I haven't really posted anything here yet, but I like lurking all the various posts. Reading those posts, I really have a question in my mind for a long time now, and I'm just gonna post it now! Also it's not just the posts on this website, but several others as well, that surprise me every time when reading about working conditions in the USA. Are things really that bad? Just some things that I have here in Western Europe that I consider to be very normal.
-25 days PTO a year. I don't have to accrue this, I have it available directly at the beginning of my contract when starting a new job and it is actually just above the legal minimum, which is 4 times the amount of days you work every week (so for a fulltime job it's 20). 25 is pretty standard at most companies, but 30-40 is also not rare to get. With this PTO, I take a holiday of at least 2,5 weeks every summer, but usually 3 weeks apart from a week of christmas holidays and some other days here and there. And for companies it's pretty much illegal to deny your PTO request without a very, very, very good reason (and no, “somebody else has to come in then” is NOT a good reason).
It feels like in US you will never be able to get more than a week off and for every single PTO request you need a very good reason. Here, I don't have to have a reason at all. Sleeping all day, going to an orgy, going on a holiday: all equally good reasons which you don't have to state while applying for PTO.
-No sick days. When you're sick, you're just sick. Nothing coming out of your salary, you aren't losing any PTO or anything.
-In USA it sometimes feels like they can fire you if they don't like your face. Here contracts are valued and it is pretty much impossible to be fired, unless you are doing illegal things. If you are just doing a bad job and nothing more, they have to build a whole file about what you are doing wrong, talk to you about it, offer training, offer second chances etc before being legally allowed to fire you (and they have to take this to court first to get permission).
There is probably a lot more, but am I right in thinking that USA sucks to work in? I really love the country and how beautiful it is, but things like this really don't make me wanna move there for good..