good thing about CA’s very employee friendly labor laws is use it or lose it is illegal.  If the company offers PTO it’s considered income which can’t be taken back. 

When I left that Job where the Western Region VP was driving me crazy I had 120 hours of unused vacation.  The company was based out of St Louis & tried to implement their use it or lose it policy.  They were pissed that they had to pay it.  

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I think I've told this story before.  Where I worked was purchased by a stockholder owned company in California.  They designed a performance bonus structure for us that involved meeting delivery requirements on sales.  We beat that with some effort by all and were paid the bonus in year one.  In year two the company informed us that the bonus structure seemed too easy and they recalculated it's rules.  No worker bees ever qualified for a bonus again and the CEO and board were all issued a hefty stock bonus for cutting costs.  There are lots of stories like yours and that.

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11 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

This was my experience. I retired with over 400 hours of unused leave.

Prior to 2009, we were able to cash unused hours out, but that changed.

My step-dad retired from Detroit Edison, and when he worked, employees could bank hours til retirement. Then they would get paid at their current rate. Or, you could use it to retire early. He said some guys retired with a huge check. But I don't know if banking is allowed now, probably not I'd say.

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1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

I think I've told this story before.  Where I worked was purchased by a stockholder owned company in California.  They designed a performance bonus structure for us that involved meeting delivery requirements on sales.  We beat that with some effort by all and were paid the bonus in year one.  In year two the company informed us that the bonus structure seemed too easy and they recalculated it's rules.  No worker bees ever qualified for a bonus again and the CEO and board were all issued a hefty stock bonus for cutting costs.  There are lots of stories like yours and that.

Most of the firms I worked for had some sort of measurable performance based bonus system.  All but one company the bonus was attainable given you made the established metrics.  

But one company had a bonus system that was impossible to meet and in the 7 years I worked there nobody ever bonused.  Yet every year at our management meetings they would lament about the high turnover in management and ask for suggestions on how to retain talent.

Me: How about a streamlined bonus structure based on measurable metrics like profit improvement, client retention & low staff turnover?  Great input Chris, we’ll consider that.

No change to bonus & the next year 2/3 of the room are new managers & they are lamenting about the high turnover again…

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Yeah, I'd be apoplectic about 140 hours of lost PTO.

3.25 years ago we got a new umbrella/corporate vacay/PTO policy. I was under 5 years so I went from 10 hrs vacay & 5 sick days to 12 day PTO. They trumpeted this as an improvement.

5 year anniversary, no 5 day bump. Query. "That policy was never approved by the President. You have to wait to 10 years to get 3rd week". WTF? Did you announce a withdrawal/change? No.

What's the policy? We're working on that.

Still no policy.

Locally, we just have an "agreement".

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My company got in trouble by telling us you had to use your vacation or lose it and then when the guys wanted to take vacation they told them They couldn’t. The senior employees had first preference on vacation and they only allowed so many off per week. The younger guys could never get their vacation. Binding arbitration took care of that. A little bit of common sense would have been a lot cheaper.

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1 minute ago, Longjohn said:

You needed to take ten weeks of sick leave your last ten weeks because you were sick of work.

I wasn’t sick of work. I wasn’t sick at all during the last few years. I didn’t take my personal days, either, because leaving sub plans during remote instruction was a non-starter. I sold my prep time to sub for teachers during that year because there was a sub shortage in our district, and it was a day of lost instructional time. I couldn’t bring myself to give up three days of instructional time for whatever. I didn’t need the days off. Piling up sick/personal leave was my hedge in case I got cancer or Covid or some such. I didn’t, and I’m glad I had the days of leave in case I did. 

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2 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

I didn’t need the days off. Piling up sick/personal leave was my hedge in case I got cancer or Covid or some such. I didn’t, and I’m glad I had the days of leave in case I did. 

My wife had lots of PTO time and after she used all of that she went on excellent short term disability that paid almost full pay. When that was used up she went on her company’s long term disability which paid 80% of full pay and it would have run out two days after she died. Because she died while on disability I was surprised by a check made out to me for $5,000 in spousal benefits. She worked for a good employer.

