This is for the couples trying to balance work and family life, the recent graduates scared shitless about how they are going to pay back a hundred grand each in student loans, the single dads who can't afford to take a day unpaid, and those that grind day-in, day-out just to make ends meet.
In the United States, our bosses give us 10 days of PTO a year–15 if we're lucky or in senior management–and as they do so, they puff out their chests like they've done us a favor. Hint: They haven't. 10 days is just enough to give us hope, to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we're going to get run over by a train before we ever reach it.
I used ten days this year by February 1st.
Did I go on a vacation? Ha! I can't remember the last time I've had one of those. 2015, maybe?
Did I take some time for my “mental health?” No, if you're working class, your mental health means attempting to numb the pain with booze, anti-depressants, and maybe–if you're lucky–a therapy appointment or two until you die. Those therapy appointments better be virtual though, so you can cry in your car on your hour lunch break. Be sure they don't go over either. You don't want a write-up on your record when your time card is a minute off.
So back to the ten days I used before February 1st of this year, did I have an emergency? No, not at all.
I didn't use those days for a vacation or a mental health break or any unexpected catastrophe. I used those days because of sickness, snow, and school closings. Nothing else. No life-altering tragedies or horrific accidents (thank God, I mean who has time for that?!).
If I still worked for my old employer, I would be shit out of luck for the rest of the year. I don't work for my old employer though. Thank Christ.
Let's pretend I did still work there though. Let's pretend, just for a moment, because I bet my story sounds a lot like yours or your spouse's or your sister's or maybe your recently adulting kid.
I can tell you what would have happened because I took ten days before February 1st. I would have been required to attend a sit-down meeting for “missing too much time.” I would have been told I wasn't “committed enough,” that I was “needed,” and that they needed to know “they could count on me.” I would have been made to feel inferior, like I somehow fucked up for not wanting to send a sick child to school to infect other children, like I should have risked my life in the ice (maybe even my kid's too because who else is going to watch him when the school is closed) to get to work.
For a few weeks after the meeting, all would return to normal. Then when the schools shut down for the thousandth time because of COVID or when–God forbid–my kid got the flu or, gasp, I needed to go to the doctor myself, I'd get the talk all over again, maybe even written up this time. And you know why they'd write me up? That way, so when they fire me later, they don't have to pay me unemployment.
Again and again, there would be a choice to be made: work or family. If I choose family, then apparently my expertise is meaningless because I am not considered “committed to the company.” If I choose work, I get to listen to my husband feed our kids and get them ready for bed on my hour-plus commute home. Telephone calls will be all I have to experience my kids growing up.
I'll tell myself the long hours will be worth it come review time, but in my review–if I even get one–they'll bring up that I've already maxed out my PTO for the year, and they'll frown. I'll know then I'm not even getting a cost-of-living raise.
After my review, I'll worry because the financial situation is okay, but not great. We were counting on that raise. One emergency and we'll be screwed.
I'll skip a doctor's appointment I scheduled for a nagging pain because when I run out of PTO, my employer cuts my salary. If he cuts my salary, my next paycheck will go to the past-due insurance premiums I owe to my employer. And that's if he even fronts me that long. If history is any indication, they will call before I even return to work for the insurance premium check.
So I've skipped my doctor's appointment because I can't afford to take the time unpaid, but there's goes my emergency fund when I end up in the hospital, the money all gone to past-due health insurance premiums owed to my employer and hospital bills. I didn't take the time to care for myself, and it's cost me.
Do you know what would happen then? If I still worked for that employer? I'd get out of the hospital, and a week or two later, there'd be another meeting about my lack of commitment.
So to the bosses out there, the managers, and the CEOs, I say we are fed up. We are tired.
We want to work, but we don't want to work for you.
We want to earn a fair living so every damned day isn't a struggle. We want to see our children grow up and have a chance at retirement. We want to be able to pay those student loans back you promised us were worth it. We want to be able to feel like every day isn't a choice between working for you and caring for those we love. We want flexibility because, in case you haven't noticed, our entire lives have been upheaved over the course of the past two years.
You want us to play pretend at normal, but you forgot to tell the rest of the world to pretend along with us.
Our lives should matter to you. Our wants should matter because those wants aren't negotiable anymore. They are needs, and I, for one, expect them to be met.
We are fed up with this charade of bullshit. You pay us to do our jobs, so let us do them. If we need to work remote, let us. If we need a flexible schedule, give it. Don't feed us that line of “If we did it for you, we'd have to do it for everybody.”
Then do it for everybody.
And don't even try to start in on the “your job can't be remote” line of manure. At least some functions of nearly every single job can be done remotely. No one believes you.
I advise you listen when I say we are fed up because I am not alone. You're a dinosaur, and you're about to go extinct.