“Live to work” is absolutely the biggest scam of all. We also have a jacked up rating system where only x number of employees per team can get that highest rating and get promoted. So if 2 people kick butt and there’s only one promotion in the budget…someone’s getting the shaft. I hate it.

I hate performance evals. I feel like I have to make up fake goals, because my only real goal is to to keep getting paid so I don't end up homeless with no healthcare.

This reads less like a list of red flags and more like a list of examples of how American employers exploit. Every single one of these is so common, I would be hard pressed to find a worker that doesn't experience more than half of them regularly.

One for next episode. When contract states that You need to stick to internal policies, but they cannot show them before the contract is signed because there are confidential.

Another scam: Your boss tells you you can feel free to vent but on your annual review they call out your disappointment regarding_______ and use it to give you less of a bonus.

corporate scams, "I have an open door policy". Yeah, no you don't.

Quality of life is very important to strong performance. We moved to Europe from Canada in 2018. We both came from extremely intense careers to a complete shift in what is important in life. Nobody on their deathbed says Thank God I worked so many hours.

greeting from Poland Europe where I do have 26 days off and I can take sick days whenever needed. no idea how you manage to live with 10 days/sick days. wishing u the same

Don’t work hard expecting a promotion. At the end of a 3 year posting, my seniors tried and failed twice to recruit my replacement at the same pay/ grade, so they chose to advertise my exact job at higher pay/ grade. They had the cheek to ask me to write the job description (which was a copy+paste of mine). They eventually found someone. When I asked my seniors to backdate my pay (3years) to the higher pay, they said they “hadn’t thought about that” and would get back to me. Many months later they decided to only backdate my pay for a couple months as we had “now gone into the new tax year” so couldn’t backdate before April. I found out later that my predecessor was also at the higher pay, they just didn’t want to tell me. I just took the pay and ran. Don’t let them walk over you!

Performance reviews are often a major waste of time. Bosses don't always have any clue what your job is, let alone how you perform. They just end up asking around. It's so subjective.

Scam: My last job was at a call center. Your paid working hours started after all your windows were opened and ready to answer calls. Your breaks start when you log out of taking calls. Remember to secure your computer. Your break is over exactly 15mins for first and last breaks, 1hr for lunch. All prep to be ready for calls is included in your break time. Your day ends at scheduled time or when your last call is done (if past the scheduled time). All time to correctly log out of each system was not paid. The company was did have a class action lawsuit against it for the prep-time at the beginning of the work day. The company lost.

Some more scams that are all related: 1) Written policies that aren't enforced 2) Written policies that are so vague as to be meaningless but are used to enforce arbitrary rules 3) Policies that should be written that aren't

In The Netherlands depending on Cao (industry agreements) we get 25 days of annual leave and 13 extra days of reduction of workinghours. We don't know something like sickdays, when we're sick we're sick🤷🏽‍♀️. It amazes me how little leave some countries have. We work to live, not the other way around

I worked in a hospital where if you had over a certain number of sick days in a year (multiple or single instances)… I think it was 10; you would be put on "the program," which was to monitor your "problematic" attendance. If you continued to have sick days and be continued problematic, you would be downgraded to a part-time position (since you "obviously" can't handle full-time). I heard of someone who had a serious, terminal illness and lost most of her income when she needed it the most because of this policy. Again, this was a hospital... with very restricted sick days... let that sink in. 😠

My current company gives us the federal holidays and a whopping 5 days PTO our first year, then they generously increase it to 8 days for years 2-9. 🤯🙃 Zero sick days. Its absolutely a scam!

A company that talks about work life balance when you are interviewing, but one you start they expects you to keep on top of leads on days off. They have also setup procedures that makes it easier to micromanage all aspects of your job. I am already looking and have not been here for even 30 days

All of these describe my workplaces for the last 15 years. I'm so tired.

I have 35 paid days off and every overtime hour is recorded and either paid or I can take additional free days with them. Sick time is sick time. The first 10 days are paid by the company, ahead of that the health insurance company pays me. USA is a rotten place for employees. It's a shame for the richest country of the world. If your boss tells you that by exceeding the company's expectations, you meet the company's expectations, it's time to tell them that the management failed to meet your expectations, and to move on.

