Seems my co workers are constantly requesting time off and it’s ALWAYS approved. To the point we are short handed several days a week . One employee has already taken off five days this month; a concert and then a wedding, and JUST put in for two weeks off in August. She is kind of a new hire, not even been with us a year. I like to save my time off for hunting and trapping season and I try not to take advantage as it has never been established how much time we are allotted.

What is your work policy? Just curious.

I don’t know how a business can be run this way.

My HR would dog cuss that sort of lazy no good employee. Probably fire his lazy arse to boot but there's only one of us here as it is so he'll just get a dog cussing.

Good answer!!

We have so many vacation days in our group that someone has to be off every day. With that being said the young guys take advantage of the fact that it is hard to get help, so they call in when ever they want.
It has gotten to the point that you just say you are sick and there is nothing that can be said about it.
Thanks to the Gov WALLS

Do you guys have a set amount of time? Are you or they taking more or less than that time? Was the time approved to be off? Not the workers fault if the manager said it was ok.

We have no set rule except that no one can be off at the same time as another employee. Vacations can’t overlap.
We have nothing that says “you can only request off x amount of days per calendar year”

Which is very nice but I like I said; how can you have a business like that…and furthermore how can these kids afford to take so much time off. Not just their missing wages but also the cost of their trips

What OhioBoy asked. In addition I believe employers today are forced to be more “flexible” in dealings with employees as replacements can be difficult to find. Employees market!

Yeah were kind of the same way but its up to the manager to manage it. I put in all of mine for the year when I get back from New Years. They have all year to plan for it.

Well then I have no choice but to take advantage too. It’s not in my nature but it is doing me no good to have a work ethic like I do. Nobody cares apparently

No one cares you think. It is always good to have good dependable work ethic. When it comes Layoff time you will still have a Job

I usually do not participate in these kinds of discussions but one question, are you and your coworkers hourly or salary?

Hourly

My last job at a major company, paid time off went by seniority. Something like 1 week at a year, 2 weeks at 2 years, 3 weeks at 5 years, 4 weeks at 10 years.

Unpaid time off was pretty much limitless as long as you requested it at least 2 weeks in advance. I'm sure there WAS a limit to unpaid time off but it was basically at the direct supervisor's discretion. There were enough employees that it was usually no big deal to schedule someone different. My department was a bit different as our employees were very limited, but still unpaid time off rarely was denied.

Call ins were a different matter altogether. A lot more strict.

Before I left the corporate world, I got 5 weeks vacation but I loved what I did and the people around me so much I only took time off when the wife made me. lol

I like how some of you call it calling in and others calling off!
Call offs at my job are looked down upon and for good reason but I see no difference. Either you wanna work or you don’t. To me, requesting 25 days off in 8 months is as bad as calling off

Are these paid time off or off without pay?

Without pay. We are a fairly new practice. We just now got five paid holidays a year. And I think a few paid sick days

There are a number of things in play when it comes to taking time off. I had a guy that came to work with a tooth ache. His dentist office was on the way to his job that day so he went by, remote punched out, had the tooth pulled, punched back in and continued on to the job simply because it was a big job and he didn’t want to burden the other guys by not being there. I don’t think there are too many individuals that care that much about their fellow employees out there these days. lol

You’re right about that Hobbes!!!
That dude went above and beyond. Tooth pain is no joke

LOL it's obviously call IN.... call off doesn't even make sense. You call IN to the company to tell them you're sick and that you won't be IN.

I've been with my employer for 33 years. I have 6 weeks vacation and use most of it in the fall. All our vacation is supposed to be scheduled in advance, however our supervisor will work with us on a one on one basic, depending on whether or not you have earned it. Call ins count against you and doesn't go over well. Your time is scheduled according to highest seniority first and a maximum of 2 people off per week.

I was a union pipewelder/fabricator for 1/2 my career with DOW and I worked with a lot of men who hated their trades jobs BUT never took “extra” time off BECAUSE they and their families needed the paycheck!!! Most refused to even take sick(I was one) leave because you got no $$ or 2 weeks and then only 1/2 pay as long as you were off work sick! Pretty simple principle, need $$, work to earn $$! You tell me what the problem is because from my advantage point it would look like these employees are way overpaid AND don’t need the $$!!! If you are earning enough $$ to get by, sort of like being educated beyond your intelligence, where's the incentive to work to earn more?? The shallowness of these people's lives and gross lack of critical thinking is really a serious problem for society and future generations IMHO!

