this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
240 points (98.4% liked)
A Boring Dystopia
15457 readers
158 users here now
Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
Rules (Subject to Change)
--Be a Decent Human Being
--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title
--If a picture is just a screenshot of an article, link the article
--If a video's content isn't clear from title, write a short summary so people know what it's about.
--Posts must have something to do with the topic
--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
--No NSFW content
--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What does this mean? That other employees are going to be expected to give up their own vacation/sick leave to pregnant co-workers? The state is so cheap they aren't willing to give them their own leave? WTAF.
Pretty much. Leave sharing policies are usually set up such that in some sort of extraordinary medical circumstance, employees can transfer paid leave to one another.
The idea is sorta that if a loved one has a major medical emergency and needs a lot of care for 3 months, other employees can transfer paid leave to help cover gaps. This makes sense as a way to cover edge cases in extreme circumstances, but "is having a child" definitely isn't such a case.
What would make sense is a law that guarantees extra leave in these edge cases.
For example in Germany, you can call in sick not only when you're sick but also when your child is.
There is no limit to how many sick days you can take.
(There are measures in place to prevent abuse of the system, of course. And being sick doesn't protect you from being fired, so you can't just stay home indefinitely. And the number of people abusing this system are VERY VERY low anyway. Cause most people actually aren't looking for ways to cheat all the time, and don't need to be watched over like prisoners.)
I’m so happy to life in a country where all sick days are paid. Seems crazy to have to stress about getting paid when you are sick.
The American economy was birthed from chattel slavery so the idea of workers having rights has always been a challenging conceptualization here.
Many CEOs groan when they have to cede anything to their indentured.. cherished essential worker bangs pot.
The sane way is having regulation that protects your income and job for a few months
Pregnancy is not an edge case, though.
That's what they said...
I don't know what's more mind boggling to me, the OP or the fact that you can donate sick days. The fact that you can donate them means they're finite, what the fuck do you mean you don't know when you are going to be sick
My company just transitioned to a system where we get 30 days of paid leave annually. Sounds good for an American company, right? But that 30 days includes every category of leave (except parental, which is at least something, but only applies when your child is born.)
So in addition to maybe you want to take a vacation, this "bank" of leave also includes sick days, medical appointments, anything related to your kids after they're born, jury duty (you're required by federal law to attend if selected) and everything else. This is completely legal where I live btw.
It is your duty to cough on managers every time you're encouraged to come in sick.
What's even more nuts is just a few years ago Arkansas passed a bill making it the second highest starting pay for new teachers.
A lot of places have it set up as "compassion leave". Usually it's done by the employee association and they approve it for personal tragedies. If someone's house burns down, for example.
Time off... if you're popular.