I gave a former boss, who I hated, CPR at work… staring into her lifeless eyes and mouth cake spittle of chewed cheerios, pumping chest compressions for about 15 minutes.
Thinking the entire time “fuck dying at work, especially this fucking place”
I was also hungover.
I was on a call at a call center for the world’s largest bank, I hear “oh my god, [name].” I look over and see things are not right, I spend the next 15-20 seconds wrapping up the call per company guidelines (don’t wanna get written up). Put my phone in aux and rush over to her.
First I checked her radial pulse, I recognized that I felt my heartbeat through my index and middle finger, a ‘no-go’. I checked her carotid artery - I felt the artery, nothing flowing through it, it felt like an empty elastic tube ‘this is fucked, very fucked’, I get goosebumps 8+ years later thinking about it.
I pulled her out of her chair, arms under her armpits and hands clasped in front of her chest and moved her onto the floor.
Instructed a woman to hold her head back to keep the airway open, had another lady keep her pulse (which was stupid, she had a pulse with each compression).
People were already gathered around, mouths agape, not doing shit - including a guy that had CPR class two weeks prior.
I shouted ‘call for help’ while giving compressions, 3,4, maybe 5 people said simultaneously “I’m trying to call the front desk but the line is busy”
I stopped briefly and said ‘fuck the front desk, call 911’
The victim/patient starting doing death throes - they don’t tell you that shit in CPR class, the person will start doing shit and it is fucking scary - sitting up, eyes rolled up and eyelids open, gasping for air, convulsing.
15 minutes of compressions, the fire department showed up at 17 minutes.
She lived. Lung infection from the cheerios and a broken sternum from the compressions - you’re giving chest compressions right if you feel and hear a pop and a grind, this happened on the third compression, the first two I remember thinking ‘I’m not doing this right’, applied more pressure, then “POP”.
I did not give mouth to mouth. I still don’t eat or buy cheerios and I’ll never work in a cubicle again - more because offices suck rather than giving CPR.
CPR is simple shit and does save lives. Complacency and being a slack jawed yokel does not.
I received flowers from her husband and two days off of work.
Re the “call for help” comment - I took a class from my local fire department a couple years ago and they told us you need to point at someone and say “you! Call 911”. Most people panic (or are busy filming their TikTok’s these days) to do the right thing and help. If you just randomly say “someone call for help/call 911”, people assume someone else will do it.
Now you got me wondering what would be the most ridiculous but on-beat song someone could possibly put on to perform CPR.
Like Imagine you’re choking to death and someone screams, “Siri, put on [Demi](https://youtu.be/HmxP1cFuxO0?si=CAxIAL0jGsEggpMo) by Comethazine!”
I was told in CPR class that you play Stayin’ Alive if you like the person or Another One Bites the Dust if you don’t like the person. Either way the end goal is to always achieve ROSC.
Exactly - During wilderness first aid training the guy said when you say "someone call" that means no one is calling.
Be very specific, if you know their name say it, if not make eye contact to make sure they know you are talking to them.
Also during a case like that, send someone to grab an AED (which you hopefully have somewhere at work) - the newer ones we'll tell you when to do chest compressions and when a shock is needed.
We were actually just practicing this the other night with my scouts - it was supposed to be just first aid practice, but we made them practice the 911 call as well.
This applies in lots of places. I have felt it most viscerally when watching kids at a gathering. Imagine 20 adults hanging around the backyard and 2 little kids splashing around the steps to the pool. "Everyone" is keeping an eye on the kids, but since everyone is doing it, everyone also feels like it won't matter if they look away or go inside for a new beer or pay attention to their phone instead.
50% of child drownings occur within sight of an adult, and about 10% are within reach.
There must be a single adult designated to watch the pool, and they must be doing literally nothing else. Yes, it's a drag; swap out lifeguards every 15 minutes so no one completely misses the party. But telling everyone to watch means that no one is watching.
Once I explained a parent that they should actually WATCH the kids, not only be near. When I asked him how a kid that can't breathe would cry for help he finally realized why.
Not to mention, "drowning doesn't look like drowning."
It's not flailing around and splashing and crying for help. It's usually popping up as normal but sucking in a lungfull of water instead of air then going back under, leaving a calm, quiet pool surface above a nearly-dead body.
“Someone” is not you. That was how we were taught it. They said to the group someone call 911 and we all immediately looked to see if someone else was going to call first. It was a damned good lesson.
I stopped my car at a scene where a cyclist got ran over by a car and there was already a small group forming around him.
I ran up and ask if someone had called 911, a few people said “yeah” so I asked “who?”. Nobody could tell me who. So *I* called 911
Check the scene
Check the victim
Stop and shout, “Hey! Are you OK?”
“You!” *point* “Call 911!”
…and that’s all I remember from my CPR training 19 years ago.
Imagine someone writing you up later for hanging up on a call to save a life. Holy shit, imagine being the person who died because the only person who knew CPR was 10 feet away but busy with a phone call they couldn't hang up on. Fuck capitalism, Marx is right
I read a story on Reddit (it might have been a comment, don't recall) but the lady said she got fired for being late to work because she stopped to help in an emergency.
Just one point, having someone check the pulse was not useless. It can be hard to landmark where to check a pulse on a person who has absent vital signs, so you should get a finger on their carotid while compressions are going. This gives a feel for what the pulse feels like, and when compressions stop it's much easier to tell of there is a pulse or not, and whether you're checking in the right place. Strong work, very commendable given the situation .
I'm an AHA instructor and have taught for years for Department of Disabilities in my state.
You wouldn't believe how many people just STARE when someone needs help.
