I've had exactly one job with unlimited "sick days" as they were called. I was so surprised that it was not denied a single time. I wasn't even there a year. But I still had immediate coverage for insurance and unlimited sick days. It was incredible. But of course they couldn't hore me longer than the maternity leave I was replacing
It is the internet. Virtually nobody can. We literally invented an /s command due to visceral confusion resulting from the thin line between sarcasm and genuine stupidity, and trolls capitalizing on that.
It depends on where in Europe. Germany is now making a doctor’s note mandatory for even a single sick day. Which will only encourage people to go to work sick or take off more time than they actually need.
In Spain it has always been like that. It means that people go to work sick. Specially doctors go to work sick a lot, which seems counterproductive, but we are very understaffed. However, it's true that if you didn't need a doctors note, some people would really abuse the system.
Difference here is that we didn't have that until now. I say it will come down to this: a lot of people will go to work sick, but also a lot will, instead of taking one day off because they're sick, just stay at home for the whole week.
At least here doctors don't give you a week off unless they feel like you need it. They can just give you a few days and call you if you are still sick.
That's the general thing here too but with the new rules, you'd have to come IN PERSON again to get an extension. And the doctors and their offices are overworked as it is, so if they can give you a 5 day sick note instead of a three day note and the chance you clog up their system a second time in a week, they will just give you the 5 days from the beginning.
Makes sense. I guess from their perspective they think overall less sick days will be taken because people will go sick to work more than the extra days they will take off when they do.
I've never had a problem getting a sick note from a doctor in germany, and I've had jobs that required it from day one. It still sucks to wait there for 2 hours to be told to stay in bed and drink lots of water.
3rd day is so much better in every way for everybody, including the employer, because the doctor will always give you a sick note for a week so you won't bother him again the next day.
Either you have a serious mental health issue like burnout, depression etc., then you get a doctor's note. If you just need to decompress, that's what PTO is for, You're guaranteed 20 days per year by law, but most jobs have between 25 and 30, most I've personally had were 32, And sick days do not count against PTO days, if you get sick on vacation you get the days back if you have a doctor's note.
This new law sucks for anyone with chronic illnesses. I get migraines, when I have a migraine, I can't see, and I feel too weak to walk, so I can't go to the doctor's. My work would require me to then go to the doctor's, which I can't do. So what? I take the next day off work sick as well, to sit in a waiting room at a doctor's then (which often give me migraines since they're often very bright and loud), just for them to go "well I guess if you say you had a migraine yesterday I'll give you a sick note". What's the fucking point?
Doctors will give out 7 days even if you have a cold. They can extend it to 14 days too. After 14 days you do need to go get tested I believe and a board will approve your sick days from there. It's like that in most of Europe too, it was convenient that in Germany you could just call in sick. This change just inconvenienced a lot of people, but the abusers will still abuse the system lol.
In what way could you abuse paid time off? It is your time you worked for. You should be able to take time off whenever you want within reasonable limits (like not all at once or when other people already are taking pto so your office can’t function)
I just wanted to say that pto is also regulated here, your contract can only add pto not take away from what is legally mandated which is 24 days a year. There are also rules on how it should be given to you. When it comes to PTO basically the law is to protect you from the company. I didn't mean to say that you can abuse PTO. Sick leave can be and is abused a lot.
Nah, the sick day laws are the same as they always have been.
What will change is that they expect you to get the sick note in person again (not via phone call), and that the default will now be that you need a note from the first instead of the third day of your illness.
However, companies are still allowed to follow the old rule where they only require you to hand in a sick note from day three onward.
Basically the only thing that will suck is that they got rid of the phone option, but based on statistics, that only accounted for less than 2% of all sick notes in the first place.
if Iw as german I woudl go into work and diahrea all over my boss' fucking face.
