this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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Another thing I’m not American enough to understand.
American here, so you have paid time off but greedy American capitalism boss can deny for any reason. Not enough staff, busy company time, favoritism, or simply fuck you I dont like you.
Some companies can give you monies at the end of year for your paid time off, but some don't and it's wasted due to greedy capitalism boss and given to the company casue companies have better rights then people.
For example my company and boss I work for is cool about giving time off when requested, however starting next year my company will not pay out unused PTO because reasons.
Hope this helps!
My supervisor always approves of my PTO days. She even tells me about how much I've accrued, and encourages me to use them of I'm going to lose them.
An old job of mine would constantly deny my PTO requests. It was weird - I'd always have to call in sick on those days anyway. Funny how the world works.
Yeah, the problem is with the wording. This isn't a request. It's a notice. I will not be here these days. Prepare for my absence or don't, up to you. Again, I won't be here to deal with the fallout in either case.
I had a greedy capitalist boss once who wanted to deny unpaid time off.
I literally told him, "I'm not going to be here on those days. If I still have a job when I get back, that's nice. If I don't, that's okay too." I'm not going to work at any job that thinks they own me like a slave. And guess what -- when I came back, I did still have a job.
The issue is that they specifically forced us to use a program that calls them requests and clarifies that they can be denied for any reason. Verbal agreements aren't valid. One time they even accepted my request through the program, then denied it a few days later because one of the managers wanted to take that day off and they didn't want too few staff members there. You bet your ass I was "sick" that day.
Such a weird thing from a european perspective. Here in Germany, you as a worker are obligated to take your vacation days. It even can happen that your boss asks you to take your vacation if you forget to.
Can you get me a job at your company? Is your boss willing to fill out the paperwork to hire from outside the EU?
I wish it was like that, I even work for a German company, but don't get treated quite as nice. I guess for American standards, and it's low unfortunately, it's a good company to work for.
I guess that's cause our laws force companies to make their employees take the mandated pto else they'd get into trouble. But they can aparently get away with treating overseas workers worse
In the Netherlands you're only obligated to take the days that your employer is mandated to give you (20 days per year). But most employers give more, and if you don't take those up, you can often have them paid out or save them for later years.
I had 30 days for my jobs in Germany and the Netherlands. In some jobs you "earn" more with age or staying a certain amount of years in the company.
It's "better rights Than people", not "better rights Then people"
🫡
Depending on the state you live in, that may be illegal. Many states consider accrued PTO as part of your compensation and you must be paid at your hourly rate (or salary equivalent if necessary) upon leaving the company.
That's one reason why companies started "unlimited" pto. It's no longer part of your compensation so they no longer have to pay it out since how much is "unlimited" worth? That said it's still not unlimited because you have responsibilities which if you don't complete because you were on pto still counts against you.
Thank you for the explanation. But isn't the phrasing in the meme totally soul-crushing?
(uttered by some company suit)
seems to be the implication.
In Europe, even part-time workers' time off is counted in "days off." Even if the end result were the same, I just think it sounds a lot nicer for the employee. "Hey boss, I won't be coming in for the next two weeks. Nah, make that three."
Which state do you live in? It’s very illegal to not pay out unused PTO in many states.
Stupid Texas.
Oklahoma?
I think PTO is just like regular vacation in other civilized countries? Just less of it
America bad, upvotes to the left
You're in .world bud, full of prideful euros who constantly compare their countries to the US in their free time because they choose to constantly consume American media
I wouldn't necessarily say bad, though the current US government certainly is bad. But a country that cares so little for its working population could not be called civilized in my opinion.
Unironically
Sort of. There is no legal requirement for any time off in the US. But PTO is a very common arrangement.
It is what it sounds like: Paid Time Off. Basically you have some hours available your will be paid for but you don't have to work. You earn PTO at a certain rate for every hour you do actual work, so you have to earn it.
You don't have the right to use them whenever you want; that's up to your boss, usually. You usually have to trade any kind of time off for your PTO: vacation, holidays (even mandatory ones), sick days, etc. There is usually a minimum amount of hours you have to take at a time, so you can't always take an hour here and there, but sometimes you can agree to make up time with you boss.