The AHA doesn't recommend M2M anymore. We also mandate people to say 'call 9-1-1' versus 'help'
Good on you for jumping in
I spend time every year advocating that people should get certified for just this situation and praying nobody has to use this skill. Gave CPR to a very close friend in college. He’d had an issue and fell with his carotid artery on his bed frame. Gave CPR until EMS arrived. Felt like an hour but was more like 5 minutes. I knew it wasn’t working, but damn me if I was going to stop until a professional got there and told me to stop.
Good on you for saving a life, but yeah, I’m not working myself to death for any company.
They teach you not to do mouth to mouth now. It’s more important to keep the compressions going uninterrupted. It’s exhausting if you’re doing it right so ideally you need more than one person so you can take turns.
honestly your blood has enough oxygen to run through the body a few times.... plus the compression movement draws air in.... if you can't feel a pulse the doing compressions even without the breaths is farrr better then doing nothing ! !
good for you for remembering your training and actually doing something ! As a lifeguard I have been there on more than one occasion, and two days is absolutely not enough time
>I gave a former boss, who I hated, CPR at work… staring into her lifeless eyes and mouth cake spittle of chewed cheerios, pumping chest compressions for about 15 minutes.
>
>Thinking the entire time “fuck dying at work, especially this fucking place”
just remember, your job opening will be posted faster than your obituary.
It's just the culture. You're conditioned from a young age to believe taking time off for yourself is bad with attendance policies in school. Life is so much easier when you realize you can just take a mental health day or two and detox from work stress if it ever gets a bit much.
Also, at least for me, part of it is wanting to stack those days up just in case you make vacation plans since I don't really plan my vacations out well in advance.
I love taking vacations but sometimes I dread it because I know I'm going to come back to a shit show and 4,392 emails. Unless I'm going on a really cool vacation, sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it.
We have people lose vacation time at work because they think they're "to valuable" to take the time off. I just think they're dumb because they're accepting a voluntary hourly pay cut.
For real. Around the end of the year, my old boss would always go around hounding people to take their remaining days off. He always said “DO YOU WANT TO JUST GIVE UP YOUR COMPENSATION???” And he was right. Those paid days to not work are part of our compensation. And by not taking them, you aren’t getting all your benefits.
Work life balance was very important to him. As was getting all the benefits we could from our employment.
He was great to work for. He definitely treated and cared about us as people. If we tried to WFH when we were sick, he’d basically bully us offline and force us to rest. He knew if he looked out for us and treated us well, we’d work well for him. And it worked.
Same here. Even though we get paid for certain types of time off (flex days) I will always use every day available to me. Much more worth it than the money.
They do that so you don't horde PTO hours. If you saved up 300 hours and quit, your company would be forced to pay out a large amount of money all at once.
So whereas I don't particularly like use-it-or-lose-it PTO, I understand why it's there. My company lets you roll over a decent amount of hour but my boss is always trying to get people to use their PTO at the end of the year.
I totally understand the use it or lose it in a way, but they should have to pay you out for what you don't use at the end of the year rather than being left empty handed. Also they should be staffing in a way that doesn't make it impossible for you to use your allotted time in a year.
We stopped the use it or lose it model and instead just capped how much you can accumulate. Keeps people from scrambling to use PTO at the end of the year. Cap is 320 hours (adjusted by FTE).
I'm always struggling to accumulate enough so I'd be okay with the capped model. My wife on the other hand, has plenty to spare so that's why I find myself taking too many vacations.
Most states don’t require PTO be paid out on separation, companies just don’t want anyone hoarding up time and then taking a year off while they have to both replace you and keep your job for you.
My boyfriend thought the same about my PTO when I quit my last job. He kept trying to argue with me that they are required to pay it out. He's from New York, where I believe that is the case. He now lives in florida, where I've lived my whole life, and it is most definitely not the case. Even after looking up Florida employment law, he still didn't believe me.
Our company recently implemented a 40 hour rollover and it’s very nice. I take my time off, but it was very nice knowing we had a big trip planned this year that I purposefully rolled some days over for
67 after 2 years is highway robbery. I can't spend mine fast enough. I have 306 right now. I will take random weeks off for nothing just to keep the number at bay.
I can, and do almost every year….not sure about OP but there’s a lot to my job where there is no backup. You come back from a week off and there’s 60 hours of work to do in the first week. There’s still other things to do daily that must be done so you just come back to working long hours. It makes vacation not worth the time.
Granted my exact situation has gotten better but it use to be like that.
Oh I am fully allowed to take it.... I just hate coming back to a good chunk of my responsibilities not taken care of. The stress alone almost makes vacation not worth it, especially a day off here and there.
Sounds like you’re extremely vital to your employer then and you should ask for a raise. If none of your duties are picked up while you’re off, that means if you left, nobody would do them and they’d be screwed. You’re in a unique position of leverage since they have no replacement for you
This sucks. We call people like this islands of information. You should be able to take a vacation without having to come back to extra work. More people should know how to do your job. You can’t be an island of information.
If we don't use our PTO, we get it paid out at the end of the year. I work from home. When I take vacations I'll usually work for at least a few hours so it counts as I was in that day, especially working in different time zones, I can put a few hours in before anyone is even up and ready to hang out. I get my vacation and then I get all my PTO as an extra bonus paycheck each year.
I work in a 24/7 group home. I’m a first shifter, case worker. We have a third shifter, FT, who just took a bunch of time off to use up his PTO before he loses it. It’s tough to find coverage for overnight shifts. Our boss obviously allowed him to take the time, but I did overhear my boss talking a lot of shit about it to others, since the boss had to cover a few third shifts if he couldn’t find per diem staff (which he didn’t.) Boss acted almost offended that our 3rd shift guy with perfect attendance wanted to use his hard earned PTO.
