Episode-2412- Listener Feedback for 4-1-19 — 17 Comments

  1. Regarding the “unlimited vacation” perk, I agree with everything Jack said, and in addition…

    It is an accounting trick, and a bit of a scam IMO, for the company’s benefit.  Employees no longer accrue unused vacation time, thereby eliminating that item from a company’s financial liability.

  2. Re: Careers and time

    Jack, I think you hit the nail on the head. The time inflexibility and waste was one of big reasons I had to get away from a standard job, and it’s probably the most common gripe among my employed friends too.

    Not a lot of my jobs even had an option for 4/10 workweeks, and I wasn’t so much dissatisfied with how much paid vacation I got but rather the inability to take long vacations even on an unpaid basis. If I’m going on vacation overseas for example, give me 5 weeks off with 2 or 3 weeks of it unpaid and I’m great with that. But the last job I had that let me do that was 19 years ago. And involved delivering pizzas. Funny that…

    At this point I’m so picky I can only imagine wanting to work as a permanent full-time employee if I got:

    1) a 4/10 schedule (or even seven 12-hour days every two weeks)

    2) working from home at least part of the time

    3) very flexible (paid and unpaid) time off

    4) getting paid equivalent to my last jobs, and

    5) working on something with real meaning for ME.

    Personally, I think I’d have an easier time finding a nun with a cocaine habit (pun totally intended 😉 )

  3. Time & the Workforce

    This is hilarious to me because nobody ever tells me to take vacation. I hate capitalism but I darn well game it to my advantage. I outperform and outdo most people in my industries, so I use this to my advantage. This is why I’m a worker; I like having absolute control over my involvement in the workforce without putting in the work to make my own company and having to hire and monitor people and being entirely subject to others’ productivity and enthusiasm.

    I hate telling people what to do and babysitting. Unlimited vacation would be an enormous boon to me. If you master the self, or are on that path as I am, then self-control and self-discipline are key to success in that. Extrapolate and apply that to all areas of your life and you are light years ahead of the average person, let alone worker.

    I never work 40 hours; I always finish my tasks earlier, with the same or better quality. I’m in this seat warming it for at least 2 hours a day. I’ve reassured my PM, via quality and what he thinks is swift work (but is really the product of me goofing around to take more time and not unduly outshine others). I’m supposed to work 4 9s and a ½ Friday.

    I almost never work on Friday (I log in so they can monitor my laptop via Skype for Business and usually do my personal finances instead). Don’t get me started on getting up and going in and wasting 1.5 hours to get ready. I am not a child. I am an adult. Unlimited or whatever time off I want is what will have me working for you until my financial independence, and possibly, working part time thereafter because freedom makes me like you more!

    • “I hate capitalism but I darn well game it to my advantage.”

      Don’t you realize how stupid this sounds? No other economic system would give you anything close to what you have right now.

  4. My company offers unlimited PTO. Happy to answer any questions on it. My summary would simply be that people don’t take advantage of it because your boss still has to approve the time. They are strongly encouraged to approve it by policy, but they don’t have to. This limits the potential negative impact by letting the business say no if you’re trying to take off a month near a major go-live for example. Couple that with work-from-home and flex-time for many positions and you can design a job that works for you.

    The company also offers 2 months of maternity/paternity which can be taken contiguously or broken up over the course of a year. This is on top of a host of other benefits that run from discount stock purchases to emergency dependent care, to basic legal services (think wills, real estate purchase reviews, etc). The benefits some places provide are insane. They also don’t hide it. There’s a public website available that’s used as a recruiting tool. https://www.paypalbenefits.com/us

    • That sounds awesome but given the company is PayPal with things this good I would expect more competence on the other end of the line when I as a customer calls in with an issue.

      • The call center works… differently. I’d be happy to chat with you about it via email if you’d like. I was part of a recent acquisition so this whole experience has been… enlightening?

