Time = money/ money > time cartoon

[Bigdawg]

I haven't REed but I have heard old timers saying "I am busier than ever in RE, I can't imagine I had time when I was working". I think you will do more if you RE. I know I will. Currently my fun projects drags on for weeks/months because my work comes in my way. We live on a farm so you never run out of things to stay active, both physically and mentally.

Maybe. I have had a taste. In the 9 years that I have been retired from the military I have had months off here and there. My last gig ended at the end of April. My new gig starts next week. This new contract is a work from home so I still get my laundry, 20 minute yard mow, dishes cleaned, house vacuumed, etc... DW just turned 50 and wants to work until 55 so if this new gig is as easy/chill as expected, I will work it for a few years. It's nice to be FI and have choices. I've said it before: I'm all about the FI and no so much about the RE. You can't have RE w/out the FI but you can have the FI and that gives you choices re: your time. As long as I stay in the USA I can work from home/remote. Turns out our favorite spot is St Croix which as you all know is a US territory. Score!

 

[Chuckanut]

I kept this cartoon at work in my last couple of years there. I showed it to one coworker who just couldn’t get it, no matter how hard I tried to explain it. Rather sad, really. Now in my early 60s, sometimes I reflect on those who died young: brother at 53, college best friend at 53, high school buddy at 59, coworker and friend from my early career at 64. Mom at 65 (doesn’t seem such an old age anymore). Glad I could retire at 57.

I've been retired for about a decade. I can still do most of what I really want to do or come up with a very acceptable substitute. But, lately I have begun to realize that I can't do some of the things I did just after I retired. Now I am glad I did a lot of traveling and outdoor stuff back then.
My new life motto may soon be "just keep going".

 

[Rianne]

The U.S. stresses working hard, long hours, impressing boss, and moving up the ladder. I think of my in-laws who live in Italy and have for 40+ years. Their work ethic is different. Yes, they work hard and believe in capitalism, etc. But DSI has always had 6-8 week vacations a year. And she worked for a food megacorp in management. When she had her daughter, she had the usual YEAR off. And was paid and her position was guaranteed upon her return.

Of course, the stress of medical insurance in Italy was off the table. Never had to worry about medical bills. No wonder Covid has encouraged people to evaluate their work/home life. Time is precious.

 

[Chuckanut]

The U.S. stresses working hard, long hours, impressing boss, and moving up the ladder. I think of my in-laws who live in Italy and have for 40+ years. Their work ethic is different. Yes, they work hard and believe in capitalism, etc. But DSI has always had 6-8 week vacations a year. And she worked for a food megacorp in management. When she had her daughter, she had the usual YEAR off. And was paid and her position was guaranteed upon her return.

Of course, the stress of medical insurance in Italy was off the table. Never had to worry about medical bills. No wonder Covid has encouraged people to evaluate their work/home life. Time is precious.

+1

An increase in vacation time to at least 4 weeks would do wonders for employee retention, IMO. Not everybody wants to trade their time for all the extra stuff like this guy:

 

[MuirWannabe]

My SIL who is an tax accountant at a 2nd tier accounting firm was telling me their firm just implemented something called unlimited vacation policy. I’m not certain all the details, but it sounds as if everyone has unlimited vacation as long as it’s supervisor approved and they still meet all their work objectives.

Probably just the old man in me. But I can see lots of problems with this policy. It’s attractive sounding I suppose. Will assist in recruiting. But working for 5, 10, etc years at a company to get those extra weeks of vacation was always a big retention factor I thought. It will be interesting to learn more about how well it works at his company.

 

[Bigdawg]

something called unlimited vacation policy.

I've heard that these "unlimited vacation policies" are unlimited UNPAID vacation days. I may be wrong.

 

[JoeWras]

They are paid days, but the whole thing is a huge trap

 

[MuirWannabe]

They are paid days, but the whole thing is a huge trap

You are correct. At my SIL company it’s paid days. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on why it’s a huge trap. My gut says you are right.

 

[Dtail]

We had sick days, personal days and vacation days wrapped up as Paid time off days.
The typical employee had 6 weeks in total.