The reason why everyone is just competent as opposed to above competent is called, “Rank and Yank”. If they don’t like them they can immediately slip them into an improvement needed and out the door for, “Performance Issues”. If you rate employees above average or outstanding it means they have to justify more extensively in order to get rid of someone.

This video reminded me that I needed to reschedule my dentist appointment because my work hours are changing to have Friday afternoon off (yay!). Just called the dentist. They aren't open on Fridays. What kind of NONSENSE is that? Friday is the easiest day for a working professional to take off. This is absurd.

Sick days as PTO requires a budget of “just in case” time held to the end of the year, yet time off at year end is “limited”. I generally burn unused time as a thank you for being responsible with a potential sick day need.🤦🏻‍♀️

It's always the ones that are connected with the higher ups that get a 4 or 5 where I work.

Just listening how people introduce themselves tells you a lot about what their perspective on work/life is. I rather say: Hi, I am Christian, xx years old from country xx and married to a beautiful lady from xx. And then talk about my family.... Because that is who we really are. Colleagues of mine make twice as much at least and think they are not enough because they are entrapped in that carrot on a stick scheme. A meditation instructor once mentioned that if who you are is your job or tied to something materialistic, than you will literally become noone when you lose it. The whole idea of "being hungry for success and growth" is pure madness in my eyes. Sure it is cool to be rewarded and recognized for good work, but "simply getting more to have more" is like an eating disorder becoming a job description.

Along the line of benefits, I was always the one who had to stay on days with weather issues because I was the one who didn't have kids. Even the boss took off early because she lived out of town... hate that.

Sick days don't rollover and get paid when you leave.

7:01 1-5 metrics are absolutely a red flag. Scaling behavioral data that way is problematic on its own, and that's before you get to prohibitive policies that disallow 4+ ratings. And what do 1 or 2 even mean there? Performance should be measured by, well, *measurable* things. And if those goals aren't met, it's not necessarily a knock on the employee, but a cue to do a review on why those goals weren't met. Then set new goals.

I got a job right out of H.S. And the boss was a petty dictator. She would write out a schedule for everyone for the next two weeks, then when we all had made our plans based on that, she would arbitrarily change the whole schedule. Over and over again.We were expected to drive down there to check the schedule posted on the wall every day, several times a day, she refused to tell us anything over the phone. Since I was taking university classes part time this nonsense wasn’t going to work for me. I found out from the Labor Dept. that it was illegal for her to treat us as on-call employees without compensating us properly. This was one of many illegal things she was doing to her staff. I informed the other employees of the law and our rights. She fired me in retaliation. It took many months, but eventually she had to pay me and many others back pay and the State fined her as well. Sometimes the only thing an employee can do is go to the Labor Dept. And an employment attorney. And follow their advice.

Greetings from the Czech Republic. A student of mine (I am a language teacher, my students is a school principal) broke her leg last year and had to spend about 2 months in a cast. This was over the summer, so she couldn't take her vacation days, because she was on a sick leave. This year she received a letter from authorities informing her that she MUST take 76 days of vacation, otherwise she'd be in violation of employment law. She's a bit puzzled as it is a lot and work still needs to be done. So she's been using a couple of vacation days at a time, adding them to her weekends to go skiing.

My company's vacation time is absolutely terrible... and its accrued. Every other company I've worked at, it's loaded at the beginning of the year. Not here. So, I can't travel during the summer because I don't have enough vacation time accrued. Not acceptable. I've been taking sick days every time I have something to do to hold onto my vacation time so that I can take my trip.

Job evaluations - yuck! Years ago, I worked in a all center on the phones. I was good at my job, with a manager, not a supervisor. Other employees came to me with questions, which I happily answered. I was told several times that they appreciated me being willing to answer questions since the manager could not be on the floor at all times. Review time, we were expected to take 17 calls per hour and I did not meet that goal I was judged as "needs improvement", no raise that year.

Whenever I watch your videos, it reminds me what a great place I work at. I work for a State agency in Arizona, and while the pay isn't the same that it would be in the corporate world, the work/life balance is so great. I get separate sick leave from PTO. My manager is the best I have ever had, and all the leadership team where I work is very much focused on letting us work around our life. I work mostly from home, just coming in one day a week.

