There rules are misleading!

You can't call out. For any reason what so ever! You need to write a notice down in the same day when you call out! My question is what happen if you have a really bad emergency!

May I assume you refer to making a personal call on a company phone? If that is true, then the normal procedure is to inform your supervisor of the emergency and let him/her make the decision who to call and on what line.

A company phone is just that, a telephone put there for company business only. Many times a company will pay a fee to have an incoming (only) toll free number and if the records show they are making outgoing calls on that line, it could cost them a penalty fee.

The rule book is not going to explain all these details to the employees because you are assumed to be able to follow instructions and if told not to use the phone for personal business then don't. You really don't need to know why.

No not a company phone. I mean you are at home you can't call out! Iike if you are sick or something wrong! That what I mean.

Steve said: No not a company phone. I mean you are at home you can't call out! Iike if you are sick or something wrong! That what I mean.

Sorry, that does not make any sense at all. How does Pitney Bowes company rules affect your telephone calls from home?

Call me Charlie in Louisville, Kentucky said: Sorry, that does not make any sense at all. How does Pitney Bowes company rules affect your telephone calls from home?

Charlie I don't think you understand what this guy is saying? But I do! I worked there and he's right on the button you need to write a 24hrs. notice to order to be off! If you don't do that. That is unscheduled absence. They give you 6 unscheduled absence to be off or you get fried. That how it works at Pitney Bowes. It does not make any sense. But that's there rule!

Mike from NC said: Charlie I don't think you understand what this guy is saying? But I do! I worked there and he's right on the button you need to write a 24hrs. notice to order to be off! If you don't do that. That is unscheduled absence. They give you 6 unscheduled absence to be off or you get fried. That how it works at Pitney Bowes. It does not make any sense. But that's there rule!

Oh. Sorry. I have never heard of asking for time off as being referred to as "calling out." It's not a football game. You can't call "time out" in business.

As far as it making sense, it makes perfect sense to me. One is apparently required to give 24 hours notice if they want to have paid time off and in emergencies, they are not paid because of there being no time for the company to make arrangements to replace them.

Emergencies are just that. The normal person has very few real emergencies. In an emergency one does not worry about such things as losing a few dollars to take care of the problem. If you are bleeding and have to go to the emergency room, you don't worry about blood on your clothes, you just replace them later. Same thing with the job, if it is a matter of life and death, you don't worry about the money, you just take care of the problem.

Now if a person has six dire emergencies in one year they are a risk to everyone and should not be around normal healthy workers. The reality is that workers will sometime claim an emergency and get time off that way (like they are still drunk on a Monday morning for example). Companies fight this by putting rules into effect that discourage this sort of behavior and eventually rid themselves of such persons.

Remember, six unscheduled absences mean you are in essence telling the company that you are so careless you find yourself bleeding to death every eight weeks????

Call me Charlie in Louisville, Kentucky said: Oh. Sorry. I have never heard of asking for time off as being referred to as "calling out." It's not a football game. You can't call "time out" in business.

As far as it making sense, it makes perfect sense to me. One is apparently required to give 24 hours notice if they want to have paid time off and in emergencies, they are not paid because of there being no time for the company to make arrangements to replace them.

Emergencies are just that. The normal person has very few real emergencies. In an emergency one does not worry about such things as losing a few dollars to take care of the problem. If you are bleeding and have to go to the emergency room, you don't worry about blood on your clothes, you just replace them later. Same thing with the job, if it is a matter of life and death, you don't worry about the money, you just take care of the problem.

Now if a person has six dire emergencies in one year they are a risk to everyone and should not be around normal healthy workers. The reality is that workers will sometime claim an emergency and get time off that way (like they are still drunk on a Monday morning for example). Companies fight this by putting rules into effect that discourage this sort of behavior and eventually rid themselves of such persons.

Remember, six unscheduled absences mean you are in essence telling the company that you are so careless you find yourself bleeding to death every eight weeks????

You still don't understand!

Mike from NC said: You still don't understand!

Well you have every right to believe that but companies make rules for reasons, not just to be mean to employees. I have seen this sort of rule in many companies. Consider the situation from the employer's standpoint.

Let's say I have ten people working the same job function. Each person is an excellent worker and is able to build ten widgets per day. My customer is buying 9 widgets per day by contract and I am supplying that product. I also am building an inventory of widgets at the rate of one widget per day for unexpected demands from that customer or a possible new customer who may want to start a similar contract any day.

Now when that new customer arrives on the scene, I have just about enough widgets in inventory to supply the new contract with widgets before I have to hire more workers. I know what the hiring time will be and everything is running smoothly.

If I start having people unexpectedly not show up for work and I am not even given 24 hours notice to have time to hire a temp to replace them for the day, I could lose the current contract and lose the new contract and the whole thing could go down the tubes quite quickly.

I make a rule so that no matter what happens, the company (and the jobs of those ten people) is protected. I allow for emergencies but I discourage those absences so that only REAL emergencies cause the person to be out for the day and not just some capricious decision on the part of the employee. I further amend the rule to insure that any employee who has too many emergencies is not going to be productive enough to keep up the supply of widgets and at that point I have to fire him and replace him with someone who can.

Just as a note, I have worked for about 48 years as employee, employer and contractor and I remember only about six instances in all that time where I had an actual emergency that prevented me from being at work. That's once every 8 years.

(edit)

That's ten widgets from the group so each worker builds only one widget per day.. but you get the point I am sure.

Ha! Well I DO have one but believe it or not, there are other aspects of me as well. I am sorry if I sound mean. I am just trying to explain the viewpoint from the employer's side. They really are protecting YOU with rules like that. For one thing, it keeps you (in the analogy of the widgets) from having to build most of them yourself while the guy who sits next to you gets paid the same money but isn't there half the time.

Call me Charlie in Louisville, Kentucky said: Ha! Well I DO have one but believe it or not, there are other aspects of me as well. I am sorry if I sound mean. I am just trying to explain the viewpoint from the employer's side. They really are protecting YOU with rules like that. For one thing, it keeps you (in the analogy of the widgets) from having to build most of them yourself while the guy who sits next to you gets paid the same money but isn't there half the time.

so do you work at Pitney Bowes?

Steve said: so do you work at Pitney Bowes?

No. I once worked at Monarch Marking Systems that was once owned by Pitney Bowes. Does that count?

What I am telling you is not a function of just PB. Most businesses have a policy regarding unpaid absences. Those policies are for the same reasons regardless of the product or the company.

The original post in this thread implied that a person could not be away from work for any reason whatsoever. We now find that isn't true. Also, people at PB CAN be out with no notice when there is an emergency. The fact is simply that they are not paid for the time.

That idea that it is a bad thing to not be paid for absences is backward. The truth is that some employers don't ever pay you when you are absent and if PB has a policy to allow you some time off with pay then that is certainly a positive thing.