If two weeks notice is given, my employer can’t deny a request. 2 weeks is enough time to properly schedule and bring in extra staff from somewhere else if req.
The first 6 months is probation with zero holidays, after that they start accruing holidays. After almost 25 years I’m entitled to 30 vac days and I can fill my OT bank up to 120hours. A lot of my unused holidays go into my retirement bank which maxes out at 150 days to be paid out lump or keep you on the pay roll longer while you’ve retired.
Unions suck eh?…….lol
I never had this while hog farming or drywalling. You work when there’s work. People complain and whine about my wage and benefits. I tell them to apply for the trade. Then they shut up…….lol. It’s good money, but it certainly isn’t free.

I tried not to worry about what other employees were doing in my department as long as what they did was within the company guidelines or policies.

I understand your frustration, Ashley, but in the grand scheme of things, we all have choices to make. You chose to be dependable, show up to work, and be a good employee; the others…not so much.

New practice.

Most new businesses go in without a solid set of rules, aka employee handbook, seems like they have to learn the hard way.

Warrior you’re over your pm limit

I save my vacation for fall. Either hunting or trapping or both. I accrue vacation so once I reach my max I have to take it or don't accrue any more. So I keep it close to the max so I have to take one or two days off a month.

Coddled
Poor work ethic
No loyalty


Seems to be the norm with many these days


Oh , and they all want top pay ......not starting pay

Sounds like poor management to me

We have a PTO system and I generally follow company policy (there is a clause for management discretion, basically it falls on me if there is a staffing shortage because I let too many off)

1) Only one off at a time
2) Don't ask if you don't have accumulated time off IN YOUR BANK at time of request
3) Same people don't get the choice days off every year or even multiple times a year. In other words, don't expect to get the week of the 4th of July off every year, don't expect to get a day in front of or after holidays, etc

I will make exceptions for request if there is a staff member with say jury duty and sometimes if there is already an employee off for 1 day and someone wants the whole week. But that all depends on the day, historical case loads for that day, etc

I also have staff that complain they don't get vacations when same employees would rather go home on slow days than say clean equipment, go through supplies, etc and then have to use PTO to get a decent check.
No sympathy from me

Our sick time is tied in with PTO so any days you call in are also charged PTO

I work a super 7 schedule and get 7 days off in a row.
Get 200 hours vacation and 6 sick day's.
Have the 30 day's in January to schedule all or part of my vacation,
and it's seniority based.
I do all mine than because I'm #2 on seniority list.
And you get one first choice.

Also have to give a week's notice before vacation request
can be looked at.

Hence the $10 Extra Value Meal at McDonalds....

It works because other employees will work harder to fill the void. That may, or not end up making too much work for the other employees. If it's too much, you should come together and speak to management.

Keith

We give 10 days of sick time and 4 personal days on top of vacation time earned....

Sick time is for when you are sick. Most everyone has taken a mental health day or 2, but most are honest about actually being sick.

Personal time is for when something comes up that's important to take care of asap. We don't question what it's used for. It's not our business. It's personal time.

When the few people who have burned up all their sick and personal time call in, they get docked. If they do it a 2nd time, we dock them again. Only one person has done it 3x and they were fired.

Vacation time has to be approved in advance, so calling in and asking to use a vacation day is not an option.

I find it would be hard to be a business owner in Minnesota these days. In fact I know of a service station owner that fired 3 mechanics and a bunch in the convenience store. He said they could not afford all the mandated paid leave.
where I work we get vacation time based on a year of service accrued based on a 1280 hr work year. with a maximum of 5 weeks vac and 1 week of personal(sick) time. Then our governor Tim Walls. Has his 48 hours of Sick and Safe time, that can be used for anything that is remotely medical. Also as January of 2026 he has implemented ( State run Paid family and medical Leave program, allowing eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of paid medical leave and up to 12 weeks of paid family leave for a max of 20 weeks off, at up to $1430 per week.
I guess I'm lucky wright? Glad I'm in my last year.

