The toxic culture in Japan stems from the unspoken expectations.
You have a 40 hour schedule, but you're expected to be in the office for +60. You get vacation time, but it's shameful to use it. Women (particularly young women) aren't given promotions or professional advancement because it's assumed they'll quit to become housewives as soon as they find a husband of a higher station.
All that shit you hear about microaggression, implicit bias, and structural racism run rampant in the Japanese corporate world.
A lot of private professional trades in the US get all of these. They're "economically viable" for a certain class of (supposedly very productive and important) staff but completely untenable for another larger, lower class of (supposedly lazy and easily replaceable) staff.
Even within the same firm.
If you work in McDs Corporate or occupy a management position at The Dollar Tree, somehow there's money for leave that doesn't exist for everyone else.
You might also notice a certain gender, religion, and race component to this, but I would try very hard not to think hard about it either.
my job has "paid sick time" but you cant use it if youre out of PTO and if you have PTO it takes off your PTO. how dumb is that. my coworker lost all his PTO by getting super sick for 2 weeks at the start of the year
Speedway and parent conpany 7 Eleven just did this this year everywhere it isn't illegal. Made it so you only have PTO time and sick time takes it out of your pto. Thankfully that's illegal in Michigan for hourly employees.
Which also has the fun situation of if you get promoted to general manager you loose your sick time because of going to salary vs hourly.
Maternity + paternity leave: 480 days combined, per child, + 10 days unannounced allowed for the parent not giving birth, immediately following the birth.
pretty much the same in Denmark. I still don't know how to spend all of the vacation days. We just used up Mandatory 3 summer weeks, and I'm kinda tired of resting this year, but I still have 3 weeks left
We usually use a day or two here and there to get long weekends where there are one-off holidays. It helps spend the days, and gives you some needed rest during the working period of the year. 👍
I had a similar situation last year after being on paternity leave 5 months and then still having 30 days of PTO.
Solution: 4 day work week. Either Wednesdays or Fridays off. I took Wednesdays. You have two "Fridays" per week and Friday is never more than one working day away. You get one day a week completely for you, kids in school, partner at work, every shop and office open. You can do any delayed paperwork, any repairs around the house, take a jew hobby, or just watch TV for 6 hours straight (wouldnt recommend every week but it took me back to my days of being sick from school).
If you are single and like traveling probably Fridays would be better.
Isn't it nowadays also grandparents can get some of the parental leave if they help with the child?
Sick leave is not infinity, but you would need to get a long period of illness before anything happens I guess.
Yep, I believe so. And you can also even transfer parental leave to a friend, if they help with the child. We did this for a friend of ours who is a single mom and needed help with her child.
At one of my previous jobs (in the US) we had unlimited Paid Time Off. In practice, you're still under the same pressure to get shit done or get canned so you don't really take any more time off than you would have otherwise. And when you're eventually canned anyway in order to boost the stock price, you don't have any accrued time off that has to be paid out in a lump sum.
In Belgium There's a social security system that pays your wage when you're sick up a certain maximum.
The first month(4 weeks) you get sick is fully paid by the employer. After that you get paid by social security for 60% of your wage up until a certain maximum.
If you are absent from work for 8 months ( cancer, surgery, burn out, ... ) you would be paid for every day you are absent, albeit less after a month.
While sick you are also protected from being fired. So employers can't fire you because you're out fighting cancer. It is mostly adhered to. If an employer would fire somebody who got cancer or because they got a burn-out/depression I'd probably find a different employer.
It's a good system, but with its own challenges ( abuse ). I honestly can't imagine having a fixed amount of paid sick days.
your employer can always "challenge" your sickness by sending a company physician, which they'd have to pay for. Some companies do it per definition, others never, some only when they suspect abuse.
In Germany your employer has to pay for all sick leave up to continuous 6 weeks. After that insurance pays you 60% of your last paycheck.
There are a lot of exceptions, for example if it's a work related accident your employer has to pay 100% of your last paycheck indefinitely until you go into early/disability retirement.
Day 15-90: "barely" 80% from Försäkringskassan, up to a relatively low ceiling (disfavours those with high incomes, doesn't really affect the common worker). With a collective agreement from a union you could also get an additional 10-15%(?) from your employer
Day 90-: pretty much the same, the 10% from the employer is replaced by insurance instead. If you're sick this long it'll be a bit of a bureaucratic PITA
And what we must still do, regularly, to fight against people taking social rights from us. This is a hard thing to do, and we have lost a few battles lately.
The elite need to be reminded of the old ways. France is still champ in international internal politics. Their protests often end up being a real headbanger...
It'd be cool except the non zero chance of catching a bullet just because I wanted to have benefits other people have for free.. and I know that I could be shot in civilian life too. But like, doesn't that just make it worse
I suppose. I'm far more likely to die in a helicopter crash. Never been shot at, nor have just about anybody I've worked with. The only people who have gone to a war zone in the past couple decades were people who specifically requested it.
Though I have worked with a few who survived helicopter crashes (five, between two crashes), so definitely not without its dangers. That's the specific job I chose, though. Plenty of jobs in the Coast Guard with paper cuts or oven-related burns as the most danger they'll experience.
When one's employer has lower regard for their employee's welfare than the US military, something is well and truly borked.
t. many military friends and family with infinite horror stories about health damage outside of combat zones and lots of "Not Service Related" responses
So... A big blue retail company is on par... When I worked there I got 16 weeks of paternity leave paid (well, between a mixture of paid leave and PTO), 31 days of PTO, and.. Any sick days came out of the PTO.
Was a salaried manager.
Can't believe I'm saying it, but nobody has ever been able to come close to their benefits that I know of, at least in the US.
