Four Weeks PTO for All!

---

I had the pleasure of working a Special Needs Fair at Cal State Northridge last weekend. It was a lovely event and I was able to inform many attendees with disabled kids and adults about the services they could receive. They were curious about SSI, IHSS (In Home Support Services), ACCESS disability transportation, and several more. Most of them were afraid of their kids aging out of independent living skills training at the age of 22. I was able to respond with “My employer provides independent and adaptive skills training to adults over 22”. Their faces melted with glee and exuberant nature.

“Yes, I need support for my son who’s going to college. He’s Autistic and really struggles with time management”. “My daughter isn’t able to manage her personal hygiene and can’t clean on her own and really needs help”

“How old do you think my daughter is?” - Mom

“Maybe about 13?” - David

“No, she’s 21”. - Mom

Well, man. It’s hard to tell sometimes. There’s a number of significant disabilities that go unnoticed or disorders that you’ve never heard of. This post isn’t really about folks with disabilities though. If you know me, that’s the population I’ve been working with for the past 8 years. It’s great being able to work with an under served population. I’m more concerned with workers’ rights.

My boss was nice enough to give me a $300 bonus for working 5 hours on a Sunday. Cut that down to an hourly rate and that’s well more than I make in a day. I’m grateful for bonuses and I certainly won’t complain about more money. It benefits me and the extra work benefited the employer tenfold. I’m in grateful need of an additional $300. I was able to pay off a very small portion of credit card debt and build up my savings. I’m appreciative of $300 as I am of my paycheck. They gave me a day off as well. That brings my total of days off to 11 per year. That’s fucking garbage.

The United States has no fucking official paid time off initiative and it needs to happen. Those of us who are counselors and teachers who have significant rates of burnout need further support. Although some companies like Netflix provide unlimited time off, it ain’t gonna cut it, for lack of a better term. It’s groovy when companies provide additional time off, but like our health insurance premiums increasing, let’s fight our employers for a reasonable amount of vacation. I’ve got 10 fucking days. Between visiting my family and going to fucking Arizona, how am I gonna explore the world? With such a large country we live in, how am I gonna explore it all?

Don’t be a fucking bootlicker. Let’s join our European brethren and make this a reality! Four weeks mandatory time off mandated by Congress. Let’s start a petition because the United States government doesn’t care about the worker, but King David cares about us!

---

Want to support my blog? Click on the links below and help me lower my debt. Open an account with any of these services and we both get a reward!

Robinhood - Sign up and we both get a free stock

Acorns - Sign up and we both get $5

M1 Finance - Sign up and we both get $10

Wealthsimple - Sign up and we both get $10,000 managed for free for 1 year.