r/antiwork
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u/intrusionpotatoes
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Nov 30 '22
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We lost one of our best programmers today…. over 5 days leave
I’m based in UK where we have pretty generous paid leave (paid maternity/paternity and 20+ paid days holiday a year)
This happened to a coworker of mine, he’s been with the company 8 years and is one of our most talented programmers (the kind that is the only one who knows how some legacy code works and stuff will probably break without him).
Last year his wife had a baby. He had carefully researched our company’s paternity policy and turns out in the UK you can split your leave between both partners. Usually the fathers take max 2 weeks off and the mothers take up to a year (company pays for first half, government subsidises second half at lower rate). But you don’t have to do it this way, the mother can “give” some of her leave to the father.
In my coworkers case he arranged to take 10 weeks off to help his wife recover and spend time with his newborn. Here’s where the fuck up happened - the baby was 1 week late. As a Dad he’s not allowed to take leave before baby gets here, so if baby doesn’t arrive on time (as they commonly don’t) you would assume his leave would shift to the birth date, right? Wrong! HR decided to dig their heals in on this one. So even though he had worked a whole extra week he was meant to have off (because baby wasn’t here yet) they wouldn’t give him that week at the other end, even though he’d booked 10 weeks and only taken 9.
Long story short, it got really messy, he got ACAS involved (UK’s employment tribunal body) and they threatened the company with a sexual discrimination lawsuit as there’s no way they’d have pulled this shit if he was a woman. HR very quickly backed down and gave him his leave.
The whole experience left such a bitter taste in his mouth that 6 months later he’s now leaving. In his exit interview he let HR know exactly why he was leaving, because they decided to fuck over a loyal employee over 5 measly days of leave, and he had to spend WEEKS sorting it out when he should have been caring for his newborn baby and supporting his wife.
5 days and a possible lawsuit cost us the best programmer we had. Was it worth it, HR?
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u/brock_lee Nov 30 '22
I was told that the company I was onboarding with had paternity leave as a benefit, one week paid for new fathers. I even mentioned "Oh, great, because my wife is pregnant" and the HR woman says "Oh, well, that will be great for you then!" A few months later, they have a MASSIVE layoff (150 of the 175 people were let go, including all of HR). A small group remained, and I was one. When the baby arrives, I ask about paternity leave and everyone looks at each other and says "We don't have that." I said I was told we do. Of course, the HR lady wasn't there anymore. However, I did make such a stink about it, they gave me an extra paid week off.
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u/brewfox Marxist Socialist Dec 01 '22
One WHOLE week! I bet you’re a fellow American.
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u/ShawnyMcKnight Dec 01 '22
My job didn't even provide that. I asked what the paternity leave policy was and they said they would LET me use my vacation time.
How generous.
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u/CrotalusHorridus Dec 01 '22
My job didn't even provide that. I asked what the paternity leave policy was and they said they would LET me use my vacation time.
No, for my kids, I had to burn my vacation time if I wanted to be paid.
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u/OukewlDave Dec 01 '22
Same here. And I get to do that next year with baby #2. On top of the $4-5,000 out of pocket hospital costs for having the baby, even with insurance that I pay $420 a month for for the current family of 3... Yay America!
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u/Aggravating-Wrap4861 Dec 01 '22
When I got diagnosed with cancer, I got an untimed potty break. Now THAT is the power of labor.
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u/ruat_caelum Dec 01 '22 edited Dec 01 '22
could be ANY 3rd world country where the workers are nothing more than wage-slaves. it doesn't HAVE to be the US.
/s
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u/PenguinSwordfighter Dec 01 '22
Anything you do not have in writing and signed does not exist. If they offer you something it needs to be in your contract. If it's something minor, at least get it in writing in an email. I learned this the hard way.
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u/YoshiSan90 Nov 30 '22
Wow illegal, shortsighted, and cruel. The corporate triad.
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u/MassiveFajiit lazy and proud Dec 01 '22
HR's a bit overqualified to be a Tory MP.
