You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[Muta]

Originally Posted by BrolyTheUnholy

A work-life balance is important. Everything you're complaining about is not work-life balance. WLB is so, so healthy and makes for better workers.

Of course work-life balance is incredibly important, and my team has it in spades.

I will say though that I don't care what age or generation you are - your reputation and career success is definitely tied to your output. You may hate that I say that, but it's absolutely true.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Muta

Of course work-life balance is incredibly important, and my team has it in spades.

I will say though that I don't care what age or generation you are - your reputation and career success is definitely tied to your output. You may hate that I say that, but it's absolutely true.

Output and reputation may help, but I think it's more tied to the illusion of your work you give to your superiors, and which asses you kiss. You just need the right people to like you.

Oftentimes you just need to be better at playing the game, than be straight up hard working and going the extra mile.

[Geraldsh]

In smaller companies where the owner is the manager going the extra mile can pay off big time. In a large corporation middle managers may take the credit for your efforts.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I think it all depends on the situation. I’m all for an employer giving me time for normal appointments like dentist, doctor, eye doctor etc. even stuff like mechanic to do tire swaps is reasonable if it’s only a couple hours. I even get personal days that I can take in half day increments but usually for 1 or 2 hour absences I’m not even required to use them.

It seems a bit of a stretch to have multiple appointments every month. Who has 24-36 doctor, dentist etc appointments a year?

Even if you have sickly children that is a lot.

I suspect the numbers OP provided are exaggerated or they really are a bad employee. Those numbers are whack.

The other issue of course is that many industries don’t just compete within Canada, the world is massively increasingly globalized and as such we also need to compete with other countries as well. This part gets forgotten by Canadians because we have the highest standard of living on earth but if Canadians think our current standard of living is sustainable working 10-30 hour weeks we will get blown out of the water competitively by other jurisdictions. That is likely an inevitability based on the current Canadians’ mindset as demonstrated by this thread and likely by people who operate in businesses in industries in a vacuum or not having this competitive tension. It’s nice you can afford to be nice to your people and not have them work. The rest of the world in 95% of places doesn’t operate that way no matter how much you want it to and nobody is going to observe Canada as some bastion of utopia work life balance. They will just blow us out of the water and take our businesses and services instead where they can.

All that happens is Canada loses in such instances. Furthermore, work can be good for a lot of people too, actually.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

Oftentimes you just need to be better at playing the game, than be straight up hard working and going the extra mile.

Often times though these aren't inversely-related concepts. Depends on the industry and the work environment you're in. In 2022 not everything is a soul-sucking, cubicle, water cooler Office Space-style depressing existence during a work week.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I think it all depends on the situation. I’m all for an employer giving me time for normal appointments like dentist, doctor, eye doctor etc. even stuff like mechanic to do tire swaps is reasonable if it’s only a couple hours. I even get personal days that I can take in half day increments but usually for 1 or 2 hour absences I’m not even required to use them.

It seems a bit of a stretch to have multiple appointments every month. Who has 24-36 doctor, dentist etc appointments a year?

Even if you have sickly children that is a lot.

I suspect the numbers OP provided are exaggerated or they really are a bad employee. Those numbers are whack.

The crux of the matter, in my opinion, is we all know and have worked with that dirtbag who always has something.

Its the people who abused the system that led to that system being what it is today.

The sick day/Personal Day/Flex time system did not just spring out into the workforce as this perfectly, fully formed thing, it evolved into what it is now due to people gaming it as hard as possible.

I personally think that as long as you get your work done then whatever, you should be entitled to some flexibility. Granted, that comes with some problems of its own and is more difficult the bigger the organization.

Thats just me though. As long as I get what I need when I need it I'm not overly fussy about how long it took you or what you did in the meantime.

[TheIronMaiden]

I 100% understand slivers position.

That said, we have all worked with someone who thinks that Work is highschool, it is not my job to try make you pass, or to motivate you. Highschool is over, I am happy to tell your next employer that you need an adult.

[PepsiFree]

If someone is doing their job well and hitting deadlines with quality work, where they choose to work and how much they choose to work should be irrelevant to you. Too many employers feel uncomfortable if they don’t feel they have a direct power or control over people, so they try to extend it into ridiculously nitpicky issues that don’t matter.

If, however, hitting deadlines and producing quality work is an issue, then that’s on you to fix and doesn’t really have anything to do with people working from home or taking time off sick. It’s your job to set the standard for the quality of work and the importance of deadlines. And working late or restricting sick days/wfh/etc are just bandaids people who don’t know how to manage people use. They aren’t solutions to the issue at hand.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Muta

My Gen Z staff always needing time off, taking multiple appointments a month (and of course, during the day, not before work / at lunch / after work), requesting to work from home all the time, never putting in a minute more past 5 PM, or becoming sick on the slightest whim RGMG. I've noticed this over the last few years, and it just increased during and after the pandemic. I sure hope it's just a complete coincidence, or they're easily the most high maintenance generation of workers ever, haha. I'll go back to yelling at my cloud now.

This is one of the most disconnected posts I’ve read in a while.

[BrolyTheUnholy]

Originally Posted by Muta

Of course work-life balance is incredibly important, and my team has it in spades.

I will say though that I don't care what age or generation you are - your reputation and career success is definitely tied to your output. You may hate that I say that, but it's absolutely true.

I don't hate that you said it; I think in a lot of cases it's true. To some people, it doesn't matter. Not everyone is out to become President or CEO.

