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How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

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Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#121

Post by cafard »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #97
shawabawa3 wrote: post #24

I find the whole notion of "sick days" and accruing them bizarre. What happens if you're sick but don't have enough sick days saved? Are you fired? Stop getting payed? For comparison, this is how sick leave works in the uk: https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby

I worked at a smaller company who had two weeks paid vacation and unlimited sick days. The sick days rule was an unwritten rule, but man, did it get abused. We had a woman who was up for a promotion and didn't get it. She went in and asked the manager why she didn't get her promotion and the manager told her, "Well, with close to 50 sick days, I'm not sure you're completely committed to to your current job." So yeah,…

I worked for a government contractor where one accrued something like half a day of sick leave every two weeks. A lot of people thought that they were robbing themselves if they didn't burn every sick day fairly promptly. Evidently more than a few people in management did the same.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#122

Post by drostie »

michaelochurch wrote: post #25

The takeaway from all of this: employers in the U.S. do not care about mothers of young children at all, unless we’re consumers of their products. It might be more accurate to say that they view us as horrible useless burdens who need to be ushered back to full-time work as swiftly as possible. They will do anything in their power to keep employees from exercising their federally guaranteed rights to twelve weeks of…

I normally really like you and upvote your comments as thoughtful, but in this case I really have to disagree. Eugenics arguments are deeply flawed. They are based on an assumption that the nature-vs-nurture debate is decided firmly in the nature direction, and that assumption is wrong.

"[A] point-of-view is worth 80 IQ points. If we're born in 10,000 BC with the IQ of Leonardo [da Vinci]... not a lot is gonna happen. Because it's not a question of being smart; we--we aren't a very smart species. We can accumulate knowledge, and that helps, but most traditional societies have accumulated a lot of knowledge. The things that make big changes are changes in our context, like the invention of reading and writing, the invention of modern science four hundred years ago. Those completely changed the way we look at the world." [1]

People who are smarter individually are generally not smarter because they had smart genes, but because they've practiced more. I mean, I think talent exists, sure, but I do not think you can distinguish easily between innate talent that is somehow biological versus learned talent acquired by practice which has since been totally hidden from view (a childhood hobby of drawing, for example). Smart parents have smarter kids because they practice them more in thinking in smart ways.

It occurs to me rereading your comment that you don't outright say genetic differences -- but it seems to be a present subtext. I guess this issue has hit home for me since a long time ago: it's a private peeve of mine, when people say that adopted kids are "not really your" kids. I've heard several variations of those words and each time it bugs me because of course they are your kids. I have two adopted siblings, and two biological siblings, and because we are closer in age and went to similar schools, I am much more like my adopted siblings than my biological siblings. Of course I am; we did the same things as children.

It's not that genetics has nothing to say on any matter, but that its influence on your present state is much smaller than you'd think. Evolution happens over much longer time-scales and represents a slight force in an extremely noisy environment, something like a random walk with a slightly biased coin. Even if someone had a genetic predisposition to smartness, this might be based on a 'chord' of genes which need to work together, highly unlikely to be inheritable. Over the next two hundred years we don't need to watch a 'reproductive differential'; we need to watch an 'education differential' and a 'cultural differential'.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXoSK4tLxK8

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#123

Post by tortos123 »

WHAT A NIGHTMARE!

In your case I'd speak with the highest ranked staff I could find in the UNI and let them know the situation... not even in the army are that cruel.

If that person couldn't help, I'd quit that awful environment and I'd also try to publish it through the News or something. Get some bad publicity going on for them!

This is not a place for human to work in... Time flies and the birth of a child is not something you'l see everyday!

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#124

Post by sosborn »

baldfat wrote: post #113
rcavezza wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's mostly for accounting purposes. Most employers allow you to borrow from what hasn't accrued. It doesn't typically become an issue until you leave the company and have used more than has been accrued. At that time, they will probably not pay you for X days you are over your accrual.

When you say "Most" I assume you have worked 100% at places I haven't. HR and managers state in my cases, "If you don't have sick time you will not be paid and you may lose your position." Sick time starts after two or three months.