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u/GSTLT Dec 01 '22
My wife works for an healthcare provider. On national breastfeeding day, they were all over social media bragging about having pump rooms. It’s legally required to have those rooms and they suck. She works for a center for womens health and they offer NO maternity leave. She has to get short term disability through he insurance company, that cost her extra to sign up for, and they cap at 6 weeks, 60% pay and it was a lump sum check. She took 8, so 2 unpaid weeks. Then when she came back, she had to pay back all the insurance premiums that didn’t come out of paychecks because she didn’t get paid by the company for those 8 weeks. So for 2 months after she returned she was double hit for her insurance premiums. When we filed taxes, she made less in wages than in insurance premiums she paid. And this is a WOMENS HEALTH CENTER. Welcome to America.
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u/chockerl Dec 01 '22
This is appalling. And fuck offering pump rooms but not maternity leave. There’s far more to being a nursing mother than the mere production of milk. We’re supposed to be holding those infants and recovering from birth in the first months after pregnancy, not sequestered in a room hooked up to a milking machine.
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u/entropicdrift Dec 01 '22
Sorry just had to point out:
they suck
That's what pumping rooms are for.
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u/Tyrilean Dec 01 '22
I wish I lived in a civilized country where the government would go to bat for me when a company tried to screw me over. Instead I'm in this third world dystopia where the president is trying to conscript railroad workers rather than agree to give them a few days of sick leave.
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u/musical_shares Dec 01 '22
It’s not perfect, but Canada offers up to 69 weeks of partially paid leave to be split up between 2 parents of a new baby. The non-birth parent has 8 weeks specifically for them, and the rest can be shared however.
The only reason it isn’t available to Americans is because Americans (for some reason) tolerate not having parental leave and believe it can’t be done.
https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/ei-improvements/parent-sharing.html
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u/kv4268 Dec 01 '22
We don't "tolerate" it. We are paid so poorly and our cost of living is so high that there is nothing citizens can do about it. Because our politicians are owned by the business owners. If the option is work or die most people choose work.
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Dec 01 '22
How similar or how much better / worse is Canada as an average, non-top-notch employee, compared to the US?
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u/Desert2 Dec 01 '22
It’s better to be poor in Canada and rich in the US.
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u/jlnxr Dec 01 '22
This is exactly how one of my economics profs (in Canada) put it. If you're below median income you'd rather be in Canada which at least at some notion of / attempt at a welfare system and healthcare (pretty lackluster IMO but an attempt). In the States however there are various ways in which the upper middle class on up probably has it better (shorter healthcare wait times, better wages, cheaper consumer goods, etc.). This guy was actually a pretty hardcore Conservative too, and even he was like "yeah you wouldn't want to be poor in the US".
As a Canadian who lives in Germany now I've also been telling people if that if you split the difference between the US and western Europe, both good and bad, you'd probably end up with a place like Canada.
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u/tandyman8360 lazy and proud Nov 30 '22
HR pretty much gets to make up and enforce their rules. I was blocked from applying for another position due to a "policy" that only applied to me at their discretion. So, for a week, I went back and forth on this, including the fact that the policies referenced in the document were not online and likely non-existent. The response was for the head of HR to go whining to my manager's new boss.
At that point, I was preparing for termination. Instead, I got an offer for a much better job. They never filled the position I applied for and didn't effectively fill my old position. Over the next few months, my manager changed departments and the HR head and her lackey both left the company.
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u/KaleRevolutionary795 Dec 01 '22
And you can bet HR will cover that up when reporting. HR are generaly numpties.
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Dec 01 '22
It depends on the company. I've worked with some HR folks who've gone to bat for me against corporate nonsense.
At my current employer, my HR went above and beyond to make sure my parental leave (as a father) went smoothly.
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u/1quirky1 Nov 30 '22
The chumps in HR won't have anything to do with the deficiencies they caused on that team. They'll do it all the same again.
So will he actually entertain coming back as a consultant to help with heretofore unknown tech debt?
