Please do not list your company

Country: USA
Sick/Personal Days: 7 Personal Days (for sick days or whatever)
Holidays: I don't really know but I generally get most of them
Vacation: On this I get a good amount. It equals 4 weeks a year.
Blue Collar/White Collar? White collar



I just heard on the radio that America gets far fewer (if any) sick days and holidays than any other developed country in the world. And that for most folks, if they take a personal/sick day, they lose money or get fired.

WTF America?

USA
None
None
None
A little of both

i always get yelled at the next day if i take a personal/sick day. we get five a year, though really we're supposed to think as if we don't get any.

i think we get 10 days vacation a year? i forget. it's something trifling.

and holidays, we only get the ones that they absolutely HAVE to give us, plus one floating holiday. they ask us to volunteer to work holidays, which i usually do, because then i get a free day off to schedule whenever i want, plus i get double time and a half...really about the only "sweet deal" available where i work.

Jer gets

Three weeks payed vaca
Paid Holidays

I don't know about his sick/personal days, cuz he never takes any, but I'm sure he gets some.

As many as I choose. I could never work for someone who will deny me of a vacation when I feel like I need one. and in return I'm responsible enough to not take a vacation every week.
I give it all, and I expect the same back.

I own the company so.....

I get 4 "personal holidays" a year, but they must be pre-planned just like vacation days, so it's kind of silly to name than anything different. I get 4 weeks vacation a year, so I basically get almost 5 weeks a year.
I don't get "sick time", but if I call in sick I don't really lose any pay. It's weird. You're kind of expected to work from home or pick up hours later in the week or the following week so it all kind of averages out. Before I was salaried I think I could get up to 2 weeks sick pay a year or something like that.
Of course, I've worked at this company over 10 years now, so it took me quite a while to work up to that. I've heard you often START with 4 weeks vacation in France and go up from there.
I don't think we value family and personal life enough in the US. Here it is expected that your job IS your life. And for me, I'm very much the opposite. My job has little to do with my life. I think this has gotten better over the years, but we have a looooong way to go.

CarrieMpls said:

Oh, and we get about 4 or 5 major American holidays paid. I support a center that is 24/7, 365 days a year, though, so on occasion I may have to work on a holiday, though I haven't in the last year I've been in this position.

USofA

48 hours sick/personal

We're closed for 6 paid holidays

4 weeks vacation- I work Mon-Fri so that equals 9 days off per vac, and I'm known to add a personal day... or two to vacs.

White Collar in a blue lab coat


When I lived in Belgium we had like 2-3 off days from school a month- Europe is holiday galore!

CarrieMpls said:

but...

It's got worse! When I started working retail outta high school everything closed @ 9pm and places had Sun hours like from 12-6pm. Now everythings open 7am-10pm or 24/7!

You Americans are being ripped off.

I get something like 24/25 holidays a year, not including the various public/Bank Holidays we get (Good Friday, Boxing Day, etc) and there must be at least ten of those. So between 35-40 days off a year.

Sick days are a grey area... my company introduced this ridiculous system a couple of years ago where you're supposed to stay within certain set targets. Of course, everybody knows when they're going to be sick! I won't bore you with the details but it really is a fucked up system the way it's calculated. At least we get paid sick days, I guess; some people don't even get those. But, like Anx says, you are made to feel extremely guilty when you take them, even if you're on the verge of collapse and your head is hanging off.

You should all become orthodox Jews. there's a holiday almost every week

onenitealone said:

How many hours do you work a week?

UK based

I have 35 days paid annual leave entitlement
Plus national holidays which total 8 days
Then a few days when the buildings are closed around easter and Xmas

Sick leave is pretty ad hoc, if I am ill I tend to stay at home - no real comeback.
and I can have upto 20 days parental leave too

So probably around 50 days paid leave plus lots of others unpaid.

And i just quit this job!!

Today my job is white collar with orange brown and blue stripes.

Having said that, I have no set working hours so 12 hour days are common and the money is shite despite my qualifications. I do feel sorry for Americans though.
[Edited 6/20/07 5:43am]

I work in the UK

My holiday entitlement = 29 days per year
Bank Holidays = 8 per year
Sick leave = whatever, up to 6 months full pay

As I work 37 hours per week using flexi-time it is possible for me to have an extra 12 days paid holiday per year.

I do think when you compare bank holidays in Europe, England is pretty hard done by!

