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I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

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Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#241

Post by barrkel »

WalterBright wrote: post #146
barrkel wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon results should be rewarded, not presenteeism. I might be more interested in results, who knows.

I'd be the first to agree with you. However, allowing a stellar performer to come and go as they please tends to have a bad effect on morale of the rest and impairs team cohesiveness.

I guess it depends on the team dynamics. If someone's good and show up for the big pushes, I'd take a lot. We had a chap on our team at my current company who worked from home every Friday, even though it was sub-optimal for planning meetings around sprint boundaries. But he was very productive.

One of the reasons I decided not to move to the US after I got my H-1B was because of the parsimonious approach to vacation days. Only 10 days of paid leave, for someone who's moving across the Atlantic. If I wanted to spend some time with my friends and family, it would need to be two weeks to make the flight time worthwhile, and that would take 100% of my vacation for a whole year.

And it was non-negotiable. Vacation increases beyond a one-off for the first year was a perk for tenure, not a negotiable form of compensation. And even if I didn't want to come back to Europe; why would I take a job that only gave me 10 days a year to do with what I want? Life is for living, not just working. It was a crunch point, a decisive factor in not moving to SV for me.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#242

Post by fzzzy »

noir_lord wrote: post #240
heymijo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> never had an issue with hard work Very similar boat as you when I was younger. Lots of physical labor. No big deal when you're young. Extrapolate that out to a decade, two decades, or an entire career and I bet we would both be singing a different tune.

Oh I'm sure, some of those jobs would break you if you did them for a decade or two, it's why I got into programming after training as an industrial electrician, I looked at the guys I was working with who where 20-30 years older than me (40-50) and they where messed up so I took a different path. Again though I don't regret it, the training was useful and it taught me life skills that are applicable to software engi…

Serious question, you don't think programming is going to break you after a decade or two?

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#243

Post by noir_lord »

fzzzy wrote: post #242
noir_lord wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I'm sure, some of those jobs would break you if you did them for a decade or two, it's why I got into programming after training as an industrial electrician, I looked at the guys I was working with who where 20-30 years older than me (40-50) and they where messed up so I took a different path. Again though I don't regret it, the training was useful and it taught me life skills that are applicable to software engi…

Serious question, you don't think programming is going to break you after a decade or two?

I've been doing it full time since my mid-20's and I'm 39..so no?

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#244

Post by pnutjam »

lkey wrote: post #137
WalterBright wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once talked to a manager about how he handed out raises. He mentioned one engineer who was sick exactly 10 days out of each year. Coincidentally, the company offered 10 days of paid sick leave a year. He laughed, and said she wasn't fooling anyone, and didn't give her a raise.

So he decided he'd figured out her scam without ever bringing it up in yearly or monthly review. He also never asked for proof of the 10 days of sick leave after the first year, which is reasonable to do if he had a suspicion she was flouting a rule. If he wanted to factor sick days into his pay decision, he had a responsibility to make sure he was correct using the proper internal channels. An alternate and equally…

Unfortunately, in my experience, denying a raise is the standard.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#245

Post by pnutjam »

zdragnar wrote: post #207
jschwartzi wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it abuse if I use my PTO? The whole point of PTO is that the company is agreeing to give you 10 days worth of slack. So obviously it shouldn't be a problem if you use that 10 days of slack. Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, and that it doesn't actually provide 10 days of sick leave? What else are they lying about?

In reverse order: > Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, No, I'm telling you that there's a difference in requirements for taking sick leave versus vacation. The only reason that sick leave doesn't have the same requirement as vacation is you don't choose when you get sick . If you take a sick day as a vacation day, you're forcing others to scramble to make up for you not being…

Understaffed is a management issue, not an employee problem.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#246

Post by Kye »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #56
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. I was once in a HR seminar where they welcomed you to the company. When the woman said "we get 19 days PTO a year", you'd be surprised how many people shot up and said "can we start taking them right now?" Before they had even worked a day! PTO days are accurred by hours worked. For me, it's ~6 hours per 15 calendar days. You think you're entitled to PTO having worked 0 hours?...

