Fix your job

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

It has finally happened.

I had two conflicting versions of a schematic in one of my books, and I'd asked the two engineers to kindly compare notes and bring me a consolidated markup, which I promised to get into the book. One way or another. Honest.

They just left, and I'm looking at it. There are three coffee stains, a beer ring, and pizza smudges. I thought it was an urban legend but I've got actual physical evidence draped across my computer desk: engineers really do design with sharpie on the tablecloth.

I'm just glad the Pizza Parlor uses paper tablecloths.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

:humming to self: Just got an email from the secretary reminding us to calculate our remaining use-or-lose against the remaining time before the end-of-year date when excess leave evaporates. I did so. I shall have to go on vacation time after lunch tomorrow and stay gone until after January 4th. Oh, darn. Three-and-a-half weeks off.

I gotta remember to use more annual leave during the rest of the year, next year.

My alarm clock will forget how to buzz. The cats, however, will be pleased and will buzz more than usual. It'll even out.

[OperaTenor]

Hey Selma, with all that unexpected time off, we'll send the three y.o. over.

[jamiebk]

:humming to self: Just got an email from the secretary reminding us to calculate our remaining use-or-lose against the remaining time before the end-of-year date when excess leave evaporates. I did so. I shall have to go on vacation time after lunch tomorrow and stay gone until after January 4th. Oh, darn. Three-and-a-half weeks off.

I gotta remember to use more annual leave during the rest of the year, next year.

My alarm clock will forget how to buzz. The cats, however, will be pleased and will buzz more than usual. It'll even out.

Selma...you live in CA right??? By California law, companies cannot "dock" the employee for unused leave. You must either use or they MUSt pay you for it (or you can carry it over if they let you). Please check with an employment attorney if you must, but:

Q. My employer’s vacation policy provides that if I do not use all of my annual vacation entitlement by the end of the year, that I lose the unused balance. Is this legal?
A. No, such a provision is not legal. In California, vacation pay is another form of wages which vests as it is earned (in this context, "vests" means you are invested or endowed with rights in the wages). Accordingly, a policy that provides for the forfeiture of vacation pay that is not used by a specified date ("use it or lose it") is an illegal policy under California law and will not be recognized by the Labor Commissioner.

Vacation Pay
While paid vacation days are not required in California, an employer whom has voluntarily elected to implement a vacation pay policy, must comply with California law.

In California, accrued vacation days are no different from wages. Once they are accrued, they are essentially considered the property of the employee whom has accrued them.

"Use it or Loose It" Policies Are Not Permitted
Some employers maintain vacation pay policies which state that employees will loose accrued vacation days if they are not used by a certain period of time. These policies are against the law. Employees must either be permitted to carry-over the accrued, but unused, vacation days or the remaining accrued vacation days must be "cashed out" to the employee at the employee's then applicable rate of pay.

Employers do, however, have general discretion to determine which employees receive vacation pay, at which rate vacation days will accrue, and the amount of the cap, if any, placed on the employee's ability to earn future vacation days.

If your employer has forced you to forfeit accrued vacation days, or if you were not paid all accrued vacation days upon your departure from employment, you may be entitled to not only the amount of the unpaid vacation days, but to Waiting Time Penalties, interest and reimbursement of reasonable attorney fees and costs from your employer as well.

Please contact Duvel & Duvel, PLC for more information.

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_Vacation.htm
http://www.duvel-law.com/lawyer-attorney-1162207.html

Hope this helps....If not, have a nice vacation.

[Shapley]

Jamie,

Selma works for the Federal Government, so the rules are bit different, but apparently they are mindful of their obligation so they're making her take the rest of year off.

Military people have a 'use it or lose it' rule for leave, as they are not allowed to accumulate more than 60 days of leave (they earn, or at least earned in my day, 30 days/year). The exception is that, if you have requested leave and been denied it, or are otherwise unable to take leave you are allowed to accumulate more than the 60 day limit.

