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Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

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Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#141

Post by nly »

compiler-guy wrote: post #105
tavavex wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

"Unlimited PTO" is a fiction created by accountants that sounds good on paper. When you need or want time off, you work it out with your manager. No debate about how many days you have left this year, or how many you have accumulated. It's undefined and technically you are supposed to work together and away you go. Accountants like it because guaranteed time-off is a liability that appears on the company's books as a…

I worked at a small firm once where an 18 year old joined and took full advantage of the "unlimited PTO".

He was taking roughly a third of his time off.

Fired inside 6 months, and amazed it took this long.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#142

Post by Der_Einzige »

Aurornis wrote: post #119
codegeek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of these shitty corporate companies that don't give a shit about their employees, the well is now poisoned for companies that do care especially smaller ones. Employees don't want to give their best anymore because they are burnt elsewhere and they become unemployable at smaller companies. It is a sad state of affairs.

I've worked at the full spectrum from great to terrible (and eventually one that went legally fraudulent) companies. You're right that there can be a problem at small companies when you hire someone out of a toxic company. Some people love the fresh start and are so happy to finally be in a healthy environment that they thrive. Some people are so broken from toxic previous employers that they can't adapt. We hired a…

Stop trying to hire folks from AWS and this won't happen. Micrsoft is famous for "rest and vest" and a far less toxic culture as a result. You could also try hiring from Intel, where the internal "great place to work" propaganda is known as "great place to leetcode" because usually the work pace is so lax that its seem as a stepping stone for further advancement on your own time...

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#143

Post by peab »

compiler-guy wrote: post #105
tavavex wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

"Unlimited PTO" is a fiction created by accountants that sounds good on paper. When you need or want time off, you work it out with your manager. No debate about how many days you have left this year, or how many you have accumulated. It's undefined and technically you are supposed to work together and away you go. Accountants like it because guaranteed time-off is a liability that appears on the company's books as a…

we have "unlimited" time off, with the recommendation of taking off at least 1 week per quarter. This seems to work pretty well, and I'd rather have this than 20 days PTO. I usually try to take 1 week off, as well as 1 day here and there for an extra long weekend.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#144

Post by KittenInABox »

georgeecollins wrote: post #133
figmert wrote: post #3

There's no reward for loyalty any more, and it's caused everyone to job hop (at least while that was possible), including me. At the time, employees complained about it, and in the same breath refused to give out any promotions and/or reward employees. Or they'd reward them with some shitty voucher. The world has literally become the people vs corporations. There is no soul in working any more.

It is a trade off that also helps US companies be more efficient. If you want more job stability, try working in France where companies can't lay off workers as capriciously. But then they also don't staff up as fast, don't take as many risks. Pick your poison. I prefer employment to be transactional. I think it always ultimately is. There is a role for government to not let employers unfairly take advantage of worke…

I am perfectly for less job stability in the US but only if it comes with a strong safety net. Losing your job after a year or six months is whatever broski if you have robust healthcare and are unlikely to go homeless. I see SpaceX and Anthropic aiming for IPOs in the trillion range of valuation and all I can see is, how come these companies are benefitting from the "increased efficiency" but the regular guys are not feeling the same kind of optimism? I wanna cheer for them because a rising tide lifts all boats. Instead I feel less and less secure while I have anonymous online people "well actually"ing me about how broadly my life is supposedly better in aggregate average. The cognitive dissonance makes no sense to me.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#145

Post by sitkack »

willis936 wrote: post #136
tavavex wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

It's unlimited in that you can request time off at any time with no balance or speed limit. The first order justification is that it saves some money from having to pay out unused time off balances at the end of the year / tenure or have people burst time off at random synchronous periods. However the second order effect is that the "how much time off is too much time off" is never defined and is a moving target. "If…

No written rules is fascism.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#146

Post by mekael »

dmbche wrote: post #74
MangoCoffee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

two weeks notice when you leave but where's the two weeks notice when they fired you.

Don't give two weeks!

Depending on the size of the market in your area, or the market in general, not giving two weeks is effectively blackballing yourself. The city I work in is small enough I might have trouble in the future after leaving a manager in a lurch or burning a bridge.

Is that how things should be handled? Nopers. Is it how things are due to employers having more power than employees? Yeahpers.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#147

Post by compiler-guy »

yladiz wrote: post #120
compiler-guy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not. Nothing.

Maybe in the US, but in countries with minimum holiday time you get the minimum in your contract (or a bit more) and the employee handbook says you have unlimited. Companies can’t shirk their responsibility here legally by saying they give unlimited vacation.

"Contracted minimum with more at manager's discretion" isn't what people usually mean when they talk about unlimited pto.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#148

Post by sitkack »

mullingitover wrote: post #85
9rx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously wages and productivity had to decouple. Wages measure human labor, while productivity measures all output, including that which comes from automation. ~50 years ago is when automation started to become more than a curiosity in industry. Human productivity to wages have kept pace with each other, though, so there is nothing to suggest anything has changed for the human. It is not like the robots are seeking…

> Wages measure human labor, while productivity measures all output, including that which comes from automation. Until we have sentient robots, all that automation is simply a lever with a human laborer at the end of it.

What limits the length of the lever? The agricultural lever is already crazy long, the manufacturing lever, same. We could be doing the same with less, not more with the same.

When do we stop?

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#149

Post by nradov »

pjc50 wrote: post #88
nradov wrote: post #48

Kind of a silly article. If you're working in education administration or local government then why would you even expect career progression? These are not growth industries.

Those have always offered career progression, though. Whether the industry is growing is a different variable to whether someone is growing in competence. Some environments require progression as a sort of anti-stasis measure. Famously including army officers, not exactly a growth industry either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_or_out

Always? Growth in educational administration and local government employment is mostly a post-WWII phenomenon. Fortunately that's now starting to turn around as the level of waste is enormous: the majority of white-collar workers in those fields produce very little value that contributes to the organization's core mission. They're not directly teaching students or fixing roads. Some level of administrative overhead is necessary to keep things running but in general we're way past the optimal level. Ideally there should be huge cuts to save costs and negative career progression with some management employees being moved back to individual contributor roles.

Re: Roughly a quarter of American professionals hit a wall in their careers

#150

Post by sitkack »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #132
deburo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was it different? I never saw that in big corporations, only SMBs when the founders were still at the helm.

>When was it different? The British Army passed on promoting George Washington. Twice. Nothing changes.

And rightly so, he defeated them, think of what he could have done in the inside!
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