ArielB said:

oh man, ain't it the truth. when i lived in new york i worked at a jewish-owned company and it seemed like we'd get like every other day off. it was HOTT.

CarrieMpls said:

35 hours.


1 hour lunch per day, two 15 minute breaks. I say that because when I got talking to some guys I met in America once, we got talking about jobs, hours, etc and they couldn't believe it! They said if you take an hour for lunch over there, or work a 7 hour day, it's seen as lazy.



.
[Edited 6/20/07 6:08am]

onenitealone said:

See?? We TOTALLY get it wrong here.



I simply wasn't meant to be an american.

Country: USA
Holidays: 8 Company Holidays
4 Optional Holidays (Chosen out of 7 possible additional holidays)
Vacation: 4 Weeks per year (Everyone starts with 3 weeks & gets an
additional week after 7 years)
Sick Days: 3 Sick "occurances" - an occurance can be either a single day
or a continuous block of days
Personal Days: 2

However, being in the IT field (database administrator) I am on call 24/7 and they get waaaaay more than 40 hours per week from me.
[Edited 6/20/07 6:16am]

CarrieMpls said:

Awwwww.....

Yes, but I would exchange my crappy job for yours in a heartbeat, believe me.

USA
10 paid holidays
our vacation time accrued...I've been here 10 years so I accrue 7.67 hours per pay period...it works out to 23 days a year, that I must take or I lose the time and do NOT get paid for vacation time not taken.
plus after completing 8 years here you get a one time gift (sabatical) of 20 extra vacation days that you can carry over for how ever long.
we have 5 paid sickdays too but as with everyone else it's always a guilt trip to take them.

USA

I have no idea what the breakdown of my hours are, all I know is I get hours every two weeks added to my AL/SL bank. I just looked at my hours right now and I have a total of 176 hrs we have our AL and SL combined plus I get almost all holidays off, I think I have it pretty good here

USA

I haven't started working yet, but benefits state I accrue time off (paid/sick/personal) 8 hours for every 208 hours worked for the first 6 months and then 8 hours for every 138.67 hours worked after 6 months. I also get 6 paid holidays.

My husband's company has a plant in Italy and they work 35 hour weeks (they have to have permission to work more than that in any given week), plus they have the whole month of either February or October off (can't remember which one), plus they get 4 extra weeks of vacation throughout the year, as well as holidays. The amazing thing is that this plant (though they work fewer hours and fewer days throughout the year) has a higher production rate than the ones in the US.

Imago said:

Not enough.

8 paid holidays (though if the holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, they often give us the Monday or Friday off, as well)
20 days of vacation (with the option of "buying" an additional 5)
No formal sick time -- you just stay home if you're sick

I work a white-collar job, and I'm salaried (as opposed to being paid by the hour).

Yes, USA is fucked, and it's probably why people waste so much time on the job here!

They're shooting themselves in the foot thinking we're working more when we're not.

Holland
24 days a year
some extra days for xmass and eastern

I have now -48 hours so that's a little over a week I have to pay back at the end of the year


oh and sick days are always paid here no matter how many times you call in sick.



sick days edit
[Edited 6/20/07 11:08am]

Canada
Stat holidays are all paid
Get one half day off a week
35 hour work week
Nothing formal in regards to sick/personal days off
Holiday: 2 weeks (as I am on contract)
White collar

Country: USA

Sick/Personal Days: Because I only call of 2 or 3 times a year and it rolls over I have accrued 234 hours of sick leave and 18 personal necessity days!

Holidays: Everu holiday, we even got a new one off this year Ceasar Chavez Day.

Vacation: If I choose, from June 15 - August 28th. But I usually do one 3 week session of summer school, plus i coach So I say I get about 3 solid weeks of summer to myself..

Blue Collar/White Collar? Hybrid Coaching Blue Collar/Educator White Collar


I have noticed that whenever I feel a sense of "burnout" a vacation and or holiday always seems to come right up so thats kinda cool I guess.

USA
Company Citi

9 Sickdays
2 Personal Days
1 Floating Holiday
20 Vacation Days

I'm off all Holidays except Columbus Day and Veterans Day (so it's 10 paid Holidays)
the 1 Floating Holiday is because the Banking side of Citi are off Columbus Day and the Corporate People can use the Floating Holiday anytime we want to
[Edited 6/20/07 12:02pm]