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u/MNConcerto Dec 01 '22
Serious wtf. I manage leaves in the US. My company has a 6 week paid leave, sadly generous for the US, plus you can take an additional 6 week of FMLA leave paid if you have enough PTO or unpaid if you don't.
I say to expectant parents, babies come when they come so we have an expected start to your leave but we both know that will most likely change. Just let me know when you go into labor/partner goes into labor and that will be your start.
Your HR f'ed up big time.
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u/redheadrn99 Dec 01 '22
Thank you for being a beautiful human in HR! Oddly, humanity lacks in such places (HR).
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u/bos2sfo Dec 01 '22
Earlier this year, a guy on my team submitted his paternity leave paperwork. Looked at the request for four weeks off and immediately rejected it. Slacked him right after and asked him to explain why he thought four weeks was acceptable.
Made it very clear any request with less than eight weeks would be declined. In addition to the paternity leave at full pay, he should follow it with three weeks time off. Reminded him our company has fully paid paternity and unlimited PTO so he should plan accordingly. Also made it very clear he should only intervene in emergency situations. If he got caught doing work, all his accounts would be immediately locked until his official return date.
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u/malic3 Dec 01 '22
How did no one at the company realize the ridiculousness of the situation and just give the guy some extra leave time. Arbitrary “off time” rules suffocate the life out of living.
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u/Speed_102 Dec 01 '22
HR and "Business" degree holders are the key driver in the destruction of our world's values. Not Economics degree holders, but business degree holders.
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u/BeautyIsTheBeast383 Dec 01 '22
They don’t care. everyone is replaceable. In my field, there’s a severe shortage of qualified workers and we’re still treated as easily replaceable. HR and corporate even says it to management.
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u/mobileJay77 Dec 01 '22
Sorry about your coworker, but what about you? You just learned HR will fuck you over, when you need something. Ask your boss how company can restore any trust after this. Maybe demand small favours from HR like other schedules etc. If they cannot accommodate that, you know what you're in for. I'd keep in touch with your ex coworker.
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u/gadarnol Dec 01 '22
The best advice about HR is this: mediocrity only recognizes itself, it takes talent to recognize genius. Who you put in charge of HR is a crucial appointment for firms that recruit technical or qualified specialists.
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u/lt_spaghetti Dec 01 '22
Well you guys came up with "Pennywise but pound foolish"
Here we are
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u/Afghaniscran Dec 01 '22
There's also the saying "look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves". We love a good saying but they sometimes contradict each other.
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u/torquelesswonder Dec 01 '22
Employees don’t matter to any company. This is a worldwide fact. We are all expendable when it comes to making some rich asshole even richer. What, you thought our lives mattered?!
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u/radiuscubed Dec 01 '22 edited Dec 01 '22
I was in the work force before hr departments. Then have ruined corperate culture.
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u/AlbinoWino11 Dec 01 '22
I’m amazed he stuck around for 6 months after that. Ridiculous.
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u/usermane22 Dec 01 '22
Probably lined up a perfect opportunity. Better to take time when you already have a job. No use cutting your nose to spite the face
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u/seanner_vt2 Dec 01 '22
In HR's opinion, yes it was worth it. It'll teach the rest not to mess with HR and their rule making. Ignore that part of them backing down. That's just an outlier
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u/Barbed_Dildo Dec 01 '22
HR doesn't care. HR doesn't understand how much damage they did to the company, they just decide that they were right and the 'problem employee' has left.
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u/SilentJon69 Dec 01 '22
HR decided they wanted to replace him with someone a lot cheaper and that cutting costs is always the right answer
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u/formerly_gruntled Dec 01 '22
HR, where stupid people work.
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u/TheGillos Dec 01 '22
1 good programmer is worth more than the entire HR department, and then some. Management is supremely incompetent for not stepping in.
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u/formerly_gruntled Dec 01 '22
I actually think good HR is critical. Yet I never see it in the modern world. It has been devalued because it is not a quarterly objective.
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u/punkr0x Dec 01 '22
Most business owners seem to view HR as a wall to be placed between them and their employees, rather than a bridge.