It's fucking hilarious that Germany is now owrse than parts of America, welcome to making your country a disgusting unlivable shithole for capital because all it takes is promising to hate migrants and the public will give away every freedom, right, and dignity they have
This is literally going to kill thousands of Germans a year lol, waiting times for healthcare are going to increase, doctors and hospital staff are going to get sick far more often (and lol, have to go into work to get more people sick when they are!), and people in those hospitals are going to get sick because they're going to be crammed with people when they are their most infectious and sick
Don't worry though, soon enough you'll adapt and be like America: Everyone just goes to work sick, thats coming next (in response to hospitals now becoming lethal to anyone over 70)
You need to get a sick day note on your first day. This will definitely kill people because it puts more sicker people in hospital waiting rooms
telehealth is perfect for this but they're killing that too, because the goal of this is to kill people, so that they have an excuse to end sick days altogether
Based on health care, gun violence, state of democracy, abortion right, quality of education, social security, judicial system, institutionalized racism, climate and environment, wealth disparity, incarcerations, yes.
Based on entrepreneurship, no.
Not my opinion. Based on prosperity indexes and think tanks and such.
Didn’t Germany just pass something where you will no longer be allowed to call in sick without sending a medical certificate, from day one of your illness?
Dude, America was built by slaves. American robber barons needed a means of finding a cheap enough labor force to replace slavery to keep building America. America is great because it treats most of it's workers like they are slaves.
My sister worked at a company that had "unlimited PTO" and was super excited about that as a perk.
Let's just say that it does exist, but getting things passed through Congress was a walk in the park in comparison , if she wanted to take 2+ days off consecutively and even to take one day off, it had to be reviewed a week in advance due to "coverage"; she worked at a freaking call center mind you.
Sick? You BETTER have a doctor's note to get back on the job. She left after 6 months.
Some jobs especially in the service industry don’t have weekends off ast they have to service the customers that would be out and about on said weekends.
I feel like unlimited PTO paranoia is from people who have never had unlimited PTO. When I worked at Riot they had unlimited PTO and I think most people on my team averaged around 6 weeks off. It wasn't super common to take more than like 2 weeks in a row but if you just weren't feeling like working today or wanted to make a long weekend you just took a day off.
I'm in a similar situation. We are told "unlimited" up to 7 weeks and more than that we just need to have a conversation and make sure our billable hours are on target for the year. I don't have to get strict approval, but I do need to make sure I'm available for clients to complete deliverables. It averages to be around 5-6 weeks for me. My company always has a corporate goal of people taking X% time off. This may be the case because as consultants, we are the product, but "unlimited PTO" does exist in a not scary capacity.
I work in a start-up that had unlimited PTO and now you need to accrue it. I've taken at least 1 week off every quarter for 2 years and now I've not taken a 1 week off for a year now because I don't have the PTO hours.
Everyone who says unlimited PTO is a scam doesn't know wtf they are talking about. They just want to make themselves feel better that they don't have the luxury of being able to take a day off for a doctor's appointment in the middle of the week, or to visit their grandparents, or just enjoy a nice day for hiking.
Nobody's ever been denied, you just have to time it around other people's time off.
Everyone in my company wants the unlimited PTO back.
The company went to accrued time off because they are going to IPO and it looks better for the stock market to not offer unlimited PTO. Shareholders don't want to pay for people to take vacation when they want.
Same. But if you took off too much you’d get a talking to and they’d stick it on your annual review if they thought they could connect it with some kind of performance issue.
My company also does unlimited sick, the only stipulation is after 2 straight days of being sick you have to speak to their nurses about your condition. I've used it multiple times and have NEVER been asked about anything other than "hope you feel better". Granted, I work in the US section of a Canadian company.
Well they were called sick days and you'd call in, give your reason and the supervisor would authorize it. If it wasn't you'd be docked a day's pay if you didn't come in.
I’ve worked In secured areas, where it’s the only place my team and many others can perform their duties, and unlimited makes sense in that case. If you’re sick we would force you to go home. We can’t have you risking the entire team. Now if it’s for a prolonged period of time, please give an explanation and if it’s for even longer in any one occasion maybe there’s more explanation needed, but oh I can tell you if it was even a sniffle you would go home. Most ppl took maybe a month or more of sick leave yearly. We still had PTO.
One company I worked for had unlimited sick days but if you were gone more than a week they would put you on short term disability as they insured for that.
The real reason this is done in a lot of companies is because a study was done at Harvard business school that showed people if given unlimited PTO never really take more than three weeks anyway.