I used to work in France. The 30 days is just the beginning. I ended up with 44 paid holidays per year towards the end of my contract. There are different types of paid leave and I got 9 days extra because one of my children has a disability.
However, the work culture in France is extremely toxic. You face a sort of social othering if you don't conform with the unspoken rules which are even harder to understand if French is not your first language. Punishments include being managed/bored out and being "put in the cupboard" where you're given a dead end role and basically left to rot until retirement. There's a history of work related suicide in France.
Even so, you are a lot more free than in other countries. I'm not complaining. Plus, unions still have actual powers there (although they're being eroded down)
Between my current job (unlimited PTO) and my last (30 days PTO) I've had 30+ for the last 10 years.
Last year I used 35+ days.
A lot of it goes to smaller things. 1 or 2 days here and there. Few days camping, turn a 3 day weekend in to a 4 day, etc... It really can change how you use your time.
Where I'm from a 36 hour work week is the norm. I work 4 × 9 hours and have every Wednesday off (plus I have like 9 weeks off every year). Some colleagues do work 40 hours a week and then save a day off every two weeks. A friend does this and he takes one fairly long holiday (like a month) and also a week or two off every two months or something.
And you can also take a sabbatical and be guaranteed of your job when you get back. A guy I know from another department took a year off to take a trip around the world with his girlfriend.
There are a ton of people in the US who have really good paid leave policies at their jobs, it's just that there are also a ton of people who have really bad leave policies at their jobs
According to the BLS, about 45% of nonunion workers in the private sector have paid vacation time and about 75% have paid sick leave. The numbers are quite a bit higher in unionized and public sector jobs. A bunch of states have implemented various mandatory paid leave laws. At the nonunion hospital I used to work at here in Texas, everyone got about 6 weeks of paid time off, which could be used as sick time or vacation time, plus 9 paid holidays. This included housekeeping, food services, nurses, everyone.
I'm not coping, I clearly stated above the current situation is really bad for a lot of people, but it's also not "zero paid leave for everyone in the US" as implied by the graphic
The obligatory (paid ofc) vacation is 5 weeks not 6.
Lots of people have more, like 6 weeks + 12-24 RTT (days you can take here and there, it's really great) and sometimes you can trade them for money etc., with the exception of the 5 weeks.
But you also get half the salary, compared to the US. Taxes are probably on a similar level, but you get more for your taxes in France.
It's not all good. As a single, somewhat ambitious guy living in Europe, I'm planning to move to the US, because building wealth in most of Europe is much harder, so you are effectively a slave of the system. You get a barely livable salary, you pay half of it to the taxman, and half of the remaining net salary in rent (or mortgage). If you are a single guy like me, you get barely anything in return. And since the European economy is struggling, and European governments are going all in on austerity, the situation regarding taxes and social benefits will only deteriorate.
PTO is nice, but it doesn't tell the whole story. At the end of the day, I feel better having the freedom in the shape of $$$ in my pocket, compared to being at the mercy of a government, which I don't fully trust, to treat me well.
I work in a big tech company, and there are probably interns in NY/Cali that get paid better than I do as an experienced engineer in the UK.
Most of the people I work with in NYC live like students, despite having a yearly salary that could probably cover a sizable chunk of a UK pension. I own a house and have enough saved to not need to work for several months, yet there are people that vastly outearn me in the US and still get fucked by healthcare costs, rent, house prices, etc.
I do understand that building wealth is tricky, but I think you'll be extremely shocked at how high the costs are in some places, and how many people that do build wealth are rolling the dice on health insurance and not taking sick days/vacation. I'm considering a move to LA this year, and despite a high-band salary my life will likely be considerably worse, purely looking at the rent prices in/near Santa Monica...
looking at the rent prices in/near Santa Monica...
You are thinking of walking to work? You're going to be commuting like everyone else. That's why everyone in LA is stuck in traffic. Or just work from home.
I feel you're discarding the free education and Healthcare system you were able to enjoy (because it's available for everyone) until you've decided you could do better for yourself by yourself.
As a single straight healthy educated white dude, yes you could probably do better for yourself in the US, it just takes forsaking the meaning of solidarity. As long you don't do the usual thing of coming back to Europe whenever you're sick / having children because "it's just so expensive in the US and it's harder to have a family life there"
Healthcare is not free. I pay 250€/month here in Germany, and I literally cannot even access it at all. I go to the doctor and get turned away. They have this shitty two tiered system where unless you have the private insurance or are a pensioner, you have to fight against a thousand bureaucratic dragons to get any service out of it.
University is not free either. I paid 500€/semester and had to source my own food and accommodation. And although I got a degree, you cannot really compare, even the top of the top of German universities with places like MIT or Stanford where you get so much prestige and networking opportunities. One has to compare apples to apples.
I am for both universal healthcare and education, but Americans need to understand that you aren't going to get the American service for the European price point.
Bud, you're in for a haaaaaaaaaaaarsh awakening if you think all of those negatives in your second paragraph isn't exactly what the states are, magnified.
Twice the salary for twice the work load isn't more money.
I had a friend who got a NY white shoe law job. He was earning $250k walking in the door. But he slept under his desk pulling 100 hour work weeks and was always terrified of being let go for underperforming.
That's not a better salary. That's just 2.5 jobs earning $80k (which you can easily get with a JD pretty much anywhere).
Once he realized that, he quit and landed a job with normal hours earning twice as much per hour worked.
Where I live in Canada, we used to have 0 paid sick days, then we got 3 days shortly before an election, and they lost and the replacement party removed those 3 paid sick days.
They also chopped down the unpaid sick days from 10 to 3, probably hoping nobody would notice.
Nobody noticed. They got re-elected with a majority vote (done by about 1/3 of the voting population)