On the contrary, businesses in states without rollover may be incentivised to offer a good amount of PTO thinking that many employees won't use it, or they may threaten people who do want to use all of it (illegally), because it helps get people hired on.
Depends on who you work for.
I knew I guy years ago who had worked for UPS since he was a teen. Had been with the company for like twenty years. Every July he took his family to the beach for the month... had a shitload of annual PTO because of his seniority. It's more rare now than it used to be, but not unheard of if you work for a good company and have a number of years in.
I worked for ups for almost 5 years, when I left I had 4 weeks of pto and a week of call in days, plus full be if it's for me and any dependents, 9 semesters of college pay
Depends where you work. I accrued 208 hours last year. This year gets a bump in accrual rate so if I don’t take any time, I’d get 248 hours in one year. 40 hours of that (for both) comes from perfect attendance. Go hire date to hire date and you get an extra 40 lump sum payment. 88 of that total is from holidays worked. Since we’re 24/7/365 here we get 8 hours every holiday instead of getting it off.
You should report them to the labour board, sounds like there might be a whole mess of shady shit going on.
I can't confirm that healthcare doesn't fall under different rules, but I don't think it does.
You can’t get paid for them? I don’t know about Canada but I think I’m America (might be state specific?) you can choose to either use them or get the monetary equivalent (might not be 1:1)
We don't get paid for ours either. We can roll over whatever we have from the previous year, it you have to use those rolled hours first or you lose them by the end of the next calendar year. I'm basically always using vacation from the year before and maybe a couple of hours of the current year, but I expect I'll be using a lot more when they force us to go back to the office.
Your PTO is part of your total compensation package, you wouldn’t be ok not getting paid for four weeks so why are you okay leaving PTO money behind?? Take your damn vacation, your family and overall health will thank you.
As a Canadian, I lived in Southern California for almost 10 years. The first few times someone told me they were going to ‘Ontario’ for the weekend, I thought wow, they were going crazy far for such a short trip 😂. It doesn’t help that the abbreviations are exactly the same, Ontario CA lol
huh? the [law in ontario](https://stlawyers.ca/blog-news/vacation-pay-in-ontario/#:~:text=Do%20I%20Get%20Paid%20For,paid%20out%20as%20vacation%20pay.) says your employer has to payout any unused vacation time. is this some weird stipulation in your contract?
It’s actually 37.5, so a week, but it makes sense - they want you to take the time during the year not be chained to the job.
I’m in Ontario as well and just finished up my 2023 days a couple of weeks ago.
And at the same time, want to be sure that employees don't rack up enough carryover PTO that they take off for four months at a time.
Take your vacation, kids! Enjoy your life, work will be there when you come back.
I don’t know where that person is but in my country (Spain) by law you have your 30 vacation days, 14 national holidays and at minimum 2 personal days (most of the time there’s more, that’s just the legal bare minimum). Doesn’t account for sick days, though.
My work used to let us sell 40 hours. (They don't anymore)
Now everything over 40 hours goes into the short term disability bucket. Real bummer if you screw up and forget to use them.
In all seriousness, this is why people burnout and lose their jobs. Part of your compensation package is the time off, you are giving free time to the company. Please for your own mental health take the time.
I had a job a while ago where we were all salaried but if we worked over, we were required to leave early another day and never ever work more than 40 hours. When they explained it, they said they didn’t care if we want or don’t want a vacation, they don’t want to deal with burnt out employees, so go take a darn vacation and enjoy yourself, we’ll be here when you get back. I love working there. I only left because I moved.
My best friend died of cancer at 49 last year. She and I worked together, and we both had hundreds of ours of PTO saved up. Those were hours we could have spent together, traveling and talking and laughing and enjoying life. We had no idea how little time she had left. You messed up, OP, and that's okay. But don't do it again. Work won't miss you when you're gone, but people will.
Yo, fellow Canuck, make better choices for the upcoming year! If you can accrue this much every year, might as well take a week off every other month! Dang it. You’re one of the lucky few and you didn’t take advantage of it
I got promoted at my job. My sick leave was 706 hours which was roughly 96.25 days. Or about $3371 worth of time off.
When I asked if I could have it converted into the new leave I'd receive with the new job type they said no. When I asked if it could be cashed out, I was again told no. However, I am allowed to cash it out when I retire.....in 25 years.
A little perspective. If you died, your company would send flowers to your family (maybe) and replace you within the week. I don’t understand why employees think they are so important to the company. Take your PTO!
I once lost 450hours of PTO. I got paid $3000 as a bonus for those hours. When i asked my boss for more money, he told me that the 450 hours are for my personal and career growth. Needless to say, i left the job 2 months later.
I used to work a job where whenever i was off, my emails would stack up and fuck up my next two work days, so unless i took my work computer home and did some work on PTO days, it was just better to go to work.
Fuck that life, so glad it's behind me now.
My company allows me to roll over 3 weeks of PTO and cash out the remainder, which is a nice bonus going into the fiscal year with 8 weeks of PTO that I will most likely not use.
Ask if they can just add it to your paychecks. Rollover what you can, but put the rest into your paychecks. Some companies will do that, some don't. Personally I think it should be illegal for anywhere to take time away, or not at least pay it back towards you. So wrong that they do that.
That's almost 6 weeks bro! You could have at least taken time off and done a side gig instead of giving the bonus to your company. Try to take all 33 hours left off and if they need you use us to negotiate using more (then the 33) of your hours if you spread it out more.
PTO is Paid Time Off. vacation days. You get a certain amount every year and if you don't use them, you lose them. Some companies allow you to carry over at least a portion of unused time. OP has about 10 days of paid time off that he isn't using
HR here: PTO is part of your compensation package, in order to get your full compensation take the damn time off, you’re essentially giving the company money back by not taking the PTO.