You should try to find more reasonable employers. Believe it not they do exist in the U.S.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#125

Post by zten »

michaelochurch wrote: post #31
gambiting wrote: post #20

It's completely insane that US doesn't have unlimited sick leave like EU does. It's just backwards and ridiculous - if someone is ill, then they are ill, what if they don't have any sick leave left? You fire them? I literally can't stomach this. When I was little I always thought I would emigrate to the States to work - now I would pay not to go.

Outside of the Valley and New York, where there's less competition for talent, there are many companies that deduct sick days from vacation. This allows them to say that they offer 15 days (which, by US standards, is about average) of "PTO" in recruiting when it's actually less. When companies pull that shit, you see people getting a lot sicker, because people come into the office when they should be staying home. Th…

I have to use PTO for sick days in SF. Oops.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#126

Post by kefka »

Pxtl wrote: post #56
ceejayoz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnDi8KlIIAA750F.png US provides zero weeks paid maternity leave. Pakistan provides 12. Venezuela manages 18. Canada does 50. Per Wikipedia, the US joins Papua New Guinea, Suriname, and Liberia as the only countries to not provide paid parental leave of any kind.

Important to note that these are government leave programs. A big problem in the USA is that it is expected that your employer handle this stuff. Here in Canada, the employment insurance system - a payroll-tax-funded program that handles short-term unemployment benefits - also handles parental leave. They offer 4 months for birth mothers and a an additional 8 months for any parent. The money is tiny - something like…

I would correct what you said.

That policy punishes the company of hiring any fertile woman.

My dad used to hire for a large engineering department. One of the things he had to keep in mind is that if a woman is hired, they can leave pretty much at any time due to FMLA, and hiring someone else is not feasible (due to law). The simple result is if he were given a choice between a man and woman of equal capacity, he would pick the man every time. Women have too much legal baggage.

My answer is that you extend the same rights to the man, and that calculus would equalize itself... but that is wishful thinking here in the US.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#127

Post by sosborn »

Osmium wrote: post #44
PeterisP wrote: post #8

Pretty much every country in the world, both 'first-world' and poor countries, has it better than USA in this regard. Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California - you have to ask for a significant premium in salary, since even in good companies (the OP lists multiple items where her job is considered 'above average') you're simpl…

> Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California It's interesting. This is a difficult conversation to have. I have good personal reasons for wanting to relocate to California (I'm British/not American so this is difficult), though logistically it doesn't seem like that will/can happen. What I don't understand though is why so many p…

>it seems like it's fairly low down in terms of standard of living/worker's rights/healthcare/etc.

While this is certainly true when you discuss the bare minimum legal requirements, many employers here go above and beyond the requirements and offer benefits that are equal to what you find in other countries.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#128

Post by coldpie »

sarah2079 wrote: post #103
shawabawa3 wrote: post #24

I find the whole notion of "sick days" and accruing them bizarre. What happens if you're sick but don't have enough sick days saved? Are you fired? Stop getting payed? For comparison, this is how sick leave works in the uk: https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby

Another thing that makes it even worse is having health insurance that is tied to your employment. So if you get cancer and can't manage to keep your time off to less than 12 weeks plus your accrued sick days then you can be fired and lose not only your income, but your health insurance as well. It is an unbelievably awful system.

Indeed. Remember this when you go to vote next month.

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#129

Post by maxerickson »

sarah2079 wrote: post #103
shawabawa3 wrote: post #24

I find the whole notion of "sick days" and accruing them bizarre. What happens if you're sick but don't have enough sick days saved? Are you fired? Stop getting payed? For comparison, this is how sick leave works in the uk: https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby

Another thing that makes it even worse is having health insurance that is tied to your employment. So if you get cancer and can't manage to keep your time off to less than 12 weeks plus your accrued sick days then you can be fired and lose not only your income, but your health insurance as well. It is an unbelievably awful system.

Disability insurance is meant to kick in there.

(I'm not arguing that this actually works for everyone, just that there is a mechanism for dealing with inability to work)

Re: How My Employer Put the “FML” in FMLA

#130

Post by ep103 »

omurphyevans wrote: post #75
ep103 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what edmund burke meant when he said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," and Arendt meant when she coined the term "The banality of evil." But I always thought it was put best by some blogger I read years ago. They said that in the fantasy or religious worlds, evil is something that just exists so corporeally that it might as well be a noun. An evil rock is evil b…

Just a tiny nitpick - Arendt was a woman - Hannah Arendt to be more precise.

Updated, thanks!
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