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1 hour ago, ChrisL said:

Most of the firms I worked for had some sort of measurable performance based bonus system.  All but one company the bonus was attainable given you made the established metrics.  

But one company had a bonus system that was impossible to meet and in the 7 years I worked there nobody ever bonused.  Yet every year at our management meetings they would lament about the high turnover in management and ask for suggestions on how to retain talent.

Me: How about a streamlined bonus structure based on measurable metrics like profit improvement, client retention & low staff turnover?  Great input Chris, we’ll consider that.

No change to bonus & the next year 2/3 of the room are new managers & they are lamenting about the high turnover again…

Oh.  Don't get me wrong.  Management always got their bonus checks or stock.  :angry:  They were after all "management".  The next cost reduction they got bonus money for was to lay off workers and hire them back as contract workers depeding on the ebb and flow of orders.

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I worked for a company that gave everybody the week between Christmas and New Year's off.  Except the Facilities group, who worked the whole week, plus overtime, to fix everything that everybody broke during the rest of the year, that they didn't want to shut down because it was too inconvenient.

When I was hired I mentioned that everybody - but the Facilities group - was getting paid for doing nothing while we would be working.  Got the brush off.

So when Christmas rolled around I told HR my group was taking the time off like all the other employees, just like the HR handbook said.  No carve out that our group had to work.

Panic!  "Who's going to fix all the stuff that we broke!"

I told HR we'd work, but only if we got paid the same 40 hours everybody else got for doing nothing, plus the time that we were in the plant working, plus time and a half for any hours over 40 (and there were a lot!)  Otherwise we'd go home and sit on our butts like the HR manual said we could.

HR said they would pay.  So we went to work, we worked hard, and we earned our pay.  All of it, every penny.  My crew was pretty happy that year.

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15 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Oh.  Don't get me wrong.  Management always got their bonus checks or stock.  :angry:  They were after all "management".  The next cost reduction they got bonus money for was to lay off workers and hire them back as contract workers depeding on the ebb and flow of orders.

I always give my team that didn’t bonus cash as I couldn’t have bonused without their help. I usually give them several hundred each.    

This year my Coordinator quit just before I bonused and my new coordinator hadn’t started yet so I got to keep it all.  

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I just had a bonus recollection. I worked for a smaller firm that was owned by a crook.  He literally ended up in jail after I left.

But at a company annual meeting the CFO is going over the financials of all the different groups and none of them qualified for bonus.  She then reads off my region’s financials and said congrats Chris, you are the only one who bonused & slides an envelope across the table.  

The owner in a fit of rage snatched the check off the table. NO!!!! NO Bonus for Chris!!!! Uh why Sam?  Your staff overtime is too high.  It was 2% below goal.  No!!!

Whatever dude.  I was gone a few weeks later as I knew that firm was a shit show.  A few years later he and his henchmen were in Jail for payroll tax fraud. 

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1 hour ago, petitepedal said:

I will be talking to the HR person on Monday...per the email I got today..which is further than it's gone before :whistle:

 I hope  you get it.  :desk:

9 hours ago, MoseySusan said:

I wasn’t sick of work. I wasn’t sick at all during the last few years. I didn’t take my personal days, either, because leaving sub plans during remote instruction was a non-starter. I sold my prep time to sub for teachers during that year because there was a sub shortage in our district, and it was a day of lost instructional time. I couldn’t bring myself to give up three days of instructional time for whatever. I didn’t need the days off. Piling up sick/personal leave was my hedge in case I got cancer or Covid or some such. I didn’t, and I’m glad I had the days of leave in case I did. 

Because of covid and unable to do much "special" with my vacation days,  by the end of 2021, I racked up 240 unused  vacation hrs. I had already banked 20 hrs. from previous yr. We can only bank up to 200 hrs. of unused vacation at any time. Therefore a person must take the  hrs. that  spill over the limit or yes, we do get cashed out.  The  joy of  computer software,  which tracks the minute details of all this.

I don't like wasting vacation days if I don't do anything "different"  (even if  it's local) or special. 

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