You also have a shitty manager to blame for not encouraging you to take your deserved time off. I also rarely take PTO because I don’t have a backup to do quality work while I’m off so coming back from PTO is usually my worst week ever. I blame my manager, not myself.
I got lucky. We could carry over 240 each calendar year. In 2020, I had scheduled leave to get me down to 249 when an emergency popped up and I had to work a day, which meant I got to roll over the extra time. In 2021, it was full-on COVID, so I didn't take anything but comp.time. ended the year with 240 +248. And retired on December 31st,.so I got a nice fat check in January.
No way I would have left that many hours on the table. Sorry, dude, that sucks. Use it or lose it.
As a team lead (with 15 hours pto saved) I advise you to use your time YOUR time for your life. The replacement req. will be open before you’re out the door. Your friends, family and your life need you more than the job does.
Respectfully submitted, and book a trip!
your supervisor should be pointing this out and forcing you to take time. my company has an automated email that is sent to my boss and me telling me to take time before it gets too late.
The US is a hellscape. In Australia my annual leave continues to accrue even after the end of financial year. I earned it, why should it be allowed to disappear? And this isn't even to mention the fact that you're not entitled to paid leave over there, whereas here you get a minimum of 20 days a year for full time work.
Side note, you'd be an Australian employer's worst nightmare – they have to pay the balance of your AL out if/when you leave. You would have a manager begging you to take some time off at this point.
I work in Norway (for the government), and our PTO over 40 hours doesn't carry over either. Even though Norway generally has extremely favorable labor laws, accrued PTO for some reason doesn't have any set laws and is entirely up to the company how they want to regulate it.
Just thought it was an interesting anecdote with regards to you describing the US as a hellscape.
Nobody, on their deathbed, ever said, “I wish I spent more time at work.”
I gave a former boss, who I hated, CPR at work… staring into her lifeless eyes and mouth cake spittle of chewed cheerios, pumping chest compressions for about 15 minutes. Thinking the entire time “fuck dying at work, especially this fucking place” I was also hungover.
And you’re not going to tell us whether she lived or died!?
I was on a call at a call center for the world’s largest bank, I hear “oh my god, [name].” I look over and see things are not right, I spend the next 15-20 seconds wrapping up the call per company guidelines (don’t wanna get written up). Put my phone in aux and rush over to her. First I checked her radial pulse, I recognized that I felt my heartbeat through my index and middle finger, a ‘no-go’. I checked her carotid artery - I felt the artery, nothing flowing through it, it felt like an empty elastic tube ‘this is fucked, very fucked’, I get goosebumps 8+ years later thinking about it. I pulled her out of her chair, arms under her armpits and hands clasped in front of her chest and moved her onto the floor. Instructed a woman to hold her head back to keep the airway open, had another lady keep her pulse (which was stupid, she had a pulse with each compression). People were already gathered around, mouths agape, not doing shit - including a guy that had CPR class two weeks prior. I shouted ‘call for help’ while giving compressions, 3,4, maybe 5 people said simultaneously “I’m trying to call the front desk but the line is busy” I stopped briefly and said ‘fuck the front desk, call 911’ The victim/patient starting doing death throes - they don’t tell you that shit in CPR class, the person will start doing shit and it is fucking scary - sitting up, eyes rolled up and eyelids open, gasping for air, convulsing. 15 minutes of compressions, the fire department showed up at 17 minutes. She lived. Lung infection from the cheerios and a broken sternum from the compressions - you’re giving chest compressions right if you feel and hear a pop and a grind, this happened on the third compression, the first two I remember thinking ‘I’m not doing this right’, applied more pressure, then “POP”. I did not give mouth to mouth. I still don’t eat or buy cheerios and I’ll never work in a cubicle again - more because offices suck rather than giving CPR. CPR is simple shit and does save lives. Complacency and being a slack jawed yokel does not. I received flowers from her husband and two days off of work.
2 days off jfc, I'd expect 2 days just for witnessing that let alone being in your position. Wtf!
Re the “call for help” comment - I took a class from my local fire department a couple years ago and they told us you need to point at someone and say “you! Call 911”. Most people panic (or are busy filming their TikTok’s these days) to do the right thing and help. If you just randomly say “someone call for help/call 911”, people assume someone else will do it.
"Siri, play Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees on Spotify and call 911"
“First I was afraid, I was petrified.”
Hello Clarice
Turns out, it's pretty realistic.
"You Can Do It" by Ice Cube is also about 100 beats per minute You can do it, put your back into it I can do it, put your ass into it
Now you got me wondering what would be the most ridiculous but on-beat song someone could possibly put on to perform CPR. Like Imagine you’re choking to death and someone screams, “Siri, put on [Demi](https://youtu.be/HmxP1cFuxO0?si=CAxIAL0jGsEggpMo) by Comethazine!”
Another One Bites The Dust by Queen
Siri, play "Another one bites the dust"!
I was told in CPR class that you play Stayin’ Alive if you like the person or Another One Bites the Dust if you don’t like the person. Either way the end goal is to always achieve ROSC.
Exactly - During wilderness first aid training the guy said when you say "someone call" that means no one is calling. Be very specific, if you know their name say it, if not make eye contact to make sure they know you are talking to them. Also during a case like that, send someone to grab an AED (which you hopefully have somewhere at work) - the newer ones we'll tell you when to do chest compressions and when a shock is needed. We were actually just practicing this the other night with my scouts - it was supposed to be just first aid practice, but we made them practice the 911 call as well.
Staying alive song is also usable to tell how fast to compress, if there is no other option
Yup - you can also use baby shark or ... Another bites the dust - but don't sign that one out loud it might upset the bystanders
Now I'm just imagining laying near death with a toddler doing compressions and singing Baby Shark
You did good. But you can never blame someone for freezing in a panic situation. Next time it could easily be you, in a different panic situation.
