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Standard Millennial means I've had so so many, but I can define one specifically, my first "career" job.
Worked in a construction job with inspection. Anyone who's worked in construction knows it's feast or famine depending on season, winter/rainy season may not be a lot of work. I was told everyone was to help out around the lab, there was one full time lab guy who did need help. Took them at their word and helped him out, all the other techs ran away. This led to a lot of overtime. A LOT because I was in the field expected to show up to availability to jobs 24/7 but also work regular office hours. Led to interactions like in a meeting
"No more overtime, there's too little work" "YES!" "No @Azal, you're still bringing in money."
As you can guess, there was a lot of bullshit piling on. But the one that made it happen was them taking out the one thing that made the job tolerable. The vacation policy was such that if a holiday came on and you had no hours, you didn't get paid. All your PTO was earned a certain amount of time based on your work. What this meant was you had guys that worked there for years but barely scraped 40 hour weeks and used up all their PTO in hunting season and whined when there was no pay at Christmas. Me, who worked 80+ hours weeks was able to take a week long vacation, first I've ever done, and when a snowstorm blasted the state and shut everything down I didn't miss out on pay when the week there was no work to be done.
So that next year they changed vacation policy. 1-5 years, 1 week vacation. 5-10 years 1.5 weeks and so on, now holidays didn't count against your PTO.
I promptly went and got my CDL and left that shithole of a job.
Leave in the states is weird. In NZ I work 40h a week and I get 4 weeks of annual leave (vacation) and 10 sick days. The sick days can accrue up to 20 days, annual leave is infinite but lots of businesses try to encourage you to take it every year.
When you change jobs all the annual leave is paid out.
If you have 15 days of annual leave accrued and there's a public holiday within 15 days of you leaving then you're paid for that too.
That sounds like a dream.
Current job I can accrue maybe 2 weeks, and it's a use it or lose it scenario. That two weeks is sick and vacation wrapped in one.
We're kinda fucked over here.
One week vacation... ? per year ??
That's pretty normal for meh-tier kind of jobs in the US, though usually you "graduate" to two weeks sooner, like after a year.
In many workplaces there's a culture of taking as little as possible of the allowed vacation time. Sometimes it can lead to a small bonus when those days get "paid out" at the year end. Other times, the only encouragement is just pressure from the boss or coworkers. Note that there is neither a legal minimum for vacation days, not a requirement that employees actually use the days they have.
Hey, it was my first job I got any vacation, period.
That is shockingly normal over here in the US.
That vacation policy change sounds like it was a huge improvement. I find it odd you didn't agree with that? The numbers should be higher but it's much more fair. Holiday pay should never depend on vacation time, that's just cruel.
I'll TLDR it because my problem may have been buried in the details.
Old policy, the sheer amount of hours I had to work meant I had 2 weeks of PTO, plus I had a pocket of time held aside for sick time just in case and I had the time banked for holidays. Anyone else could have gotten the hours, I got them because I helped in the lab which was billable hours, everyone else took off at a moments notice.
New Policy. I had a week of PTO plus holidays. Full stop. Suddenly working a job with those insane hours meant jack and didly.
And I realize it helped the old guard there, made things better for them. But when I was quitting there wasn't a talking me into staying because it took the very last reason to stay at the company for me.