PTO reduction at work

[stacheasaurus]

My company recently got acquired, and through the acquisition I lost 7 days of paid-time-off:

Before acquisition

• Holiday: 11
• Vacation: 13
• Sick: 10

After acquisition

• Holiday: 9
• Vacation: 18
• Sick: 0

*After acquisition any sick time is just vacation now

The company's insistence is that I have more vacation time now instead of it being limited by sick time.  What is the right discussion point here?  I've already stressed that though I have more "vacation", now I can be sick 7 fewer days, or not have as much time for doctors appointments, etc.? Or is it just time to look for another company and there is no hope?

[AuspiciousEight]

Imo it's time to look for another company. Negotiating for PTO time has always been much more challenging than negotiating for salary, in my experience. Perhaps you can ask for higher salary to make up for the loss of PTO?

[Captain FIRE]

I mean, I see their point. If you don’t use all of your sick time (most people) you might indeed be better off. Those with health conditions or family members with health conditions may not be. You could try pushing a “not friendly to disability” angle. But these things are hard to change…

[Paul der Krake]

Most people are not sick 7+ business days per year, and are better off with this arrangement.

As others have said, you will almost certainly not be able to change this, because benefits have to apply to everyone. Best case scenario, you develop an informal understanding that lets you call in sick without officially having to take the time off.

As an aside, I never ever put time off for a doctor's appointment, or any errand that's less than ~2.5 hours. I understand that's not possible for every job, but for white collar work if you find yourself working for a company that cares about this, you probably don't want to work there.

[classicrando]

What happened to the 2 holidays as well?  11 to 9 sounds like they were observing all federal holidays, and then decided 2 of them weren't that important.  Depending on what holidays they were no longer going to observe, that would be a bigger red flag to me about the character of the new corporate overlords.  Like, I'd have way more side-eye going on towards new management if they dropped observance of MLK day and Juneteenth vs. if they dropped President's and Veteran's Day.

[Bartlebooth]

What happened to the 2 holidays as well?  11 to 9 sounds like they were observing all federal holidays, and then decided 2 of them weren't that important.  Depending on what holidays they were no longer going to observe, that would be a bigger red flag to me about the character of the new corporate overlords.  Like, I'd have way more side-eye going on towards new management if they dropped observance of MLK day and Juneteenth vs. if they dropped President's and Veteran's Day.

I have worked at 4 companies and none of them observed any of those 4 holidays!  To be fair, three of the employment stints were before Juneteenth was created.  Federal holidays are for stodgy businesses.

On the original topic: I prefer to have separate sick days but there seems to a trend away from them.  WFH and flexible hours have increased acceptance of it.  But it is bogus to have any leeway shananigans like that going on--just opens doors for unfairness.

End result for me: my life is fine without sick days, I can understand why some are upset about losing them, and I bet getting rid of them cuts a massive amount of waste of people taking them when they weren't actually sick.

Recommended discussion point: ask your manager how flexible they are about doctor appointments.  And just accept the changes.

[HPstache]

I actually prefer sick time being vacation time, I had having to try and convince someone that I'm actually sick (rare) to use that time.

[41_swish]

When I started at my current job it was 20 days PTO and no sick time with 10 holidays. They changed it to 15 days PTO, 7 sick days, and 12 holidays. So, I technically got more time off, but some of it was now sick days, YMMV, but my boss at least lets us use PTO and sick time interchangeably, so it is fine. I try to burn through the sick days first, but I usually try to keep three in reserve and then burn them around christmas or new years.

[classicrando]

What happened to the 2 holidays as well?  11 to 9 sounds like they were observing all federal holidays, and then decided 2 of them weren't that important.  Depending on what holidays they were no longer going to observe, that would be a bigger red flag to me about the character of the new corporate overlords.  Like, I'd have way more side-eye going on towards new management if they dropped observance of MLK day and Juneteenth vs. if they dropped President's and Veteran's Day.

I have worked at 4 companies and none of them observed any of those 4 holidays!  To be fair, three of the employment stints were before Juneteenth was created.  Federal holidays are for stodgy businesses.

I get what you're saying.  It's just since there are 11 federal holidays and that was the observed number of holidays; if they weren't following the federal holiday schedule it makes me wonder what holidays they were observing.  Earth Day?  National Balloon Day?  Previous owners gave everyone a week off for Burning Man?

[mm1970]

Try and negotiate free sick time.  Some companies have unlimited sick time.

[Captain FIRE]

What happened to the 2 holidays as well?  11 to 9 sounds like they were observing all federal holidays, and then decided 2 of them weren't that important.  Depending on what holidays they were no longer going to observe, that would be a bigger red flag to me about the character of the new corporate overlords.  Like, I'd have way more side-eye going on towards new management if they dropped observance of MLK day and Juneteenth vs. if they dropped President's and Veteran's Day.

I have worked at 4 companies and none of them observed any of those 4 holidays!  To be fair, three of the employment stints were before Juneteenth was created.  Federal holidays are for stodgy businesses.

I get what you're saying.  It's just since there are 11 federal holidays and that was the observed number of holidays; if they weren't following the federal holiday schedule it makes me wonder what holidays they were observing.  Earth Day?  National Balloon Day?  Previous owners gave everyone a week off for Burning Man?

Yeah, my husband used to get 8 holidays. Fewer holidays than federal isn't that uncommon (although unfortunate). Core ones are usually:
New Years
MLK Day
Memorial Day
July 4th
Labor Day
Thanksgiving Day
Christmas Day

Then places vary in terms of including Indigenous People's Day or Veterans' Day.
President's Day is a bit less common I'd say (I don't get it now, for example), along with Juneteenth for being so new.

I think you're blowing it wildly out of proportion to start talking about a National Balloon Day...

[HPstache]

I think you're blowing it wildly out of proportion to start talking about a National Balloon Day...

Hate to burst your bubble, but it's kind of a big deal.

[Catbert]

This is an argument that you aren't going to win.  Companies aren't going to negotiate with individual employees about time off.  (Except I suppose to the top of upper management, maybe.)  The total amount of time off is within the range of "normal" for the US.

[mm1970]

For unrelated data:

Old company holidays:
New Year's Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Day after Thanksgiving, Xmas Eve, Xmas, NYE (10)

New company holidays:
Add MLK Jr, Juneteenth (12)

[41_swish]

I second that most companies, are not going to negotiate PTO. Most of this stuff is just based on years of experience to try and keep things fair.

[stacheasaurus]

Thanks for all of the input! I would generally agree with the assessments from others here.  The only difference for me specifically is that when I got hired I negotiated an extra 3 days PTO due to my experience. With the acquisition, I got bumped up to the equivalent as if I were a new hire, i.e. those 3 days are really the days that disappeared.  That will be my discussion point at next 1:1

[Laura33]

Thanks for all of the input! I would generally agree with the assessments from others here.  The only difference for me specifically is that when I got hired I negotiated an extra 3 days PTO due to my experience. With the acquisition, I got bumped up to the equivalent as if I were a new hire, i.e. those 3 days are really the days that disappeared.  That will be my discussion point at next 1:1

Yeah, if this is what you negotiated, and you're now placed back in the same position as others, that's what I'd go with instead of just the overall changes.