At the end of the day, there are those of us who don't mind staying late to work regularly, and there are those of us who feel we already spend way too much time at work as it is away from our families and the lives we love. I don't think we'll ever meet in the middle. Ideally we just find a boss who agrees with us, whichever way that is.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I think it all depends on the situation. I’m all for an employer giving me time for normal appointments like dentist, doctor, eye doctor etc. even stuff like mechanic to do tire swaps is reasonable if it’s only a couple hours. I even get personal days that I can take in half day increments but usually for 1 or 2 hour absences I’m not even required to use them.

It seems a bit of a stretch to have multiple appointments every month. Who has 24-36 doctor, dentist etc appointments a year?

Even if you have sickly children that is a lot.

I suspect the numbers OP provided are exaggerated or they really are a bad employee. Those numbers are whack.

It's rare, but it does happen. My wife has chronic illnesses and she easily has that many doctor appointments per year. Between doctor visits, having to bounce from one specialist to another and then trips to urgent care, it adds up quickly.

That being said, I think you're right that the vast majority of people are just abusing the system.

[Minnie]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

It seems a bit of a stretch to have multiple appointments every month. Who has 24-36 doctor, dentist etc appointments a year?

When my daughter's health first really started going to crap, it wasn't uncommon to have 2-3 specialist appointments a week. That was over & above having to drive in from Strathmore once a week to pick up PICC line supplies at ACH because our hospital would not supply that (we paid out of pocket for all supplies except the actual IV bags of medicine) & there was no delivery available out to us.

It was very difficult. We BEGGED to try & coordinate the appointments for the same days but specialist 1 only had clinic (ie held appointments) on Mondays, & specialist 2 only had clinic on Wednesday & specialist 3 only had clinic on Thursday. On top of all that, I had to be available to deal with her PICC line issues/changes. It's very draining & not at all easy on a family. I took 8 weeks unpaid leave to get her through the PICC line treatment. The docs had her on so many meds she barely knew her own name - she couldn't be left alone.

But, that does slow down eventually & life does return to normal, for a lot of us. But, depending on their circumstances, it may not slow down, and never mind if you've got more than 1 child with complex medical needs/issues. You have to try & coordinate all that, plus your own medical care/dental care, life balance. It's possible they truly have that many appointments over a year. I eventually chose to quit my job because it was impossible to make it all work, when a couple of years later, we ended up back in the boat of seeing specialists quite often.

[Minnie]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

then trips to urgent care..

Heh. I never even mentioned the UC/ER trips, where I'd be in the ER all night, no sleep, and get home in time to have a quick shower and then go to work for 8 hours a day. That was a real blast.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

It's rare, but it does happen. My wife has chronic illnesses and she easily has that many doctor appointments per year. Between doctor visits, having to bounce from one specialist to another and then trips to urgent care, it adds up quickly.

That being said, I think you're right that the vast majority of people are just abusing the system.

Totally but if he has a staff full of people with serious health issues then I don’t think he’d be on CP complaining about them abusing the system.

It’s not like OP said it was just one person, he said it was the whole group of millennials.

No way there’s like 6 people on staff taking that much time off legitimately.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

HA! I have learned nothing is based on merit anymore, have heard this promise over and over again. "Do this and we'll consider you for this" uh huh, sure. You'll promise the team that they will see a promotion or something, team could be 5 people or more, but yet only one promotion will be available in the next 3 years to them. Nor will they see raises over 2%.

I know someone will respond with "not all employers". That's great, but I've yet to find one that actually rewards extra/hard work and provides merit based advances. They just provide false promises.

I learned fairly quickly in my career that companies don't care about you, you're just a number to them. So I've done my job well enough to make my numbers good but I never worried about putting in extra time or going the extra mile. And whenever I've gained enough experience to expect a pay bump I've always gotten it by switching employers, any internal promotions I've gotten have paled in comparison

Work life becomes much easier when you play the same game that they do

[Hemi-Cuda]

Oh and complaining about sick day usage is such a boomer mentality. They're your days off mandated by law, use them. Mental health days are just as important as actual sick days

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Oh and complaining about sick day usage is such a boomer mentality. They're your days off mandated by law, use them. Mental health days are just as important as actual sick days

You guys get sick days?

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Oh and complaining about sick day usage is such a boomer mentality. They're your days off mandated by law, use them. Mental health days are just as important as actual sick days

If you're not sick, should you still use them though? What if you lie about being sick to use them? I would think most people would have enough integrity not to use them if they're not sick - is that wrong to expect?

Just a hypothetical question, curious about any discussion on this.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Oh and complaining about sick day usage is such a boomer mentality. They're your days off mandated by law, use them. Mental health days are just as important as actual sick days

haha yeah I find it hilarious when people don't take sick days and #### on people who do, but as soon as you just change the word to "flex" days from "sick" days people will take every last one.

I did away with "sick" days at my work and just call them "flex" days so I don't have to hear from busy-bodies who have suspicions that so-and-so wasn't actually sick when they didn't come in yesterday. Like, I don't fataing care. People need a day off sometimes. I also just pay out all unused flex days at year-end. It just seems so much more fair.

But not using your sick days through the year? Good job, hero. lol.

[ZedMan]

Originally Posted by Muta

If you're not sick, should you still use them though? What if you lie about being sick to use them? I would think most people would have enough integrity not to use them if they're not sick - is that wrong to expect?

Just a hypothetical question, curious about any discussion on this.

If your employer is going to be ridiculous enough to mandate a specific number of paid sick days then yes, yes you should.