No long term business can run that way. Period!

Having a work ethic puts you in a minority group........ maybe you would qualify for government assistance for those days you do take off?! LOL
I always love it when those people whose work ethic sucks tell me I work too hard, what they are actually saying is stop making me look bad.

My suggestion would be to speak to the owner / office manager and bring up your concerns. If they’re not paid time off hours, not sure that you have much of a say unless they can plainly see that folks taking off are putting too much of a burden on those working. I guess they could make the same complaint when you take off during trapping season though??

I’ve always earned accrued paid time off. Up to 6 weeks a year now, which is a blessing. Time is requested based on seniority, with a limit to how many folks can be off at the same time.

Wishing you luck!

we have a calendar
there are 3 of use who do what I do or close enough to it
no 2 of us can take off at the same time.

I have Wednesday off to hit the Dentist and eye doc and my co-worker asked if I would be back home by 4 because he needs to take his mom to an appointment at 4. I plan to be can't imagine why the eye doc would need me for 3 hours.

so in the event something bad happens I get the call starting at 4 if our 3rd co-worker is already on something

yall need PTO buddies , someone who performs the same job and you agree to not take off the same days intentionally. If the entire office gets sick it happens.

every day should be scheduled at least a week in advance if it isn't an illness.

I guess maybe the issue is it isn't paid time off

we have very specific allotments
when I started it was 2 weeks vacation , 1 week sick , 40 hours personal max use of 4 hours at time
they now have done away with personal time , I was never able to use it much any way , personal cancels overtime so I would just lose overtime and not use any personal.

they changed it to 3 weeks vacation now and 1 week sick
I used some sick last year but I had been sitting at the max of 520 hours for a decade.
I had 5 weeks vacation earned but with that personal time changed now it is 6 weeks and I can carry 2 year to year.
so I could take 8 weeks vacation in a Jan 1 to Dec 31 year. at some point.

Last year I took off a total of four days for trapping. Just to try and trap hard. If someone there has the nerve to question me imma say bring it on!!

Hey… I’m on your side!!

Finally!!!!!

We get options on how we take our vacation depending on amount each person has. I have 4 weeks so can take all of it as a week or up to 2 of the weeks as a day at a time nor more than 3 single days in a week.

General calling in we can miss 2 days in 13 weeks get wrote up on the 3rd one. The incidents fall off after 13 weeks. So you can miss 2 days every13 weeks.

Add in with myb12 hr rotat scedual we are only scheduled 14 out of 28 days its pretty generous. But even with that we have a lot of additional fmla usage. We have a full range from over time hogs(me) to people that barely make it to work enough to keep their job

Some people like their job better than others. They probably are wondering how you can go a year with only 4 days off. Same as you wonder how they take so much time off. To me, it’s different than no call no show. I have 0 patients for that. But if they are following the rules they are no better or no worse than what you are doing…… except, if I were your boss you’d probably be in management by now.

My friend Gus was like that he was last the engineer for the T-38 Talon. He let huge amounts of vacation time expire, over his career, because he liked what he was doing and was driven to work all the time. He worked tremendous amounts of overtime for no additional compensation too. He finally retired in January. I hope he can relax and enjoy it.

For about 16 years, I worked all the time too. I did very little that couldn't be construed as work, but I got over it.

Keith

I had one ten year run with no missed time , cept vacation time and 5 holidays per year

No sick time , or personal bs time

Alot of 6 days a week in that time zone

People can't even make it a week these days without some bs excuses

When I worked for the town we had a sliding scale of vacation time depending on time, and you could accrue 2 years worth, and a set amount of sick and personal time....great thing was , at the time, you could bank your sick and personal time. I rarely took a day off, I actually lost some vacation days because I was over the 2 years...I basically used the banked time as a disability fund if ever needed.
When I retired the check for banked time was huge, lol
I was fortunate that I was like an independent worker, we worked on our own with no immediate supervisor, as long as the work got done no one complained.



In your situation, your boss needs to have a set written policy, and enforce it, They can be liberal or strict, but need to stay up on it.You may lose the laziest people, but!, the boss should be paying a good wage to keep the good ones....it's a 2 way street.