I had been talked to in a review because I joked about finally getting a raise after the ignored the office staff for a year or so. I was expected to break down in tears of gratitude for finally getting a raise when I was stupidly working my butt off doing 4 people's jobs. I learned the very hard way that working hard got you more work and less praise and don't dare burn out of you can be punished by having your bonus shrunk.

I used to do cleaning evaluations for a company and the rating was 1 Poor 2 Needs Improvement 3 Average, 4 Good, 5 Excellent which to me made sense but they treated a 3 as a failure which made no sense to me

Here in the Czech Republic, anything less than 4 weeks PTO is illegal, but most companies give you 5+. I have a friend who works at a bank where they get around 33 days

One red flag for me is when the company offers for you to learn new things but they limit it to things that will benefit the company (E.g.: learning a new programming language in a tech job) but then don't allow you to do any of the learning during work hours or providing any of the required tools to do the learning.

10:29 another scam is not being able to be promoted because you are a remote employee but you should work toward a promotion in case one day they change the policy

There is actually something WORSE than combining vacation and sick into one PTO balance. Companies with "unlimited" PTO. You still have to get approval to be off, but without a PTO balance that is about to be lost under "use it or lose it", employees have no leverage to get time off. If you quit, are laid off or terminated you don't get a payout for unused vacation! If you have not taken any vacation during the year because you had something planned for later, you are just screwed out of it entirely. To me, a company with "unlimited" vacation is a company that has no vacation or sick leave at all.

I worked for a small business where our benefits were optimized for the family of the business owners even though they didn't themselves work in the business, owner's widowed mother, brothers who were still minors. That's a red flag for me.

My PTO includes our mandatory holidays, like July 4th, Thanksgiving. The argument is we earn more than "typical" but we earn it per paycheck so you have to factor in all the holidays when figuring up how much PTO we have avail. What sucks is because it's healthcare, some positions can work a holiday and therefore not take PTO but my department is not direct patient care, so we can't opt to work a holiday.

The 1 to 5 scale rating! OMG I worked two retail jobs where they did this - to earn a 5 was literally "You implemented a change that affected the entire company" - so me as an assistant manager of a single store was never going to get a 5. And to get a 4 was like "You go above and beyond every day, never get sick, never take a day off, work overtime, and (again) make impactful changes to your role or store".

Where I live (Hungary) we get minimum of 20 PTO days, it is getting more based on the person's age. 3 years of maternity leave but there are different schemes that can fit for the families, extra days after each kid and sick days are not numbered if verified by the doctor, although there is a limit for that too just after a number of sick leave the compensation becomes less (I did not exceed it ever). It is also regulated how much we can overtime.

Corporate Scams is my favorite part of your channel, now, and I still absolutely love your shorts.

Companies do understand we have different needs, they just don’t care.

when I started a new job where we were trained for weeks, during training they asked us to grade ourselves on 1to 5 how we thought we were doing. Being honest I gave myself a 3, I had worked hard, participated and was never late. The company trainers, told us that none of us got anything more than a one from them. I was shocked. Immediately, I knew that they would never be happy with anyone's purformance and I stopped trying, just did the bare minimum. So, the company got what they expected.

Thanks for posting your well thought commentaries/observations.

1:33 In Portugal, you get usually 23 to 25 vacation days (PTOs. Essentially 2 days per worked month + 3 from good behavior like not missing work), unlimited sick days with condition (read after how it works) and months of maternity leave (usually 5 months to the mother and 1 month to the father and has some rules around it on when you can take some of those days). I'm sure there are other situations covered by worker rights, but I can't remember. About sick days, essentially, up to 3 days, you don't get paid, but you can take them. Above 3 days, you need a medical order that allows you to take those sick days and the doctor will define how many sick days you get, which they can extend if required. Regarding pay during sick days, the government pays for it but only a percentage of your base pay. 55% for sick leaves up to 30 days, 60% for 31 to 90 days and so on. So yeah, hearing how things work on the US specially, where you don't have the right to be a human, is insane to me.

I can't remember if you've mentioned this one, but open interviews, where you just walk in and have an interview, no application required. Usually means the company is desperate, and it's going to be a stressful time if you do get hired.

This is a comprehensive list of reasons why I got fed up with my job in a corporation and quit. Having to give your employees a bad rating just so that these grades correspond to the expected distribution of HR is madness and disastrous for the motivation of both employees and the company.

