Working conditions

[dsrtao]

Inspired by a post from cvirtue, let's find out from them that work for others:

How many companywide holidays do you get?
How many vacation days?
Does your company actually (not "officially") count sick days and/or personal days?
Can you telecommute? How much? What enforces that?
Do you work for what you would consider a technology company?

My answers:

1. 10 holidays, all set by the stock market.
   
2. 15 vacation days/year
   
3. No, but people would notice if I didn't do my job.
   
4. Yes, as much as I want to but not all the time; it's an unspoken social contract, plus the fact that our disaster recovery policy states that all employees must be able to telecommute.
   
5. Yes.
   

Comments

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

1. 7 holidays, 4 floating holidays
2. 15 vacation days, because I negotiated that when I was hired. Normal is 10 days for less than 10 years service.
3. My company counts sick time on time sheets. There is no specific number of sick hours available. There are no personal days - those are vacation days or unpaid absence. (Also there is generally no compensatory time, but special situations can be considered.)
4. I can telecommute, rarely. Specifics of telecommuting are negotiated with one's supervisor, but it is generally not encouraged.
5. No. (They consider /themselves/ a high tech r&d company.)

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

1. 7
2. 20 (since I passed 10 years here)
3. Are you kidding?? I can't even get a lunch break!
4. Nope
5. nope

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

When I worked for Intel, we got:
12 Holidays
15 Paid Vac days, but not accounted for except informally, because the tracking cost as much as the vacation days.
We used to get up to 15 days for child care, but sick days were counted if you went over a week at once.
Telecommuting: with approval from boss, two days a week, but generally disapproved of in certain departments. BC/DR required ability to Telework.

Yes, it was a tech company...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

1. 11?
2. 120 hours (i.e. 15 days) per year.
3. Sick/personal days are tracked like vacation (but in a different column). 40 hours/year.
4. Officially, no, not at all. In practice it occurs infrequently. It is enforced by the "by chance" system ("I walked by your office and no one was in"), followed by a stern talking to or something, followed by firing. Also, we have employees that work offsite; not sure how that works, but I believe they're contracting rather than full-time.
5. Yes.

Note that some of these policies are required to comply with government regulations. Telecommuter use of Secret data is counterindicated when you still think Windows VPN is a pretty secure system.

[siderea]

I can't actually answer all of this from home! I don't remember! Ask me on a workday. ;)

1) I forget.
2) I forget. All I know is that I've amassed about six weeks off of paid vacation.
3) I dunno. I'm pathologically honest. If I'm home sick (or take time off for a doctor's appt) I log it in the timecard system. Nobody checks up on me. Hell, most people wouldn't notice, since I often work evenings. I was out sick for a week in September and most people didn't know. They thought I was working evenings or out for school.
4) I could, as far as my company and boss go -- I can't for ergonomic reasons! I am hoping to improve my workstation at home so that I could telecommute, but that's a ways off in my future.
5) Sort of. It doesn't consider itself a technology company, but it sure makes a lot of software for something that isn't a technology company.

[sml.livejournal.com]

1. 6, the Big Ones. The rest can be taken with flex time and/or vacation
2. 3.54 hours a week for the first 10 years, 4.something after (comes out to 23-ish days a year)
3. Everything goes into vacation time (paid time off bank), but there is flex-time (total hours allocated need to be 40 hours a week)
4. Yes, as long as I make my meetings (and there can be a lot of meetings) and deadlines
5. Somewhat (part tech, part policy, part R&D)

[cellio]

7 fixed holidays, 5 floating. (Informal policy: you can float all 12 if it's ok with your boss and coworkers.)

20 days/year because of a grandfather clause; new employees get 15 until they've been there for 15 years (yes, you read that right).

Sick time is tracked in the timesheet but there's no quota. If you're out for more than some number of consecutive days (3? I forget as it hasn't happened to me yet), you need a doctor's note.

Telecommuting is weird. We have a few employees (people with two-body problems who we wanted to keep) who work remotely in other cities. You can, in principle, work from home if it's really necessary (sick kid or the like). In practice, there are both technological and interpersonal barriers that make this hard, and if you're local you can't do it routinely.

Yes.

[jducoeur]

1. Varies slightly year-to-year, but about 10 holidays.
2. 15 vacation days.
3. I believe they're tracked, but not very closely: it's mostly a personal-honor thing.
4. More or less arbitrarily, so long as you're around when meetings and such need to happen. I telecommute a modest amount; my co-architect does so a lot, since he has childcare duty in the late afternoon. (The corollary is that there is nearly no such thing as a Snow Day: it's assumed that everyone can telecommute when needed.)
5. Definitely.