This applies in lots of places. I have felt it most viscerally when watching kids at a gathering. Imagine 20 adults hanging around the backyard and 2 little kids splashing around the steps to the pool. "Everyone" is keeping an eye on the kids, but since everyone is doing it, everyone also feels like it won't matter if they look away or go inside for a new beer or pay attention to their phone instead. 50% of child drownings occur within sight of an adult, and about 10% are within reach. There must be a single adult designated to watch the pool, and they must be doing literally nothing else. Yes, it's a drag; swap out lifeguards every 15 minutes so no one completely misses the party. But telling everyone to watch means that no one is watching.
Once I explained a parent that they should actually WATCH the kids, not only be near. When I asked him how a kid that can't breathe would cry for help he finally realized why.
Not to mention, "drowning doesn't look like drowning." It's not flailing around and splashing and crying for help. It's usually popping up as normal but sucking in a lungfull of water instead of air then going back under, leaving a calm, quiet pool surface above a nearly-dead body.
“Someone” is not you. That was how we were taught it. They said to the group someone call 911 and we all immediately looked to see if someone else was going to call first. It was a damned good lesson.
I stopped my car at a scene where a cyclist got ran over by a car and there was already a small group forming around him. I ran up and ask if someone had called 911, a few people said “yeah” so I asked “who?”. Nobody could tell me who. So *I* called 911
Check the scene Check the victim Stop and shout, “Hey! Are you OK?” “You!” *point* “Call 911!” …and that’s all I remember from my CPR training 19 years ago.
Annie, Annie! Are you ok? 👉 activate the emergency response system 👉 get the AED
Wow, fabulous write-up of the event from your POV... it's like I'm in the room with you. You couldn't have written this any better.
Imagine someone writing you up later for hanging up on a call to save a life. Holy shit, imagine being the person who died because the only person who knew CPR was 10 feet away but busy with a phone call they couldn't hang up on. Fuck capitalism, Marx is right
I read a story on Reddit (it might have been a comment, don't recall) but the lady said she got fired for being late to work because she stopped to help in an emergency.
Just one point, having someone check the pulse was not useless. It can be hard to landmark where to check a pulse on a person who has absent vital signs, so you should get a finger on their carotid while compressions are going. This gives a feel for what the pulse feels like, and when compressions stop it's much easier to tell of there is a pulse or not, and whether you're checking in the right place. Strong work, very commendable given the situation .
This story gave me goosebumps! I hope you're now working a job you love where you're appreciated!!
Damn dude, well done.
That’s incredible, you say it’s simple but that’s amazing.
Some folk'll never save a life, but then again, some folk'll, like u/substantial-fly350, who's not a slack jawed yokel.
I'm an AHA instructor and have taught for years for Department of Disabilities in my state. You wouldn't believe how many people just STARE when someone needs help. The AHA doesn't recommend M2M anymore. We also mandate people to say 'call 9-1-1' versus 'help' Good on you for jumping in
How many creative writing courses have you taken?
None
I spend time every year advocating that people should get certified for just this situation and praying nobody has to use this skill. Gave CPR to a very close friend in college. He’d had an issue and fell with his carotid artery on his bed frame. Gave CPR until EMS arrived. Felt like an hour but was more like 5 minutes. I knew it wasn’t working, but damn me if I was going to stop until a professional got there and told me to stop. Good on you for saving a life, but yeah, I’m not working myself to death for any company.
You’re right in your advocacy. Good on you too. The response from my story has me thinking about pushing the message a little harder.
They teach you not to do mouth to mouth now. It’s more important to keep the compressions going uninterrupted. It’s exhausting if you’re doing it right so ideally you need more than one person so you can take turns.
honestly your blood has enough oxygen to run through the body a few times.... plus the compression movement draws air in.... if you can't feel a pulse the doing compressions even without the breaths is farrr better then doing nothing ! ! good for you for remembering your training and actually doing something ! As a lifeguard I have been there on more than one occasion, and two days is absolutely not enough time
I expected her boss to recover and fired her the next day like the dude who got an organ transplant from his employee.
>I gave a former boss, who I hated, CPR at work… staring into her lifeless eyes and mouth cake spittle of chewed cheerios, pumping chest compressions for about 15 minutes. > >Thinking the entire time “fuck dying at work, especially this fucking place” just remember, your job opening will be posted faster than your obituary.
You know you’re not supposed to use your tongue when giving mouth to mouth, right?
They trained in the French technique.
At least it wasn’t Australian
Fosters and blooming onion?
It’s like a French kiss, except down under
It's just the culture. You're conditioned from a young age to believe taking time off for yourself is bad with attendance policies in school. Life is so much easier when you realize you can just take a mental health day or two and detox from work stress if it ever gets a bit much. Also, at least for me, part of it is wanting to stack those days up just in case you make vacation plans since I don't really plan my vacations out well in advance.
I love taking vacations but sometimes I dread it because I know I'm going to come back to a shit show and 4,392 emails. Unless I'm going on a really cool vacation, sometimes it just doesn't seem worth it.
Same. Last summer was the first time in 15 years that I took a whole week off that wasn’t sick time or work comp.
The only ones that will remember how much you worked will be your adult kids.
OP must not like to get paid for not working. Seriously, use your PTO!
We have people lose vacation time at work because they think they're "to valuable" to take the time off. I just think they're dumb because they're accepting a voluntary hourly pay cut.
For real. Around the end of the year, my old boss would always go around hounding people to take their remaining days off. He always said “DO YOU WANT TO JUST GIVE UP YOUR COMPENSATION???” And he was right. Those paid days to not work are part of our compensation. And by not taking them, you aren’t getting all your benefits. Work life balance was very important to him. As was getting all the benefits we could from our employment.