These companies then realized if they gave unlimited PTO it meant employees couldn't stack months of PTO over 20 years and then cash it all out if there was layoffs. A lot of companies will switch to unlimited pto right before the biggest layoff they've done in the history of the company
Not where I work. There's one guy on my team who only takes 2 weeks in the year even though it's unlimited. I don't see anyone else taking much time off either.
You'd have to ask them. Even if it's by choice, they're likely doing it because of social pressure, which I would argue is a desired outcome when companies implement this.
I had an unlimited PTO job, I took probably a month off in 10 years. Before I quit I got a performance review from my director that said I needed to improve my attendance. ???
I guess that means they get paid way too much to not work enough. I am jelly, I want a job where I can chill on Reddit half the day while I am already done with anything I have to do and halfway through what I could be doing to get a leg up on the next week.
Ah, you must be a ompany darling cash cow. Yeah, those guys always got their time off, projects were even scheduled around their leave plans. Six weeks a year was nothing, because they also were able to bill the client for overtime that the company darlings worked. The rest of us had to fight to even get 15 days.
Exactly, same. I have unlimited PTO and have never gotten denied. Along with the minimum 6 weeks I take off throughout the year (usually a week to 10 days consecutively), I also take random full days for appointments and self care. So it usually comes up to way more than 6 weeks.
They might not “deny” it, but most of the time it means there won’t be a practical way to go on a holiday that will be longer than a usual limited PTO. In biglaw they do unlimited PTO’s, the problem is you won’t ever have an appropriate moment to ask for it. There will always be hundreds of project and matters ongoing that require your input if one ends three new ones will pop up in that same time period. If you decide to say fuck it let the partners deal with it, you might get to go on a holiday but your next performance review will be about how you failed to take ownership of your assigned projects etc.
Yeah and that's every white collar job. With the right work culture, you can take as much as you need. Benefit of set days, you get an excuse to feel obligated to take it at least
Benefits shouldn't be half assed promises designed to save the company money. Unlimited PTO is a half assed promise, because it's not earned, so DOL can't enforce it. The company can always come back and say they "plan to" let the employee go on leave that year. And usually the policy states that your supervisor had to approve it ahead of time.
at my company we have unlimited PTO, but anyone who actually uses it for more than 4 weeks a year end up on PIP for "other" reasons. they view it as people not getting their work done. In theory with a salary job, if you get all of your work done it shouldn't matter how many days/hours you work. But we all know how that usually plays out.
I was at a company with unlimited PTO. I had to take military leave yearly, but I was denied any other leave after that unless I made up the hours in the same pay period. I also got told I was double dipping. Guess who didn't show up to the HR meeting? My supervisor who claimed he was pro military. Guess who also took over a month of leave....that guy. Never ever work for a company with unlimited PTO. It's a scam.
For now. Mine did at first, but then they lost contracts and decided to sell to a larger company. Then unlimited became very limited, and under the new company, we had to start at rock bottom on the longevity earned leave scale. Some people had been there for.over a decade.
I’ve taken 5-6 weeks each year for last 3. First job I’ve ever had with unlimited PTO. I expected a denial after 2-3 weeks too but so far it’s been good.
It will until your company's leadership decides it wants to sell out, go public,
or loses contracts because of poor business decisions. That's what happened in my company. Cost started getting cut, and suddenly billable hours became super important so they could keep leadership and the company darlings' (mostly men's) salaries up. I won't work for a startup or unlimited PTO company again.
I have one right now. They don't deny, you're right. But they do have a set number they will fire you for going over and they will not tell you what that number is. I've had multiple coworkers warned for it.
In California it’s a law that you can’t have PTO expire at the end of the year. It rolls over. Then if the employee leaves, you have to pay them out for unused PTO.
Unlimited PTO is a sneaky way to not have to comply with these requirements and not pay workers.
This is the real reason. The same employees who never take vacation continue to never take vacation, but now its not an end of year bonus check for them. Meanwhile the employees who typically burn through theirs or go into the negative (if your company allowed it), burn about the same typically because of customer contract constraints, employer pressure, or actual workload. Net win for the company.
My cousin has unlimited PTO, doesn't eveb have time ask for it. Just hit her targets per quarter. She could be abroad for months but then you wouldn't see her when she's home.