The government is allowed to bend the rules that other employers have to abide by, offering such things as flex-time and the use-it-or-lose-it rule, even in States which prohibit those practices to private-sector employers. Even some State governments that prohibit those practices to the private sector impose them on their own employees.

V/R

Shapley

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Yup. Federal employees have different rules from the various states. Can you imagine trying to comply fairly with fifty-two separate sets of rules? (There are the 50 states, DeeCee, and Puerto Rico. Maybe more places I haven't thought of.) They're reasonable rules, consistent across the entire workforce, and a person just has to learn to live with 'em.

I do get to accumulate sick leave without any upper limit. Comforting.

[Shapley]

(There are the 50 states, DeeCee, and Puerto Rico. Maybe more places I haven't thought of.)

U.S. Virgin Islands, Samoa, Midway, Guam, Wake Island....

[barfle]

I have no idea what the Vahjinyah laws regarding use or lose annual leave are, but I know as a fed I am subject to it.

It's never been a problem, though. I have to use about half of it just to meet production quotas, as do half of my coworkers.

[piqaboo]

It has finally happened.

I had two conflicting versions of a schematic in one of my books, and I'd asked the two engineers to kindly compare notes and bring me a consolidated markup, which I promised to get into the book. One way or another. Honest.

They just left, and I'm looking at it. There are three coffee stains, a beer ring, and pizza smudges. I thought it was an urban legend but I've got actual physical evidence draped across my computer desk: engineers really do design with sharpie on the tablecloth.

I'm just glad the Pizza Parlor uses paper tablecloths.

Frame it! That's glorious.

[Schmeelkie]

My vacation time carries over. Good thing too - used my left over in 2006 in the beginning of 2007 to extend my maternity leave (otherwise would have had a medical reason to stay out for the total of 8 weeks - only officially get 6). Since I went from hourly to salaried I haven't seen any limit on sick days. Read the stuff in HR and couldn't make sense of it. No one's come to me and said I've used too much. For a while there I was using a day (6hrs) a month between me being sick or one/both of the kids. Don't think I've used any for a while... I'm burning most of my current vacation days to take the week of Christmas and New Year's Eve (really hate the notion of working one day, taking a day off, then working 2 more. The day care people don't want to do that either). That'll be 12 days at home with the family! Will definately take the kids to the Children's museaum, mall, zoo if we get a warmish day (I figure since we've already had 12 inches of snow we'll get a warm spell for Christmas - it'd just figure) - Bella's got her puffy pink snowsuit (couldn't resist), so she'll be good to go.

Well, back to the grind. Gotta wait for IT to let me have admin access to my own computer (so annoying that I don't have it) so I can load some software. While I'm waiting I have a MS Access mystery to figure out...have I mentioned how much I hate Access?!?!?! Makes pretty forms, but the logic is not at all transparent.

[Shapley]

My company always clears the books at the end of the year. Any unused vacation time is paid off in the final checque for the year. Back when I was a younger man, money was more important than time off, so I would use very little vacation and get a big checque at years' end. Now that I'm older, married, and have children, I find family time more important than money, so I rarely have any vacation time left at the end of the year.

Of course, back in those early days, If I had taken the time off, I wouldn't have had the money to go anywhere...

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Office Christmas lunch is over, gift exchange is done. I ended up with some ethanol and some sort of a shaker doolalli which I'll probably use to store knitting needles. I'm now done for the year and I'm going to vanish as soon as I get my coffeepot and cube clean enough that I'll be willing to come back to face 'em next year.

[jamiebk]

Have a good one Selma....and check in once in a while...we'll miss ya.

[Trumpetmaster]

Office Christmas lunch is over, gift exchange is done. I ended up with some ethanol and some sort of a shaker doolalli which I'll probably use to store knitting needles. I'm now done for the year and I'm going to vanish as soon as I get my coffeepot and cube clean enough that I'll be willing to come back to face 'em next year.

