You don’t know what you have ‘till it’s gone is an age-old cliche for a reason. However, this does not seem to stop manipulative people from slowly, but surely ruining things. An exploitative manager might try to wring every last cent out of a workforce, only to find that no one will work for them.

A man described a particularly annoying workplace, where his boss would see time off as more of a suggestion and regularly interrupt it with calls and requests to come in for work. So after his partner gave birth, OP asked for a few weeks of (unpaid) leave. Then the day after the birth, he woke up to a barrage of missed calls, texts, and an email. So OP decided that he needed a more permanent solution.

Leave, whether paid or unpaid, is a time when an employee should be free from constant communication with a manager

Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)

But an internet user had this precise problem when his boss would not stop asking him to come in

Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)

Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)

Image source: Tautochrone1

Unless PTO is a right, employers will hold it like a carrot to get more labor from their employees

Image credits: The Coach Space (not the actual photo)

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Time off is one of those things where America could do to step up. By comparison, all member states in the EU are required to mandate at least four weeks of paid vacation for employees working full-time. Some countries elect to have even more. Many other nations across the world have a minimum number of PTO that employees are entitled to, making this a pretty universal norm, except, of course, in the United States. This often leads to employers treating it like a luxury and often disregarding it, since PTO comes down to company policy. The result is such stories, where managers treat time off, paid or unpaid as a sort of suggestion, not a right they are entitled to.

Despite no federal legislation ordering companies to provide paid leave, most US employees do still have some amount of PTO. Only about a third have none, and this is mostly, unfortunately, relegated to the service industry and customer-facing positions. Even more strangely, many Americans simply don’t use their vacation days, as one study found that over seven hundred million days are “wasted,” due to a variety of reasons. This could be a side effect of the unfortunate reality that OP’s boss is not unique. Over half of surveyed American employees reported doing some work while ostensibly “on vacation.” The result is that many do not see a reason to stop working or splurge for expensive getaways if the boss might keep calling and demanding things.

American workers have the short end of the stick when it comes to vacation days

Image credits: anna-m. w. (not the actual photo)

This also allows companies to offer fewer days off, because workers might not see them as an important incentive. The average American worker has about 11 vacation days a year and eight days of sick leave. After 10 years, it rises to 17, and after 20 years, it’s 20 days. Meaning an entry-level employee in, say, Spain, has roughly as much PTO as a seasoned specialist at a US company. While all this information may be America-centric, the reality is that in most countries, OP’s story would not happen. Hence, it’s important to understand the combination of factors that allow bosses and managers to “overlook” time off and a work culture that allows it. Fortunately, OP had the skills and resources to just take his labor elsewhere, but for many people just starting off, this wouldn’t be possible, a fact often exploited by greedy managers.

For US workers, things may be improving slightly, as job postings offering unlimited PTO have increased by roughly 170% over the last five years. Similarly, the number of US employees who think PTO is something that would influence a job decision has also risen, though this seems pretty self-explanatory. While it’s unlikely that most jobs will even consider unlimited PTO for the majority of their employees, the “great resignation” could start to push businesses to make concessions for employee quality of life.

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Readers wanted to know more and OP was kind enough to oblige

Others shared their own, similar stories and congratulated OP on this “permanent vacation”

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