American Work customs / contracts are truly weird

Thank you so much for this channel and all the topics . Now i don't feel alone. 🙏

Bring back the reactions to out of office replies (those were so good)! Also, the corporate confessions - loved those! Very much appreciate your content! ❤

Thank you for all you do

I have a new one for you. We have company closure days ma datory for recognition of a holiday and we have to use PTO for the mandatory office closure. We have a holiday day for July 4th. We are also closed on the 5th this year, and the 5th isn't paid, so it's either unpaid or pto covered. For Christmas, we are closed 12/24 through 1/1 We get paid for the 24,25, and 12/31 if those days fall on days we work the rest is mandatory pto. If you don't have enough, you will go into a pto deficit, which you pay back through the new year.

Another benefits scam: companies offer the ability to lower your health insurance premium by participating in workout programs. I have a disability that affects my mobility. I cannot get the reduction because I'm not able to walk miles or workout.

4 weeks annual leave, 10 days sick, and 3 days compassionate leave. I am more than my job

Here's a red flag - your manager literally grading you. We had a manager who concocted this garish-looking spreadsheet with all sorts of KPI-type data, formulas and such that spit out a weekly letter grade for each employee. When he announced it, we were all like 'TF???' We're highly-skilled professional people. Nothing wrong with metrics and striving to improve, but consolidating it down to a letter grade like we were in school was just too much.

Otr driver. No sick days, one week vacation, 70 hour work week.

Work defining your identity is an easy trap to fall into. Some companies train their managers to recognize people who are susceptible to this and will even encourage it because they know they can get more unpaid hours out of an employee who can't separate work from life. Some of the tricks they'll use is to give you constant recognition to trick you into feeling you're indispensable, or to trick you into thinking you'll be put forward for an extra reward, but in the end you're treated no different when the annual performance appraisal comes around.

I like that my PTO and sick days are combined. That way I still get both if I'm not sick a lot. I feel like if they seperated them, they would just give us 2 weeks PTO and 1 week sick days, rather than keeping 3 weeks of PTO and adding 1 week of sick days.

Working for promotion is okay if you are realistic in your goals. Sometimes you have to start low in the company and work up. But you always have to have an exit option if the company you work for won’t promote you. Always keep an eye on the field you are in for openings that suit your expectations, skills and goals.

About working hard and promotions: I know my workplace has very strict rules to give out promotions, so I'm not even thinking about that, specially since I've only been there a year. I do my job, I always give the best I can. The results are out of my control, and if I did make a mistake, I'll fix it as quickly as possible and that's all I can guarantee on my end. My boss is more than ok with that.

Heavy on the “live to work” vs “work to live” mindset. I feel like for the US and Canada we still have this weird thing where we have to play the part and act like this job means more to us than it really does. Especially during job interviews it can feel like a big song and dance about how well we can act rather than how well we can work. I think it’s great when people like their job and love what they do but for most of us, that’s just not our reality. It’s better to prioritize being good/excellent at our jobs and having it fund our life and interests outside of the job, rather than pretend like our job is our life and passion when it isn’t.

Another thing for corporate scams part four… When your company/manager is asking you to learn new skills/get some sort of certification, but asks you to do most or all of it on your personal time. That is absolutely insane. I think someone else might have mentioned this below in a comment. I worked for a national company that required the IT department to get a certification and notified everyone the week before Thanksgiving that the deadline everyone had to meet for this certification was the first week of January (about six weeks later ). HR and executive leadership indicated they just wanted to be helpful and give everyone a heads up so that we could plan accordingly during the upcoming holidays and prepare/study as needed. Excessive prep/studying on evenings, weekends, and while traveling on vacation for a lot of employees. It was handled very poorly, but I suppose the good news is the company got a lot of honest feedback on how poorly it was handled.

😂 love hearing you explain!!

One of my biggest peeves, people that really should stay home sick, but come into work nonetheless out of some misplaced sense of duty. I’ve told managers they should send these idiots home. “But we like when they go above and beyond”. Do you? Do you also like it when next week 6 more are sick because the first colleague was sneezing and coughing all day, infecting others?

I have family from Italy, Spain, Romania, and Hungary...they all have at least 30 days vacation per year and then some.