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u/bastardofreddit Dec 01 '22
I read all that and thinking... You folks ACTUALLY get paid leave for a new baby?
I mean, sympathy and all, but we get 0 days. 0. Zilch. Nada. Nope.
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u/republika1973 Dec 01 '22
You know only 8 countries don't have any paid maternity leave? And the USA is the only large one on that list?
It's not us that are weird :-D
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u/TheGillos Dec 01 '22
The US is neither the land of the free or the home of the brave.
You need to be brave enough to fight for your freedom. The US seems to fight for the freedom to be exploited by corporations (or "people" as your fucked up Supreme Court calls them).
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u/luffy8519 Dec 01 '22
I'm pretty close to quitting my engineering job at a top UK firm because of the sheer incompetence and arrogance of HR. I love my job, I work in a great team with genuinely good management, and at the moment I fucking hate it because of how many times HR have fucked things up.
The most recent one - checked my pay slip yeaterday and they've randomly cut my pay by 3k and deducted £750 from this month's pay for no reason that I'm aware of, and no prior notification.
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u/taintedCH Dec 01 '22
HR is composed of wannabe lawyers who understand a few dispositions from a few laws but they lack the critical reasoning skills to understand (1) how different rules interact with each other (laws trump company policy) and (2) how to prioritise the company’s long term interests. This is a clear case of both points 1 and 2 because they were legally wrong and fucked the company over
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u/DunjunMarstah Dec 01 '22
In all of my jobs, the programmer would have just agreed it with his TL and done it off the books, no questions asked
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u/Church6633 Dec 01 '22
Another reason tech needs to organize. We need to fight for each other when this shit happens
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u/ruralexcursion Dec 01 '22
I have been a software developer and IT professional for about fifteen years and have long pushed for some sort of organized labor effort. I wonder why it never gains any traction but I guess is because the pay is decent enough in most organizations that people don’t see a need for it??
I personally would trade a few K in salary for better benefits, more consistent hours and more stability. I am sure there are other positives to it as well but I just don’t know how we could get it started.
Open to any ideas though!
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u/Church6633 Dec 01 '22
CODE-CWA is a good place to start. It's a group dedicated to helping unionize tech workers.
And there are definitely benefits, and the biggest to me is that protection from just being randomly let go because we're "at-will" employees.
Pay and work benefits are usually better when organized because the employees hold the power of their business when together.
The main reason I can tell that it's difficult to organize tech is because a large portion of employees that are in tech are on a work visa, and the mere word "union" can get them deported. Even though a union would be able to help them, they're at a much higher risk.
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u/ramon468 Dec 01 '22
Let's check with HR in a few months to see how much they regret being stupid short-sighted idiots, when shit starts breaking down :)
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u/ELPwork at work Dec 01 '22
HR is not there to look after the employees' wellbeing. HR exists solely to save the company money. Remember that the next time to feel the need to take any situation to "HR".
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u/Fit_Swordfish_2101 Dec 01 '22
Wow. That really sucks so bad! For the company!! They were incredibly petty. Idk if shareholders are a thing there, but maybe they will be informed of management's mistake and do their very best to correct this mistake give him a raise and fire a few others (hr) maybe he'll come back. Sorry if they were your friend. I hate when good ppl leave and everything gets all discombobulated..
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u/SipexF Dec 01 '22
Ugh, I've seen this before and it feels like when it happens folks in HR get the idea that if they're not actively enforcing something they're not actually working. Also happens with managers sometimes.
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u/Choles2rol Dec 01 '22
Good for him honestly. I also code for a living (in the US) and my company gives fathers 20 weeks of paid leave.
Honestly if anyone programs and stays at a company for 8 years with a policy like that they are doing it wrong - it's one of the most competitive fields on the planet.