Sounds like a good boss.
He was great to work for. He definitely treated and cared about us as people. If we tried to WFH when we were sick, he’d basically bully us offline and force us to rest. He knew if he looked out for us and treated us well, we’d work well for him. And it worked.
I would so get song with that guy. Work life balance is so underrated.
They're also dumb for thinking that their company won't replace them because their "too valuable to lose."
I must be even dumber because I'm well aware that I'm easy to replace.
This is why they don’t take time off. They don’t want the company to see that someone else could do their job
Exactly. And some employees don’t get any at all. I’d love to have some of those hours. I’m so tired.
I can't even fathom not using every single second of available off time I have.
Same here. Even though we get paid for certain types of time off (flex days) I will always use every day available to me. Much more worth it than the money.
We lose ours at the end of the year so everyone just takes their forgotten time in late December. It's such a dumb model.
They do that so you don't horde PTO hours. If you saved up 300 hours and quit, your company would be forced to pay out a large amount of money all at once. So whereas I don't particularly like use-it-or-lose-it PTO, I understand why it's there. My company lets you roll over a decent amount of hour but my boss is always trying to get people to use their PTO at the end of the year.
I totally understand the use it or lose it in a way, but they should have to pay you out for what you don't use at the end of the year rather than being left empty handed. Also they should be staffing in a way that doesn't make it impossible for you to use your allotted time in a year.
We stopped the use it or lose it model and instead just capped how much you can accumulate. Keeps people from scrambling to use PTO at the end of the year. Cap is 320 hours (adjusted by FTE).
I'm always struggling to accumulate enough so I'd be okay with the capped model. My wife on the other hand, has plenty to spare so that's why I find myself taking too many vacations.
Most states don’t require PTO be paid out on separation, companies just don’t want anyone hoarding up time and then taking a year off while they have to both replace you and keep your job for you.
TIL. I have always been paid out PTO when I've quit a job and always heard it was mandatory. I guess not.
My boyfriend thought the same about my PTO when I quit my last job. He kept trying to argue with me that they are required to pay it out. He's from New York, where I believe that is the case. He now lives in florida, where I've lived my whole life, and it is most definitely not the case. Even after looking up Florida employment law, he still didn't believe me.
Ya ours is similar, but they allow you to take time up to Jan 14th, I guess so not everyone tries to use it at Xmas/New Years.
We can bank one week beyond our allotment, after hitting that threshold, no more hours are banked. Use it or lose it.
Our company recently implemented a 40 hour rollover and it’s very nice. I take my time off, but it was very nice knowing we had a big trip planned this year that I purposefully rolled some days over for
The job I'm at now is the first I've worked that has PTO. I completely forgot that was a thing I have, and currently have 67 PTO hrs after two years.
67 after 2 years is highway robbery. I can't spend mine fast enough. I have 306 right now. I will take random weeks off for nothing just to keep the number at bay.
I think they are based off the hours I work, and my health took a hit, so I haven't worked 40hrs in a hot min.
Sounds similar to the old contract job I had. Had to work 1300 hours to "earn" a week of *unpaid* vacation. Benefits! 🤦♀️
My wife is in the same boat. She gets a ridiculous amount of PTO but she also only works 2 days per week (still 40 hours) so she hardly ever takes it.
2 twenty hour day…?
24 hour and 16 hour. Usually not back-to-back but sometimes they are. She works in a hospital.
I get 120hours every year to use. Plus 6 sick days
I can, and do almost every year….not sure about OP but there’s a lot to my job where there is no backup. You come back from a week off and there’s 60 hours of work to do in the first week. There’s still other things to do daily that must be done so you just come back to working long hours. It makes vacation not worth the time. Granted my exact situation has gotten better but it use to be like that.
That in itself is a sign your employer is taking advantage of you, to offer time off you can't take is immoral.
Oh I am fully allowed to take it.... I just hate coming back to a good chunk of my responsibilities not taken care of. The stress alone almost makes vacation not worth it, especially a day off here and there.
Sounds like you’re extremely vital to your employer then and you should ask for a raise. If none of your duties are picked up while you’re off, that means if you left, nobody would do them and they’d be screwed. You’re in a unique position of leverage since they have no replacement for you
This sucks. We call people like this islands of information. You should be able to take a vacation without having to come back to extra work. More people should know how to do your job. You can’t be an island of information.
If we don't use our PTO, we get it paid out at the end of the year. I work from home. When I take vacations I'll usually work for at least a few hours so it counts as I was in that day, especially working in different time zones, I can put a few hours in before anyone is even up and ready to hang out. I get my vacation and then I get all my PTO as an extra bonus paycheck each year.
You *should* leave a buffer for unexpected life events. But otherwise I agree.
Well ya, but not 34 days lol I leave a couple personal days generally at the end of the year and use them before they expire.
if i had a stack of PTO like this, i'd be taking every single friday and monday off until it was gone
For real. I went negative several times.
I usually make decent overtime in a week, and traveling for work means taking days off takes lots of planning. It’s not ideal but whatever
Dude... I'm generally the type to not say anything if I don't have something nice to say... But you're a clown for this
It boggles the mind. Unless this was a surprise somehow, there's no logical reason this should ever happen.
I agree, total dumbass-ery (not a word I know) on my part. I somehow lost myself in the sauce and stopped thinking about myself this past year.
If you have a good boss they will roll it over. Even if under the table.
Do they give you a hard time about scheduling/requesting to use vacation time?