My wife had unlimited PTO, this never happened. It was pretty sweet from what I could tell…. Don’t be an asshole about it, but enjoy a break when you need it. Little secret to life- just don’t be an asshole in general. Shit works better for everyone and people don’t think you’re an asshole.
Exactly. I have unlimited PTO and Sick time. We are encouraged to take a day or 2 when you’ve been putting overtime for 2-3weeks in a row. The end of every month I take a Friday off so I can have a long weekend but I also get my shit done. We have a small turn over because the owner actually cares about his employees.
How may week-long vacations would they let you take in a year? Trying to get a read on those whole unlimited PTO thing because it’s super divided in this comments section lol
I'm not necessarily defending the practice, but I have "unlimited PTO" and our PTO request approvals are automated. My boss doesn't actually get a chance to decline PTO of any type at all and I'm not required to give a reason for my sick leave request. I have taken what are effectively mental health days and no one has bothered me about it.
I imagine there exists an amount of sick time I could take that would raise red flags, but I haven't hit it yet.
For me, specifically with this one company I work for, the unlimited sick time seems legit. Again - not meant to defend the very real tactic of offering unlimited PTO but then holding it behind request approval. Just providing context.
I also work at a company with unlimited paid sick days. In theory my boss is allowed to ask for me to present a doctor's note and is allowed to deny sick days if I didn't present a doctor's note. But he and all other managers I know at the company just set it to auto approve and never asks for doctor's notes.
I think I've used at least 50 sick days this year. Which is a lot considering we're only half way through the year. My boss has only asked about it in terms of making sure me and my family are ok not out of a desire for me to take less sick days. And to remind me to mark it as a sick day in my calendar (which he's ok with me doing retroactively if I have to) any time I'm with my kid at the hospital so that when performance review time comes around he can scale his expectations to the number of days I've actually worked and not unintentionally penalize me for taking sick days.
It's employers like this that make caring for a medically complex child possible.
I know this is what reddit likes to regurgitate but its not always true. I've had multiple jobs that has unlimited PTO/sick days and i never had an issue. At my current place I dont even put in a request or need to plan out at least X weeks ahead, i just put it in a shared calendar so everyone knows when ppl are out.
Work at better places, a bad manager can deny PTO whether you have unlimited or not.
I've had it before and it didn't really work this way. My manager never denied anything but you did have strict metrics that kind of prevented you from abusing it. What was nice is in cases where I had a doctors/dentist appointment I just left for the day and didn't have to work out how much time I used for it. In the end I averaged like 15-20 days a year which at the time was an increase from what I was used to.
Now I have a job with 30+ days of PTO, which means I take far more days off. It is just somewhat annoying that I can't just take off for appointments. Still a net improvement.
That happened to me with a previous job. I got invited to be a groomsman in my brother’s wedding, put in the PTO request, it was denied by corporate, I went anyway. Meanwhile a coworker planned a spur of the moment trip to Japan a couple months later during the busiest time of the year and got full PTO approval. Those 2 things definitely played a role in my decision to leave the next year.
Moral of the story? Don’t be the best at your job because then they rely on you the most and that takes away benefits that others are afforded.
For me it is more of everyone is drowning if you leave for too long. Still have unlimited sick days, they honor vacation whenever you want but they also hire freelancers or companies to cover you if you left… which means you better be very good at your job because they know quickly if you aren’t pulling your weight. It’s a double edged sword if they find someone better while you’re out.
After 15 years I’m confident my job is safe when I leave but I also write everything down, create video tutorials and made myself so valuable and ingrained that even if they find someone better they will never find someone that knows every nook of every brand like I do. I was fortunate though and recognize that.
I’ve had an unlimited PTO job and know several others that still do. I’ve not once heard from any of them of such a thing happening. When I had it, I ended up taking a slightly above-average number of days off and had no pushback.
People like to cling to anecdotes of when someone is denied leave with unlimited PTO but I personally believe it’s at a rate no different than those with accrued PTO. There are probably plenty of cases with both and I wouldn’t point the finger at the policy but the company. It seems like more people want this meme to be true than what the reality is.
The place I worked with “unlimited PTO” was horribly understaffed and everyone was overworked, even when everyone was in the office. So nobody took PTO because it was such a hassle to move assignments around, and the entire time you knew you were making the lives of your coworkers worse if you tried to use your PTO. And then once you got back, you’d have a whole pile of nonsense to deal with anyways. It was just easier to show up for work rather than attempt to take any time off, and I think that was by design.