I worked at a place with 40 hours PTO (sick time and dependent care rolled in) per annum was the cap. If more time was needed, it was unpaid and looked down on.

The worse is having holidays as part of PTO. I worked for a dialysis clinic that did not give any federal holidays as separate and made us use PTO and we HAD to take those days. It was SO HARD to accumulate PTO around the winter holidays. Because as soon as I got 4 days together they would go b/c of thanksgiving, Christmas and new years. And then the other “bonus” holidays- MLK, Presidents’ Day etc, weren’t given off. That’s a HUGE red flag.

forcing work computers on employees vs using their own computers reimbursement via a draconian app and rules

In Romania it is mandatory to take 2 consecutive weeks and if I remember well in France we needed to take 4 weeks between June and September.

The big scam is “career development” but no promotion. My company is consolidating managers and doubling down on career development, I.e. making a bunch of internally created classes more available and having virtual networking sessions. However, promotions (and subsequently pay raises) are no longer a company priority. Really interesting reframe of the term career development

Perfect annual evaluations, yet zero merit raises, and only a couple 'across the board' teeney COLs - in 9 years! 😢

Thank you! :) I have to say the shorts with different characters are more fun, but this was very informative. :)

Working hard to make someone else richer. Then being thrown out the moment you cannot longer work hard to make them richer.

When your company decides ahead of time who they want to fill a position a half a rank higher than yours, does not tell you about the position or the 3 day job posting. When you find it and apply they ask why you are applying for a position you already hold. You explain that the new position is higher pay and rank from your current position. They tell you that they already have someone for the role.

no PF, No payslips, No insurance....all under the name of Start up!

My supervisor once was ranting to me about an employee who called out cause she was throwing up saying that it wasn't a valid excuse to call out cause she worked when she was sick and just took bathroom breaks to throw up throughout her shift 😰. I also have been told by her I wasnt allowed to ask for help lifting boxes cause of my back giving me problems the past week without a doctors note even though she asks for help all the time for the same reason, no doctors note😬. Like, girl, you know I cant afford back surgery or an x ray 😭

I was criticized last night by my boss that Im not as willing to sacrifice as much personal time as my coworkers by coming in early whenever they need it. And she dis it in front of everyone.

You’re right. Your first point. People define themselves by what they do. Once they retire, they don’t say I’m retired, it’s I’m a retired attorney, surgeon, or whatever.

Don't quit/resign before having a new position. Many companies will not even look at a candidate who is not presently working.

I work in state government and they literally treat you like you are owned by them. I was blindsided 4 years ago, right before the pandemic started into a newly created branch - no head-up, nothing. I settled into that branch and new role. I have been with the same team and supervisor for 4 years, and then got blindsided again and was transferred to another team and new supervisor. Neither myself nor my previous supervisor were given indication this was happening. Complete disregard and lack of respect for me just on a human level.

Started with 24 days holiday, now up to the max, 30 days. Those are working days (as I don't work weekends) so that's 6 weeks. Plus 8 days national bank holidays. Plus up to 150 days per year based on tenure paid sickness (though would expect strict control and questions the more you accrue). And then others have, which is not applicable to me, shared parental leave, flex emergency leave (that you have to recover back time for), mental health, IVF, menopause and the likes

A couple of these hit me right in the 401k

Thank you for the reminder that our jobs don’t define our whole existence. I recently had a change in my job where they hired an asst (mostly for me) to offload some of what they consider my more menial tasks, but they didnt bother to include me in the hiring process of said asst even thought she is supposed to be working with myself and the manager most of the time. My manager is always like “we want you to be happy that’s what we gave you this raise” yada yada but even when i voice concerns about things they might listen but have already made up their mind about the matter. You can have an opinion but it won’t deter them from huge decisions within thr company that can effect many people.

3 is like a slacker in my mind lol. I don’t like where I review myself and my manager reviews me also and then you see the difference between how you feel and what they think. And they do grade down to keep you working harder.

I was once asked why I only work 3 days a week. I replied because I can't live on 2.

The "bait and switch" job offer where they make promises they renig

My employer split into a few years ago. The new company that I work for has 0 personal days, 0 sick days, 0 training days, and so on. We get up to 20 vacation days, which must be approved by management and can be cancelled by management at the same time. If you are sick or you need to do something personal, you must take vacation or it counts as an absence. If you do not use your vacation days, you lose them. I usually lose 4-6 days a year because by manager will not approve time off. No work from home. If you work more than your 40 hours, you do not get overtime or comp time.