================================
Morale at our office is SO LOW no one wanted to partake in Secret Santa exchange of gifts
or even a X-Mas/Holiday Party...

Won't go into the gory details but it has been getting tougher each day.
More work, no developers, but we are still responsible if we miss our scheduled dates.
That's the problem... schedules are made, when other projects get backed up and dev
has to fix bugs, well , it's the old cascading effect but no one will move dates around
because code delivery has been committed to on specific dates....

[Schmeelkie]

That's just sad TM. I'd sneak a mini-fake-tree in, play some Christmas music and leave out cookies at random times....

The hospital is having it's 'employee appreciation holiday meal' today and tomorrow - mostly lunch, but some breakfast too to cover shift workers - basically it's free lunch. Usually something like chicken breast, mashed potatoes, veggies, drink and dessert. It's worth it, but if you don't go early, I've heard of people waiting 30 min for lunch. I'm going in a few min and hoping for no more than 15 min wait. Also, all employees are entered in a raffle - good prizes this year - GPS, HD TV, bike, etc. The Psychiarty department already had it's holiday party - a $35/couple shindig at a local hotel - food, drinks, music, prizes. Decided not to take a night off, especially since most of the people I work with weren't going...it's a really big department - figure about 85 faculty, with support staff - probably an average of 5 per facutly member - you can really get lost in that crowd.

Our project is doing a potluck holiday party next Wednesday - about 15 of us (down one cause she's having a scheduled c-section that day...didn't want to reschedule.... ). Secret Santa there - which I never like cause it's so hard to buy for other adults.

[Schmeelkie]

Lunch consisted of either sliced turkey or roast beef, rice, carrots, roll (unfortuntely I picked the wheat which also contains rye - blech! I'm a poor German girl, can't stand rye), punch or coffee/tea and a cookie. Also goodie bag with a pen, candies and coupon book. Got from the end of the line to receiving all of the meal in 13 min! Will let you know on Monday about the raffle.

[piqaboo]

Dept party scheduled for lunch tomorrow. White elephant. I need to check if its potluck too. So embarrassing to show up empty handed!
Company holiday party was Sat - nice and formal. Good steak, veggies, dessert. Wine was drinkable but I wouldnt buy it. Its grand to see everyone dressed to the nines. We were able to go this year because I booked OT a year in advance. Dec 8 2006 I told him that he was NOT singing on whatever night the 2007 party occured. Since he's not carolling this year, there was no lost revenue on the busiest caroling saturday of the season.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

It's Monday, it's raining, and I'm at work. :sigh: Getting out of bed this morning was harder than it ought to be, on account of being on vacation and getting used to getting up after sunrise. Sometimes, long after sunrise.

Welcome back to work, y'all. Happy 2008.

[jamiebk]

Hey Selma...welcome back to the real world. Nice to hear that you had a good break from it all. But that makes returning a bit painful. Sometimes I swear that work is a little like hitting your thumb with a hammer...If you keep doing it, it gets numb. Once you stop and take a break, it hurts even more if you hit it again.

[Schmeelkie]

I had 12 days at home - really just 2 holiday days and 4 vacation days... enjoyed coming back last Wednesday - could eat all my lunch in one sitting without having to get food for other people, pick up thrown sippy cups and food, clean up messes, etc. It was so nice the day Bella slept right through lunch in her crib (instead of my lap) and Pumpkin had already eaten by the time I came out from putting her down.

Now I'm in that weird state where my boss is out of town (in China in fact), and I'm waiting for other people to get data to me and waiting for recruitment for one study to be completed, basically I don't have much to do. But I know in a few days, I'll be swamped. Did volunteer to do a little of the scut work the undergrads usually do while they're still on break, but that's about an hour of work...how to kill the rest...trying not to do too much that will just have to be redone/updated when new data arrives...trying not to spend too much time posting on b.com