For extended time off, like if you have surgery, you can usually work with your employer to use a reduced rate of PTO to make it last longer, like get 40% pay. When it runs out, you don't get paid. You may still be able to keep your job, within the rules of FMLA (12 weeks), but you have no income. I am not sure what happens to insurance at that point, but I think you're covered as long as you're employed and pay premiums.
Of course this is not legally required and it's rare that it's even offered if you're part time or work for a small company, since those aren't required to offer any benefits.
I don't work in HR, I'm not a lawyer or doctor, my experience is my own, this is not legal advice, your state laws may be different, etc, etc. YMMV.
I've had a couple of jobs where the PTO was issued in one big block once a year in a use-it-or-lose-it system instead of accruing week by week. I'm not sure how common it is; I was kind of surprised by it the first time I encountered it.
In my girlfriend's current job, all PTO always expires on January 1st, no matter how old it is, no matter how much or how little you have saved up.
Which is just fucking madness.
If you want to take a vacation in the springtime? Go fuck yourself. Nobody can take a substantial vacation in the early months of the year because nobody has accrued very much PTO yet.
If you want to take a vacation in the summer (as many people do), you can only ever use about half of your yearly PTO for it, so if she wants to go on a summer vacation, she's limited to about 1 week instead of the 2 weeks she supposedly gets. A full 2-week vacation could only ever be taken in December.
Pretty much everybody there will have some PTO wasted, because even if you earned that PTO on December 31st, it sill expires on January 1st. The only way you could theoretically use up all your PTO is if you had one day's worth left and took December 31st as your day off.
And add to all of that bullshit, they still do the other bullshit of having to pretty-please request PTO, which the bosses will often deny because they're (deliberately) understaffed and apparently incapable of operating the business at all if they're missing even one employee. And even worse on top of that, their management structure is very shitty and every manager always wants to pass the buck -- there isn't just one person she needs to get permission from: she needs to ask at least 4 different managers, including the company owner, and they all need to agree on the schedule for time off.
Yeah I had that in my previous job, but they didn't call it PTO. Also we didn't use PTO for our official holidays. It was really stupid: we would get 12 months worth of time off on January 1st and all of it expired December 31st. This naturally caused everyone to basically take December off, which meant our busiest months of December and January were super fun.
In my current job, PTO is earned for each working hour at a rate decided by your seniority, so you gain more PTO per hour the longer you work there, and you can bank up to a certain amount and the excess is lost. It's a pretty big bank, so I think it's an okay-ish balance between stealing our PTO and encouraging us to use it. I guess it could be worse.
This is different from when I lived in Norway, where I had "unlimited" sick days, all bank holidays off, and an additional 5 weeks of time off a year + vacation bonus in the summer, plus time and a half for any overtime beyond 37.5hrs/wk with double pay on Sundays and holidays.
Norway's system sounds like a dream.
The first company that did the all-at-once system was at least smart about having the refresh date be your hire anniversary date. The December effect you described would have wrecked them (retailer).
Yep, it eventually dawned on them that it wasn't smart to force everyone to take off at the busiest time of year, so they started using the employee's work anniversary instead. But, by that time I already had one foot out the door.
Just stands for Paid Time Off.
You aren't required to use it for vacation, specifically.
Paid Time Off, they are supposed to be used for Vacations, they normally get used for medical event coverage (Sick days) and local social outings.
How are there no class riots all over America? Having to use your vacation days for when you're sick? That sounds stupid even from a capitalist perspective. People will come in sick and make mistakes or infect others. And they won't be nearly as efficient without at least a few weeks of guaranteed vacation per year
The short version to your question is that American society is structured specifically to prevent that outcome, and to violently crack down whenever it dares spring up.
In Germany you can get your vacation days back if you get sick during your vacation.
Das kommt mir spanisch vor
Ich hab's auch noch nie gemacht, geht aber rechtlich, wenn du dir von Arzt eine AU holst.