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So I decided I wanted to take a day off from work to get a long weekend for the holidays. I asked accounting how many hours of PTO I have accrued since I began working on JULY 5, 2011. I just found out that I have 10 (thats right, TEN) hours of PTO accrued so far. 3 Months after I was hired the company instilled furlough days and stopped the accrual of PTO indefinately. Which means that I only have 10 hours of PTO indefinately. This pisses me off to no end, because I have been here for 6 months, and only earned 1.25 days off. WTF is up with that, and to top it off, I am not and have not been accruing PTO for the past 3 months, so what I have is what I get. If this keeps up, then I will only have 10 hours of PTO until my 1 year anniversary, at which point I will get 40 hours added on.

So now I wont be having a long holiday weekend, because I need to save this day for something that is actually important, not just a long weekend. BTW, this B.S. has motivated me to update my resume ASAP and start looking for new employment.

25 Spice ups
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what are furlough days?

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rllarson wrote:

what are furlough days?

Forced unpaid day off. The company tells you you can only work 32 hours this week, not 40. Therefore I only get paid for 32 hours instead of 40 ><

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It’s a way many companies try to save money by lowering their labor costs. The problem comes when they have to figure out how to still get everything done they want you to do, but not actually pay you to spend the time doing it. I wish I knew someone who was hiring in CO to help out. My sister-in-law works for a federal judge, and they’re doing similar things with them…

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My company has been doing furlough weeks for 3 years now and I can’t tell you how many of those days that I have been forced to take off when I have been called in. The last time they called me in it was at noon for something stupid and I didn’t leave until 5pm. So I told them that I would be taking a 1/2 a furlough day on another they and they said no…

We had 2 weeks of furlough this year, which is equal to the amount of vacation time I get. So here we are at the end of the year and I still have 5 days out of 10 days vacation left. Going to take it all between now and my anniversary date in Feb 2012.

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WTF dude. I would say it’s high time to leave that position. Benefits are what we get when the pay is shit. Since they are running furlough as well, basically you have been negated all the benefits.

Do they truly expect you to NOT take a day off for over a year?

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Wow! Never saw that, but it stinks.,

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Matt9660 wrote:

My company has been doing furlough weeks for 3 years now and I can’t tell you how many of those days that I have been forced to take off when I have been called in. The last time they called me in it was at noon for something stupid and I didn’t leave until 5pm. So I told them that I would be taking a 1/2 a furlough day on another they and they said no…

If they requested for you to come in and they didn’t pay you for the time and they didn’t allow you to take the time off to make up for it you basically were forced to work for free. We have laws against that. That is grounds for a lawsuit. You have to asses how badly you like working where you’re working. If you don’t like it so much start looking for another job and document the labor violations. Then on your way out the door you can sue them for the unpaid time.

5 Spice ups
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Plus interest!

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Wow - my job is actually pretty cool.

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I think a lot of IT people are looking to change jobs because of the way they are treated. I ended up paying 168% more for insurance in 2012 with no raise in 2011 and no raise for 2012.

Now they want to claim my Ph.D project as company property, and they didn’t pay for the courses! So it would be like working 30-40 hours a week for 3 years for free!

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All in all am ok with the furlough days (only 2 per month), but the fact that I ALSO dont accrue my measly 3.3 hours/month of PTO really pissed me off. I am giving up present AND future hours just because the company needs to look better for their lenders.

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Was there some clause in your contract that states that anything you come up with while employed is company property? I see this sort of thing from time to time and sometimes it’s enforceable and others it’s not. If they didn’t pay for the courses and you didn’t do any of the work during company time I don’t think they can make a claim…

N3WJL wrote:

I think a lot of IT people are looking to change jobs because of the way they are treated. I ended up paying 168% more for insurance in 2012 with no raise in 2011 and no raise for 2012.

Now they want to claim my Ph.D project as company property, and they didn’t pay for the courses! So it would be like working 30-40 hours a week for 3 years for free!

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Zach333 wrote:

rllarson wrote:

what are furlough days?

Forced unpaid day off. The company tells you you can only work 32 hours this week, not 40. Therefore I only get paid for 32 hours instead of 40 ><

thats a terrible company policy. i would immediately hit the road distributing resumes all over the place

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I have seen worse. My old job you didn’t get any vacation time till after your first year. Then you got 1 week that had to be taken all in 1 chunk. You had to be there 7 years before you could break up your vacation days.

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That is extremely low. I never heard of anything like that.

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I would be checking the contract I signed… if it mentions your accrued time at all… they cannot just change it without you signing another contract…

If it doesn’t mention it… well that would suck…

That is brutal… especially without some notification of the change… although that may have caused a mass-exodus … I’d be gone.

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My job doesn’t pay squat, but the PTO is awesome.

What they are doing to you is total BS. Hope you are at least getting paid decently.

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Yea they are making our state government workers take days off like that but when you look at the Furlough days they all happen around major holidays, so they get a 4 day weekend and I think they can elect to get paid if they use vacation days.

If they started making me take furlough days I think my phone would be out of order for certain numbers during that time especially if I was not getting paid for them.

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Check your contract. Does it say they can switch you to furloughs, or that they can change the details of the contract to suit themselves at any time?

If not, they not only can’t force furloughs on you, they owe you six months’ accumulation of vacation days.

If they make noises about firing you, you can always offer to mention the unpleasant facts of life to all the other employees who are not on furlough contracts despite being told so. Or, you know, just do that anyway without going to management first, wait for management to cave against staff rage, and quietly collect your vacation days at the end of everything.

I realise this can be a loaded question in some locations, but are your co-workers and you part of a union? And if so, is the union going in to bat?

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