We had a meeting at the end of shift today – my team of about 15 people, our direct supervisor, and a couple of other supes. We're just coming out of training, so it was kind of a last check-in before we get going next week on our first non-training shifts.
Meeting is going along just fine, the usual 'we believe in you!' yada yada that I've heard a dozen times before, and then all of a sudden our supervisor starts going on about PTO. Now this company is pretty good – you start accruing PTO while in training, which is awesome. So everyone has a little bit built up already.
Slightly paraphrasing, but this is basically what our supe said regarding PTO: “I know it's easy to look and see that, oh, you've got 13 hours! Or 24 hours! Or however many hours of PTO built up, and it's easy to want to take a free day just because you can, but listen to me, that's not what PTO is for. It's really for sick days, not just because you don't want to come in, but because you have to. So I'm telling you all right now, don't use your PTO for frivolous stuff, save it for when you really need it!”
What????? Thank God I'm working from home and the company computer they sent doesn't have a webcam, because my jaw dropped. Yes, I see the logic in using PTO for sick days, but shit, I'm not going to hoard it like health potions in a video game – it's there to be used and I'm damn well gonna use it as I want! Besides, what is she gonna do? Drive to my house and see if I'm running a fever?
Ridiculous. The grind culture is absolutely brainwashing people.