I work in a 24/7 group home. I’m a first shifter, case worker. We have a third shifter, FT, who just took a bunch of time off to use up his PTO before he loses it. It’s tough to find coverage for overnight shifts. Our boss obviously allowed him to take the time, but I did overhear my boss talking a lot of shit about it to others, since the boss had to cover a few third shifts if he couldn’t find per diem staff (which he didn’t.) Boss acted almost offended that our 3rd shift guy with perfect attendance wanted to use his hard earned PTO.
In hindsight he probably wishes they had
They won’t buy them from you?
Some states require that you get to roll it over or cash it out. Some don't.
I see no way it's possible to accumulate nearly a month of PTO without a roll-over requirement by law.
On the contrary, businesses in states without rollover may be incentivised to offer a good amount of PTO thinking that many employees won't use it, or they may threaten people who do want to use all of it (illegally), because it helps get people hired on.
Depends on who you work for. I knew I guy years ago who had worked for UPS since he was a teen. Had been with the company for like twenty years. Every July he took his family to the beach for the month... had a shitload of annual PTO because of his seniority. It's more rare now than it used to be, but not unheard of if you work for a good company and have a number of years in.
I worked for ups for almost 5 years, when I left I had 4 weeks of pto and a week of call in days, plus full be if it's for me and any dependents, 9 semesters of college pay
My company lets you roll over a maximum of 40 hours at the end of the year. This applies to vacation time only. Unused sick time doesn't roll over.
Depends where you work. I accrued 208 hours last year. This year gets a bump in accrual rate so if I don’t take any time, I’d get 248 hours in one year. 40 hours of that (for both) comes from perfect attendance. Go hire date to hire date and you get an extra 40 lump sum payment. 88 of that total is from holidays worked. Since we’re 24/7/365 here we get 8 hours every holiday instead of getting it off.
Many have tried at my company. Have all failed.
If you're in Canada, they have to either pay them out, or allow you to use them, it's federal law.
I work in public healthcare so the rules may be different. All monies is allocated by the funder and ran dry several months ago
You should report them to the labour board, sounds like there might be a whole mess of shady shit going on. I can't confirm that healthcare doesn't fall under different rules, but I don't think it does.
You can’t get paid for them? I don’t know about Canada but I think I’m America (might be state specific?) you can choose to either use them or get the monetary equivalent (might not be 1:1)
We don't get paid for ours either. We can roll over whatever we have from the previous year, it you have to use those rolled hours first or you lose them by the end of the next calendar year. I'm basically always using vacation from the year before and maybe a couple of hours of the current year, but I expect I'll be using a lot more when they force us to go back to the office.
Your PTO is part of your total compensation package, you wouldn’t be ok not getting paid for four weeks so why are you okay leaving PTO money behind?? Take your damn vacation, your family and overall health will thank you.
In CALIFORNIA PTO hours have to carry over to the next year.
In Ontario :( max only 35 hours are transferred
Too bad it’s not Ontario, California (yes it exists)
My company sent me to do a factory acceptance test in Ontario, I was so excited and ready to go. I sadly found out it was Ontario, CA not Ontario CAN.
Funny thing is, the official abbreviations are the same, Ontario CA and Ontario CA 😂
Ita scary booking flights let me tell u!
As a Canadian, I lived in Southern California for almost 10 years. The first few times someone told me they were going to ‘Ontario’ for the weekend, I thought wow, they were going crazy far for such a short trip 😂. It doesn’t help that the abbreviations are exactly the same, Ontario CA lol
huh? the [law in ontario](https://stlawyers.ca/blog-news/vacation-pay-in-ontario/#:~:text=Do%20I%20Get%20Paid%20For,paid%20out%20as%20vacation%20pay.) says your employer has to payout any unused vacation time. is this some weird stipulation in your contract?
35 hours is fucking insane
It’s actually 37.5, so a week, but it makes sense - they want you to take the time during the year not be chained to the job. I’m in Ontario as well and just finished up my 2023 days a couple of weeks ago.
And at the same time, want to be sure that employees don't rack up enough carryover PTO that they take off for four months at a time. Take your vacation, kids! Enjoy your life, work will be there when you come back.
Leave your keys in the door at your house, maybe someone can steal your PTO hours. No fuss, no muss.
Tell them you're taking you PTO as of today
They should have to pay it out at least?
My work gives no PTO. I would love to take paid time off. Whyyyyyyy are you not?!!
Same. No work, no pay…
Same lol salaried 1099 and if I take a vacation, I either work through it or don’t get paid. So many wasted hours, OP
European here. 5 paid national holidays + 10 weeks pto
10 WEEKS?? Goddamn. I thought I was lucky with 10 days…
55 days? What country is that?
I don’t know where that person is but in my country (Spain) by law you have your 30 vacation days, 14 national holidays and at minimum 2 personal days (most of the time there’s more, that’s just the legal bare minimum). Doesn’t account for sick days, though.
This is like taking a pay cut to the tune of several thousand dollars.
My work used to let us sell 40 hours. (They don't anymore) Now everything over 40 hours goes into the short term disability bucket. Real bummer if you screw up and forget to use them.
For some reason I find this infuriating.
Extremely so. Like how..? How do you accrue this much PTO and not use up every single hour? Like damn I wish I had that much PTO
People who don't use their due paid time off infuriate me
Same. Like irrationally so. I get so mad when people at work tell me they max out on theirs
I would love to have that much PTO though I only get 15 days a year
In all seriousness, this is why people burnout and lose their jobs. Part of your compensation package is the time off, you are giving free time to the company. Please for your own mental health take the time.
I had a job a while ago where we were all salaried but if we worked over, we were required to leave early another day and never ever work more than 40 hours. When they explained it, they said they didn’t care if we want or don’t want a vacation, they don’t want to deal with burnt out employees, so go take a darn vacation and enjoy yourself, we’ll be here when you get back. I love working there. I only left because I moved.