Most school districts combine sick and personal days all over the USA.

You came to Belgium for NATO recently. It depends here too on CAO's as in the Netherlands. Specifically in Belgium, we have a minimum of 20 working days as vacation if you work full time (38h/week). If you work 40h you get 12 extra days to recup those 2h extra per week. And everyone gets a minimum 10 holidays. Some people also get the Flemish or Wallon or Federal holidays. Regular employees don't have sick days but the first month of white collar employee's sickness is covered by the employer. Starting from the second month, they fall back on social security at about 60% of the gross pay per day. After one year of sickness, you could possibly be put on early retirement but you can fight it. Ofcourse if it's cancer or any serious disease, they're more lenient. There are also civil servants who do have a set amount of sick days but they get X amount of days extra per year and they accumulate. During those sick days they get full pay. After they run out of sick days, they fall back on about 60% of gross pay that is still paid by the employer. After a year on the 60%, they have to come before the retirement counsil and present their case on why they shouldn't be put on early retirement. Prove that they're still able to work in the near future. I'm one such employee, I get 21 sick days per year. I have 27 days of PTO, another 12 days bonus if we meet our goals and 13 holidays, 2 or 3 mondays or fridays if the holiday falls on tuesday or thursday. Also extra time off between Christmas and New Years. We're lucky here but we get a waaaay lower gross pay than North Americans and we also pay about 50% of our gross pay to taxes and social security. And the employer also pays another 30-35% of our gross pay to social security. So yeah, there are trade-offs to our system but North Americans can learn from us.

They can only give out 5s if they also give out 1s, but they won't do that, because 1s reflect poorly on their management ability, which affects their own raises.

It's interesting to me that so many commenters are bashing the US when she clearly says she's from Canada. I say this as a Canadian - Canada gets way too much of a free pass just because we're next to everyone's favourite punching bag. Our work culture is terrible, our cost of living and rent are atrocious, our human rights record is terrible, our infrastructure is deteriorating, our cities are unpleasant, our small towns are dying... Change is seriously needed, but everyone (including us) just kinda looks at the US and shrugs like "Oh well, it could be worse" and leaves it at that.

Here is one for you, when the US Congress fails to pass the budget and then force a Government shut down, its employees still get paid, alabit late, but they do eventually get paid. Some people who work as government contractors do NOT get paid. They are forced to use PTO and if they have no PTO, then they go without pay. To make it worse, the workers have to stay within a 2 hour radias of their ususl job site so they are ready to return to work as soon as the shut down is over. The year the US Government shut down for a month was tragic to many contractor families. Now many employees fear taking an earned vacation could leave them without enough PTO when it is time for the US Government to pass the annual budget. If you are applying for a government contractor position, be sure to the ask the employer what their policy is in the event of a shut down.

I would love a corporate green flags video. Just good things to look for when job searching. Currently searching

For corporate scams, part four… Major scam/red flag - When you are interviewing and the potential employer refuses to answer questions or is evasive on things like: “What is the recent/three year history for the average payout for the corporate incentive program/bonus program?” or “What type of budget do you provide annually for employee training?” Another scam: the company owning the employee’s travel perks, mileage, or points earned via travel programs, instead of the employee owning those benefits. I’ve seen it done both ways, so it’s a good thing to ask during an interview, if you’re going to be traveling for the company.

We've had our PR scores reduced down to three. 3s aren't given. 1s mean you are on the way out. 2s for everyone!

My job also added an extra workday per month, mandatory outreaches that are attached to our yearly goals.I was told I couldn't get bereavement for my grandma because she was my Step Grandma. They add extra stuff and then say it's duties as assigned...I could go on!

Great info

All the job descriptions that end with and anything else your supervisor assignees

About vacation I generally agree. However in my company we have vacation and sick days, sick days can only be used on me being sick, not for dependent care or anything else. Vacation days can be used for whatever. Since having kids I will burn all of my vacation on taking care of sick kids (my partner too), but finish the year with my sick leave untouched. This year was especially bad for that, leading to me taking several sick days where I was "dealing with a fever". I just neglected who's fever I was dealing with.