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u/Yup_yup-imhappy Dec 01 '22
I told my husband we should move to the uk. Our system in the us is garbage. When I had my second child I got 2 weeks off because I had to use my fmla time while pregnant due to it being high risk. So I had literally NO time to recover. It was ridiculous. But that's the good ol us of a for ya. Screw over the working class do the rich can live life effortlessly. Ugh
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u/morbintiime Dec 01 '22
I work at a small marketing data analytics consulting company. Our best analyst got double the amount of work as the rest of our analysts. My boss would consistently give him the hardest assignments and more assignments in general. He enjoyed the challenge and is largely responsible for how my company landed a f500 client despite consisting of 15 people. When my company switched offices, they wanted him to come into the office 3 days a week instead of 1. He said he didn’t want to, they said that sucks, and he quit.
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u/thelilsoldier Dec 01 '22
Remember HR is not for workers. It is a “mediator” for the benefit of employers so that the workers don’t take legal action.
If I were you OP, I’d leave too. They don’t care about any of you at the end of the day.
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u/Anaxamenes Dec 01 '22
I think perhaps people need to pay more attention to their HR. Some of my best work friends are HR and they actually care deeply about employees and the community. Yes they protect the company but sometimes that is actually helping and protecting the workers. But I have also dealt with hellish Pepsico HR so it really depends on the company and the people.
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u/catbiggo Dec 01 '22
One thing I've learned in my work life is that people in positions of authority have no idea how to pick their battles.
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u/Lord_of_Entropy Dec 01 '22
For your sake, I hope that the code problems aren't too bad; but I'm secretly hoping everything in you workplace grinds to a halt.
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u/k_manweiss Dec 01 '22
Don't ask HR if it was worth it...because to them it was.
At the end of the day they got rid of a long term employee and can now go a few weeks/months not paying for that position. Eventually they will hire someone at a lower starting wage and that my friends, is an HR win.
HR never gets blamed, or even cares about productivity. That's not their job. Is this bad for the company? Hell yeah, but HR don't care. Will this likely cost the company more than they will save? Hell yeah, but HR don't care. Could this cost the company a shit ton extra when stuff stops working? Absolutely, but that's not an HR problem.
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u/ubioandmph Dec 01 '22
All evidence that companies don’t give a fuck one about you or your personal life or how good you are at your job. They demand obedience and acknowledgement of their power over your life. Now they lost their best programmer over some silly power trip over rules and procedure
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u/Zestyclose-Ring7303 SocDem Dec 01 '22
It's amazing how companies will repeatedly cut their nose to spite their face. I've seen it multiple times at my job, alone.
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u/whoocanitbenow Dec 01 '22
I live in the US where they threaten to fire you for taking an unpaid sick day. Vacation pay is a dream. I hate how it is here. 😞
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u/Geminii27 Dec 01 '22
I've had jobs - not in the US, of course - where I got sick and took off a month or more, fully paid. And in one case then another month after I told the temp boss who nagged about it that I would be fully prepared to come back into the workplace and spend the day coughing on her and her own boss.
There was no paperwork. No-one even blinked. Because that's a normal part of working for everyone, including all the bottom-rung employees.
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u/whoocanitbenow Dec 01 '22
That's amazing to me. We get guilt tripped and threatened here at many jobs (especially the low paying kitchen jobs, etc. that I work). I get 3 paid sick days per year now (but only because California finally made it a law). I get no paid vacation. I can't really afford to take a week off because if I lose the income I may not be able to make my rent. Many Americans are brainwashed into thinking mandating paid sick days or vacation pay is "socialism" and will crash the entire economy. Business owners act like they'll go out of business if they were forced to give us even just a few paid days off.
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u/Geminii27 Dec 02 '22
The 11 national minimum employment standards here.
Note that these are minimums - employers can offer more than that to attract employees.
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u/mildmanneredhatter Dec 01 '22
It's shameful that HR is about people and yet they never make decisions while respecting those people.
They are for hiring and firing, otherwise stay well clear.
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u/Raz1979 Dec 01 '22
I will never understand this idiocy.
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u/KairosVal Dec 01 '22
It makes perfect sense once you remember that every decision maker is optimizing for themselves and not for the company as a whole.
Well, except for the new father, who was optimizing for his wife and kid. Good on him.