For vacation days, your point makes sense to me. For sick days, people don't get to choose when they get sick. Someone can just as easily get sick on day 1 or 2 of a job as on day 401 or 402.

A new environment with exciting new microorganisms seems especially likely to cause this.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#247

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Retric wrote: post #151
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you get 10 days, take all 10 days. So you don't agree with vharuck who said If a person's sick, they're sick. If they're faking, they're faking ? Are you really suggesting faking sickness, or am I misreading you?

Taking a sick day and calling on sick are two different things. I had a job where all unscheduled days off where taken from sick days based on company policy. Vacation days needed or be scheduled ahead of time therefore people valued sick days a little more than vacation days. Others just put them all into the same pool. It’s more about what the policy actually is than what you call it.

> Taking a sick day and calling on sick are two different things.

I think there's a locale difference here. Here in the UK, they very much are the same thing (faking sickness could get you fired if you're somehow found out), and we don't generally treat sick days as a pool to be drawn from.

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#248

Post by mcny »

Fomite wrote: post #172
lkey wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he decided he'd figured out her scam without ever bringing it up in yearly or monthly review. He also never asked for proof of the 10 days of sick leave after the first year, which is reasonable to do if he had a suspicion she was flouting a rule. If he wanted to factor sick days into his pay decision, he had a responsibility to make sure he was correct using the proper internal channels. An alternate and equally…

This was my immediate thought: "I bet she's sick for more than 10 days a year". But who knows. Maybe one of his employees trying to work through being sick will come in and give him norovirus. A man can hope.

Personally, I think PTO subsuming sick leave ought to be illegal. I've seen multiple people with bright, red noses in the office unable to function much but won't go home because they can't afford to take the day off and they already have plans to take PTO two months out.

Why should I have to risk getting the flu because of this nonsense?

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#249

Post by mcny »

DrScump wrote: post #234
lkey wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he decided he'd figured out her scam without ever bringing it up in yearly or monthly review. He also never asked for proof of the 10 days of sick leave after the first year, which is reasonable to do if he had a suspicion she was flouting a rule. If he wanted to factor sick days into his pay decision, he had a responsibility to make sure he was correct using the proper internal channels. An alternate and equally…

My first programming job was for a defense contractor. There was no PTO concept, just vacation (2 whole weeks a year) and sick leave (12 days a year). Unused sick leave accrued indefinitely but was not usable in any other way. I was putting myself through University and still had about 2.5 years of work. I was taking 12-13 units at night year round. So, there were times when I'd use a sick day for study/project/etc t…

I think asking for a doctor's note for sick leave ought to be illegal. Doctors have got better things to do!

Re: I work in an Amazon warehouse in West Sacramento

#250

Post by jogjayr »

WalterBright wrote: post #176
sharkweek wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define sick. Contagious cold? A rough day with anxiety/depression? Struggling with the side effects of a new medicine? Hung over from a night of partying? If the company’s policy is 10 days, then there is zero reason to negatively judge an employee for using those days.

My father once told me that honor is what separates men from animals, and honor is what you do when nobody is looking. We all get to choose who we are. I was also fortunate to attend a university with an honor system, to the extent that exams weren't even allowed to be proctored. Whether you cheated or not was up to you, nobody would know. I appreciated that system, and have tried to live it long after graduation. I…

Employment is a business arrangement and both parties are merely obligated to fulfill the letter of the contract they have entered into - honorable or not. If the company hits hard times will "honor" keep them from getting rid of the employee who keeps getting sick? If the company allots a limited number of sick days, the employee is entitled to take them whenever they feel they can't be productive, for whatever reason.

Honor, responsibility, and sacrifice are important in personal relationships. You should still be honorable and reliable in your relationships with each individual within the company.

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