  5. Re: Gun Storeage

    We have a 14 or so gun cabinet that we got for Christmas a few years back.  It actually came with hardware so that you could attach it to studs in the wall behind it.  We installed it that way for not only the additional security but the fact that they’re tall and skinny and could topple easily.  If someone wanted to get into it when we weren’t home, it’d probably be pretty trivial, but it provides sufficient security when you want your guns locked up because you’re having a bunch of kids over for a sleep over or something.

    The cabinet cost less than $150 at Rural King (like TSC but WAY better. :D)

  6. The safest way to keep a firearm safe from kids is to separate the bolt from the gun.

  7. CBD is the shorthand for Canabidiol.

    It is 1 of the 125 cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant.

    CBD is a white powdery substance. It is not an oil.

    Some manufacturers use oil as an extraction tool. It is then really hard to separate the CBD from the other 124 cannabinoids. Only 1 of those 124 is illegal federally. THC

    thats why most cbd products are made with cbd oil, and not pharmaceutical grade isolate

    it is important to use proper terminology so we are all speaking about the same thing.

    CBD that originates from a hemp crop (certified less than .003 THC) is legal federally. CBD that originated from cannabis plants (plants with more than .003 THC) is federally illegal.

    If filling out forms correctly is your thing. Stick with CBD that is certified ZERO THC, and originated from a USDA certified hemp crop.

  8. No other system we’ve had heretofore (and currently in existence). We can make systems far better than capitalism. If you’re narrow minded, then yeah what you said makes sense 🙂 I’m not going to fight with you because I know you love capitalism. Have a good day!

  9. Give me a system, go ahead, that isn’t fighting it would be at least an attempt to back up one hell of a claim.

  10. Unlimited paid time off, several companies do this, but you do need supervisor’s approval. In some cases it means no time off.
    Theory is if you are current in your work then you can have free time.
    Too often I’ve seen people expected to answer emails and take phone calls, consult during their approved by supervisor time off.
    Depends on the culture of the organization. One son now has a list of questions he asks before working for a unlimited paid time off company, such as how much is the average time off taken by other employees, what is the average hours worked per week. That one question alone and the answer to it is a deal breaker for him. Along with can I work remote. Or how often must I travel into an office.
    His brother works for a company which offers many perks, his first week on Friday after 3 they asked why he was still at work, didn’t he have a wife and surely she would appreciate him coming home early. He finished up his current thing he was working on then went home. They let him know flexible hours means you get your work done, do not clock in and out, although he usually works in the office he also does work at home, esp if it is a meeting with co-workers in Tokoyo at a weird hour, etc. He got 2 months paid time off when his son was born and no one called/emailed him during his break. He put it this way, if they can’t function without me supervising them, then I am doing my job wrong.

  11.  light in a shed that does not have power:

    Another option here…I did mine this way and it’s done well for years. Find a heavy duty extension cord with a ground. If you have access to an outside GCI protected outlet, then you can plug in the extension cord and on the other end,  connect the 3 wires of the extension cord to an outlet/switch inside the shed. Run the cord through some conduit and bury underground. Ensure the outlet is installed properly inside a metal junction box.

    I use a low wattage light outside that has a sensor that turns it on only at night and on the inside, I have a tube light, wired through another extension cord and plugged in the outlet.

  12. On the unlimited vacation. I know of a company, that has this as a policy. They explained that they don’t give a set amount of vacation. If you need a day off it’s paid as long as you get prior approval from management.

    The explanation they gave on why they do this is because they’ve found people think twice about “just taking a day off” when they don’t have a set number of days they can take.

    They also said they’ve found people are more likely to take an actual vacation instead of just a day off here or there until they are out of days. Thus making people happier workers.

    My question was what happens when you need a vacation and your boss won’t let you have time off? Or what happens if they all of a sudden decide you took too many “vacations” in a year even if it was say less than say 2 weeks?

    I understand that unlimited vacation could be a great bonus, but it seems more like something that will be abused by either management or employees