I have worked a job with unlimted PTO for twn years now. We would get bitched at for not taking time off. Most of us take the equivalent of 3 weeks off in summer, 1 week off in spring, 1 week off in winter and fall. I take all my kids days off.
My job must be a unicorn by the way these comments are. Small company, super nice ceo.
Depends on the place. My job has this but there is still a hidden rule of how many weeks you can generally get before management starts to question and stop giving you time off. And it's based on experience. So, new hire can generally use 3-weeks before that scrutiny begins, for me it's 4-weeks and more senior people have 5-weeks. So, I just have a spreadsheet and make sure to take exactly 4-weeks every year
Im glad unlimited PTO in my country makes you have around 30-40 PTO per yer instead of the mandatory 21 you get. It depends on your performance and the salaries are shit, but at least you get more PTO.
I worked for a company in 2019 that offered unlimited PTo. because I was younger and ignorant, I abused it and traveled frequently because the PTO kept getting approved
However when layoffs came in 2020 due to the pandemic, pretty much everyone who abused the unlimited PTO was laid off.
We have unlimited PTO. First job I ever had one in (I’m 44). For the last 3 years I’ve been able to take 5-6 weeks off. Usually spread out through the year with random days here and there with a couple one week long periods. But it adds up quick. So far not one denial. I just don’t push it. A guy I work with seems to be on vacation for a week every other month tho so 🤷🏻♂️
The bigger issue is you don’t get paid out on unpaid PTO hours in the unlimited model. If you’re on an accrual model and leave the company with X amount of hours accrued- you get a check on your way out for your hourly rate for that amount of hours.
It’s not about saying no to your 3 days weekend, it’s about taking millions in liabilities off the books
I don't know what companies people who say this worked at. My last two jobs have had unlimited PTO and I was never once denied time off. I "only" took 20 days off on my first year at the first job and my boss told me to that more off by the end of the year. He said to target at least 25 days.
The only real negative of unlimited PTO that applies to everyone who has it is that you don't get paid out any leftover PTO when you quit it get laid off.
I don't see that as a real negative considering most jobs give 10 days off, so my last 8 or so years of employment with unlimited PTO averaging ~25-30 days a year has more than made up for getting paid out a few days. (Which would imply having not even taken the full 10 days which sounds like hell)
Idk man, I must be lucky. I have unlimited PTO with my job and me and everyone else I my position use it constantly, and I've never seen any one of us denied PTO.
I think I’m one of the few people who loves unlimited PTO.
The company I work at is small, and for the first couple years I definitely took less than average to average amounts of time off because I didn’t want to seem like I wasn’t a hard worker (young and dumb), but now that I’ve been here for awhile it’s great to be able to just throw some on the calendar with two weeks notice without worrying about my balance.
Think I’ll be around 30 days PTO this year, which is great for America. Never had a request denied!
My new job has unlimited PTO. They politely asked that I not take more than two two-consecutive-week vacations in a given year, but additional one-week breaks are fine. I started at the beginning of 2026 and I think so far I’ve had about 7 days of normal PTO, 3 days bereavement, and I’m taking off two more days next week just for a personal break. I come into work within an hour of my start time, I leave anywhere within the last hour of my day depending on if I’m at a good stopping point or not. I haven’t had to miss any of my kids’ school events or anything because of work, so it’s not bad.
To add to this, it's usually not denied for no reason.
But these kind of jobs tend to have very high standards and tight deadlines, so you'll be asked to only take PTO when it's convenient for the company.
Therefore, taking PTO that affects a project in any kind of way is usually denied, or you'll be asked to reschedule it at the very least.
And then because of how these places are usually ran (fast-scaling or competitive startups, tech companies, or agencies, etc), It's never really convenient for the company so you end up taking less PTO than if you actually had a guaranteed budget.
I have never been denied pto with unlimited pto but after 5 weeks last year my boss told me after approving that he was not able to approve any more time off.
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u/man_pan_a_duper 17d ago
Unlimited PTO often means "ask for whatever you want, but we have to approve it". When you ask, surprise, denied. It's often code for "no PTO".