 

[RobbieB]

We had 2 weeks vacation, 11 holidays and 5 (sick-personal) which makes 26 days or 5 weeks plus one day.

Yeah, micro corp.

 

[Gumby]

Is it just me or is this caption on the cartoon backwards. Shouldn’t it be dollars greater than time on the tombstone? I get the concept of course just not the execution of the cartoon. Maybe I’m just being dense, wouldn’t be the first time.

...It makes sense to me. The walking man is thinking that old saying "time is money," while the one under the tombstone is thinking that maybe time is worth more (greater) than money, after all.

I thought it would be impossible to not get the message of that cartoon. I was wrong. I just showed it to the young wife and she did not understand it one bit.

 

[SecondAttempt]

We had sick days, personal days and vacation days wrapped up as Paid time off days.
The typical employee had 6 weeks in total.

I once helped set up a startup and was employee #2. I convinced them to lump all days off together into Paid Time Off (PTO). This included sick, vacation, and holidays. We had about 8 weeks off per year and it waas great. Gradually this was scaled back although not much. They made it so only half the sick days went into PTO for example after many people abused the policy and did not have sick leave when they were actually sick.

Oh, and eventually they defined some "core holidays" that everyone had to take.

 

[JoeWras]

You are correct. At my SIL company it’s paid days. Would be interested in hearing your thoughts on why it’s a huge trap. My gut says you are right.

It sounds great, especially to people entering the workforce, but it is a trap because you simply can't have unlimited time off. If everyone took their unlimited hours, then NOTHING would get done.

And the biggest trap of all is that this benefits the company because:

• The company doesn't have to carry accrued vacation on the books
• The employee doesn't get an accrued vacation/PTO payout when they quit

In practice, it comes down to both peer pressure and management pressure. High achievers never take the time. They make everyone else cranky because they feel they can't take the time since superman/woman is always working and they'd be compared to them. Then there is the opposite problem of the worker who decides they'll take off every Friday, and a month in the summer, waiting for management to challenge them.

A good friend of mine works for such a company. He is in management. He says the biggest problem is getting people to take time. He also had to fire someone who did exactly as I mentioned (Every Friday, month in summer). The employee simply didn't have enough time to get the tasks done required of them.

There are a few nice things about it, many revolving around sickness and disability.

---

I still think my first megacorp had it right. Everyone was required to take at least 5 days in a row at some time during the year, their choice. It allowed for forced downtime that tech workers typically don't want to take.

 

[Dtail]

I once helped set up a startup and was employee #2. I convinced them to lump all days off together into Paid Time Off (PTO). This included sick, vacation, and holidays. We had about 8 weeks off per year and it waas great. Gradually this was scaled back although not much. They made it so only half the sick days went into PTO for example after many people abused the policy and did not have sick leave when they were actually sick.

Oh, and eventually they defined some "core holidays" that everyone had to take.

Actually I didn't add in holidays, so the paid time off was effectively 8 weeks.
I thought the policy worked well.

 

[scrabbler1]

For most of my years at my old company, we had paid vacation days, paid company holidays, floating holidays, and blood days. For those of us on the actuarial exam track (I worked in the insurance industry), we had paid study hours and paid study days.

The paid vacation days were based on how many years you worked at the company. floating holidays were based on the number of paid company holidays in a given year, an amount which could vary based on a given year's calendar because some holidays moved around during the week and sometimes gave us 4-day weekends. Blood days were based on if an employee donated blood during the company's annual blood drive. (I never took part in that because even the idea of it made me nauseous.)

The company eventually abolished blood days after some complaints about people who were not allowed to donate blood due to their medical situations. Then, floating holidays and vacation days were combined into a PTO bank. Previously, floating holidays had to be used in the current calendar year, so we always took them first to get them out of the way.

Later on, PTO was awarded on an accrual basis because employees would resign early in the year and get big PTO payouts for their entire year of unused PTO. This was a little unfair to those of us (like me) who began working at the company midyear (before accrual-based PTO) and received little of no vacation days and a reduced number of floating holidays (I had one PTO-equivalent day off in the first 6 months of my career there). That's a big reason why I wasn't upset at the unexpected payout of unused PTO when I left - it was just evening the score.

