In response to several people calling in sick, the company I just left instituted a “vacation” policy. Everyone is paid hourly with the only exception being management. Hourly workers have no paid time off PERIOD. The people who called in did so for multiple reasons: One was in a (no-fault) car accident and her doctor begged her to take time off, one got the flu, and then I got COVID-19.
As fate would have it we all called in within the space of a few weeks, and clearly management did not like that. A few days after I turned in my two weeks notice we were all told about a new “vacation” policy. Everyone is now limited to two weeks of (unpaid) vacation and five (unpaid) sick days. But wait, there's more! If we use up our five sick days, it gets deducted from our vacation! Wow! How generous!
Sarcasm aside, I find this comically horrible. When I heard about this new policy the first thing I said was “Well that's a load of bullshit.” (What were they gonna do, fire me?) As far as I'm concerned, if I'm not being paid I'll take off as much time as I want and they can fucking deal with it.
Perhaps what is most horrifying is the fact that they implemented this during a pandemic, and when my region specifically is in a massive case spike. I got pretty lucky with my illness; I did have to go to the hospital, but I was only sick for just over a week. As we all know, however, this is certainly not the case for everyone. What happens if you get COVID and have to be in the ICU for a month? What if you get into a car accident and break your leg? You're done for WEEKS. And I can only imagine that if you decide to take more time off than “allowed” you'd be handed a write-up or terminated.
This is a mid-sized company, by the way. They have three locations, and *maybe* 100 employees? Capitalism and corporate culture show no mercy. It's all about the bottom line, even in a small company. Just sickening.