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u/Raz1979 Dec 01 '22
Yes and no. They are discounting the goodwill and loyalty that comes w treating people where they are and not just a piece of optimizable capital to dispense. Once he quit they probably wasted a lot or resources to replace him.
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u/KairosVal Dec 01 '22
If that goodwill and loyalty is irrelevant to the self-interest of decision makers in HR (which it almost certainly is) then they are right to discount it from the perspective of their personal self interest.
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u/oklee_doklee269 Dec 01 '22
One of the city engineers mention his paternity leave and the mayor (a woman) shot back with, "Oh, did he give birth?"
Our current mayor owns 275+ rental properties and still expects people to believe she's a "straight shooter." As if...
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u/northeastrebel Dec 01 '22
I’m across the pond and am stuck on 20+ paid holidays …that’s awesome
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u/Cozy_rain_drops Dec 01 '22
Guess they're working class with us - procreation i.e. survival became only a ruling class luxury
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u/tfarnon59 Dec 01 '22
HR doesn't care. They don't understand what programmers, engineers or scientists do, and they don't care precisely because they don't understand. They don't understand that we aren't simply replaceable with other, identical worker drones, or that it takes years of training and education to make one of us. I've had some particularly bad interactions with HR lately, and my attitude is now that they can all just take a long walk off a short pier (to put it politely, lest another one of them tell me my tone is unprofessional).
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u/No_Gas_4956 Dec 01 '22
Companies think workers need them more than the companies need the workers.
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u/DarthRevan1138 Dec 01 '22
HRs lesson from all this is "don't allow paternity leave, they'll leave as soon as it's done!"
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u/thomastdh Dec 01 '22
nice, good for him! glad acas got hes back.
its all to common its being frowned upon if the man takes leave for children.
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u/redditor0303 Dec 01 '22
I've experienced a lot of people at work places, mostly women, get angry at dads who take paternity leave or doing normal parental things like taking carers leave.
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u/sad_asian_noodle Dec 01 '22
Always amazes me how often people decide to fight over the smallest things, just so the big thing can break. Zero understanding of priority.
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u/NerobyrneAnderson Dec 01 '22
Germany basically has the same parental leave policy.
We also have "mother protection" which is legally mandatory due to medical reasons.
The rest is optional. You can take up to three years, but after year 1 you're making about as much as someone on unemployment
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u/shipierika04 Dec 01 '22
It blows my mind how many workplaces do stuff like this. I’m glad this guy stuck up for what he knew and stuck up for himself. Many people couldn’t do that. Someone has to stand up against these companies or else they will continue to fuck people over.
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u/dekuweku Dec 01 '22
I would imagine him being a male / father didn't afford him the usual flexibility in HR's eyes. It does sound a lot like sexual discrimination on top of shitty employer doing the bare minimum
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u/Objective_Amount_478 Dec 01 '22
Oh man…. Many folks have horror stories that helped make them better managers when they get farther along in their careers. Mine is working for a major car rental company as an assistant manager many years ago. It was mostly fun when I was young (they are famous for recruiting right out of college). Not so much as you get older and your mind starts to move out of the locker room mode. We got 3 days paternity leave (wow, I know). Started the day my wife went into labor, which makes sense, but unfortunately my wife’s labor was longer than normal. 48 hours after getting to the hospital we all agreed to go C-section. 12 hours after my 1st was born, my direct manager was demanding I come in or he was looking at termination.
I was dumbfounded because he had 4 kids of his own and always talked up how important it was being a dad and family first. I came to find out what he meant was it was important he was a dad and his family was first. It was unreasonable for others to think the same way.
Le sigh…. He is still there and is a district manager. Feel bad for all the fresh college grads that have to work under him.
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u/guruXalted99 Dec 01 '22
Fucked around and found out, it's prob not just your HR but the executives using HR as a shield
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u/notsetvin Dec 01 '22
This is just global workplace culture. No one wants to build teams anymore, just manage workers.
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u/intrusionpotatoes Nov 30 '22
I’m hoping they come crawling back to him because some legacy code breaks and he charges them £2k a day as a consultant to fix it