 

[MarieIG]

I've heard that these "unlimited vacation policies" are unlimited UNPAID vacation days. I may be wrong.

It's paid, but it's really bogus. You still have to do all your work, projects, meet goals, respond to clients, deal with emergencies, take calls from supervisors who suddenly need to know what's going on when you're not there, meet billable hours, etc., which you simply can't do with "unlimited" time off.

 

[JoeWras]

It's paid, but it's really bogus. You still have to do all your work, projects, meet goals, respond to clients, deal with emergencies, take calls from supervisors who suddenly need to know what's going on when you're not there, meet billable hours, etc., which you simply can't do with "unlimited" time off.

Exactly

 

[trumpeting_angel]

My father ER at age 52, and did a little consulting work after that. At 67, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he lived until 69. I always thought, what if he had worked (he hated his job) until 65? And had a lousy two years of retirement?


My mother also died from cancer (72) as did my only sibling (47). I have learned (oh so gradually!) to reduce stress and eat a plant-based diet. Exercise is a perpetual goal, not fully realized.



I loved my job, but it got more stressful as things changed over the years. I began working only four days/week. I semi-retired, moved to Vermont, and worked three days a week, then 2, and then retired. It wasn't early, but I had been winding down for years.

 

[Koolau]

It's paid, but it's really bogus. You still have to do all your work, projects, meet goals, respond to clients, deal with emergencies, take calls from supervisors who suddenly need to know what's going on when you're not there, meet billable hours, etc., which you simply can't do with "unlimited" time off.

I thought the same way until I became Financially Independent. After that, I began to relax and press the issue of vacations as being "my problem." The world didn't end, megcorp still made money, I was much more sane. Now, I'm sure I took a hit on my performance appraisal, but so what. After all:

Time > Money. YMMV

 

[PatrickA5]

+1

An increase in vacation time to at least 4 weeks would do wonders for employee retention, IMO. Not everybody wants to trade their time for all the extra stuff like this guy:

Watching that made me a little nauseous.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Watching that made me a little nauseous.

Just a little a nauseous ? "The bonus of *only* taking two weeks off in August. Sorry...I will be taking ALL of August off. And September, October, November, December....

 

[Koolau]

I really loved Neal McDonough in Band of Brothers, Justified and other shows. Even this ad really sucks me in with it's snarky take on Americans vs Europeans (though not mentioned specifically.)

BUT, coming back to reality, why would anyone w*rk longer and harder just so they can drive to w*rk in a new EV Cadillac instead of driving to the gym or favorite lunch counter or golf in their used ICE Buick or Toyota instead? YMMV

 

[Calico]

Parody of the Cadillac commercial:

https://www.popsugar.com/celebrity/Ford-Parody-Ad-Cadillac-Poolside-Commercial-Video-34464395

I would rather spend time with the gal in this commercial than the "driven" guy in the Cadillac commercial and all his "stuff."

 

[Koolau]

Parody of the Cadillac commercial:

https://www.popsugar.com/celebrity/Ford-Parody-Ad-Cadillac-Poolside-Commercial-Video-34464395

I would rather spend time with the gal in this commercial than the "driven" guy in the Cadillac commercial and all his "stuff."

Can't deny the better message of the second video, but Neal is just so cool in the first one (bad message and all.) AND, no matter the message, BOTH of them are STILL off to W*RK! Don't know what Neal's j*b is in his video, but I'd bet money it has NOTHING to do with manure! - - -

 

[Chuckanut]

Can't deny the better message of the second video, but Neal is just so cool in the first one (bad message and all.) AND, no matter the message, BOTH of them are STILL off to W*RK! Don't know what Neal's j*b is in his video, but I'd bet money it has NOTHING to do with manure! - - -

Let me get this straight.... If I work like a dog putitng in a huge amount of time on the job, I get to buy more fancy toys. If I drive an EV, I can grow more green veggies. Right? Either way it seems I am stuck having to buy an expensive new car.