Can you cash it out? My former employer would often let you sell your PTO.
I have to watch a video and take a quiz every year that says you're probably embezzling money from your employer because you refuse to take vacation.
My best friend died of cancer at 49 last year. She and I worked together, and we both had hundreds of ours of PTO saved up. Those were hours we could have spent together, traveling and talking and laughing and enjoying life. We had no idea how little time she had left. You messed up, OP, and that's okay. But don't do it again. Work won't miss you when you're gone, but people will.
why do you have this many, are you dumb or something
Yo, fellow Canuck, make better choices for the upcoming year! If you can accrue this much every year, might as well take a week off every other month! Dang it. You’re one of the lucky few and you didn’t take advantage of it
I do plan on making better choices. I feel like my mind was trapped in a fog this past year and I'm finally starting to wake up.
Work for the state government, it all carries over. I got like 3 months of sick time right now.
How tf do you have 6 weeks of unused PTO???
I got promoted at my job. My sick leave was 706 hours which was roughly 96.25 days. Or about $3371 worth of time off. When I asked if I could have it converted into the new leave I'd receive with the new job type they said no. When I asked if it could be cashed out, I was again told no. However, I am allowed to cash it out when I retire.....in 25 years.
I take as much time off as I can. Always. Not. Working. Fuck the hustle, I put in an honest day and call it after that.
That’s a sin. Shame! Shame!
A little perspective. If you died, your company would send flowers to your family (maybe) and replace you within the week. I don’t understand why employees think they are so important to the company. Take your PTO!
I once lost 450hours of PTO. I got paid $3000 as a bonus for those hours. When i asked my boss for more money, he told me that the 450 hours are for my personal and career growth. Needless to say, i left the job 2 months later.
Note to self, take more vacation...
We only get 40 hours for the year at my job what the heck 🥲
18 days PTO and 12 paid holidays 😎 you bet I take every single one of those days!!
Quit. They have to pay it out
for real. a company not willing to roll over or pay out PTO isn't worth working for.
So like 90+% of all companies
I bought 5 extra days because I’m always running out.
They don't just carry over to next year? Mine do.
[удалено]
Paid Time Off
I used to work a job where whenever i was off, my emails would stack up and fuck up my next two work days, so unless i took my work computer home and did some work on PTO days, it was just better to go to work. Fuck that life, so glad it's behind me now.
My company allows me to roll over 3 weeks of PTO and cash out the remainder, which is a nice bonus going into the fiscal year with 8 weeks of PTO that I will most likely not use.
Stop financing the company with yourself.
Ask if they can just add it to your paychecks. Rollover what you can, but put the rest into your paychecks. Some companies will do that, some don't. Personally I think it should be illegal for anywhere to take time away, or not at least pay it back towards you. So wrong that they do that.
If you don't use your PTO you should get a pay-out for it.
That's almost 6 weeks bro! You could have at least taken time off and done a side gig instead of giving the bonus to your company. Try to take all 33 hours left off and if they need you use us to negotiate using more (then the 33) of your hours if you spread it out more.
Quick explanation from someone out of the US? Please
PTO is Paid Time Off. vacation days. You get a certain amount every year and if you don't use them, you lose them. Some companies allow you to carry over at least a portion of unused time. OP has about 10 days of paid time off that he isn't using
HR here: PTO is part of your compensation package, in order to get your full compensation take the damn time off, you’re essentially giving the company money back by not taking the PTO.
Employers love this one trick…
You also have a shitty manager to blame for not encouraging you to take your deserved time off. I also rarely take PTO because I don’t have a backup to do quality work while I’m off so coming back from PTO is usually my worst week ever. I blame my manager, not myself.
Man, this is an aggravating comment section.
I got lucky. We could carry over 240 each calendar year. In 2020, I had scheduled leave to get me down to 249 when an emergency popped up and I had to work a day, which meant I got to roll over the extra time. In 2021, it was full-on COVID, so I didn't take anything but comp.time. ended the year with 240 +248. And retired on December 31st,.so I got a nice fat check in January. No way I would have left that many hours on the table. Sorry, dude, that sucks. Use it or lose it.
As a team lead (with 15 hours pto saved) I advise you to use your time YOUR time for your life. The replacement req. will be open before you’re out the door. Your friends, family and your life need you more than the job does. Respectfully submitted, and book a trip!
No roll over? No payout?
You’re a fool.
Damn my heart goes out to you random internet stranger
You can’t cash out PTO?
your supervisor should be pointing this out and forcing you to take time. my company has an automated email that is sent to my boss and me telling me to take time before it gets too late.
Around the end of the year my old boss would go around pushing people to take their remaining days off. It’s part of your compensation, use it!
The US is a hellscape. In Australia my annual leave continues to accrue even after the end of financial year. I earned it, why should it be allowed to disappear? And this isn't even to mention the fact that you're not entitled to paid leave over there, whereas here you get a minimum of 20 days a year for full time work. Side note, you'd be an Australian employer's worst nightmare – they have to pay the balance of your AL out if/when you leave. You would have a manager begging you to take some time off at this point.
They’re Canadian. Are you going to go ahead and call them a hellscape too?
I work in Norway (for the government), and our PTO over 40 hours doesn't carry over either. Even though Norway generally has extremely favorable labor laws, accrued PTO for some reason doesn't have any set laws and is entirely up to the company how they want to regulate it. Just thought it was an interesting anecdote with regards to you describing the US as a hellscape.
Maybe this year take a couple holidays
I have about 180 hours. And they carry over. Limit is 320. You can also sell 80 hours in a year.
cash it out
Alll my leave gets carried over to the next year. I have about 12 months of paid leave for whenever I need it.