this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
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what in the world is PTO? best guess from context is holidays. but why would anyone make it a 3 letter acronym? i am sure any 3 letter acronym has at least 3 different meanings in different contexts...
but if PTO actually is holidays, yes take them. don't let some third world country grifters, like you find them often in the usa, redefine words and take away basic things - just because they call it slightly different.
Paid Time Off.
so yes, holidays. if not specifically unpaid leave, all holidays should be paid. sick is not time off anyway. it is recovering, so company resources are used appropriately: not making others sick and being 100% as soon as possible (instead of a zombie at work).
thanks for the response!
in the US, "holiday" means something different from "paid time off". a holiday is something like christmas, easter, labor day, independence day, that sort of thing. it's like a widely recognized specific special day. also for a lot of workers they don't even get holidays off of work.
"vacation" is what we use to describe taking time off of work here, and "paid time off" is specifically for describing how the time off is arranged with one's employer.
all pedantic, but yeah, "holiday" means something a lot different here
This is an important note - PTO is for individualized, arranged time off. It could be used for a week, a single day, or even for just a few hours (in some cases.) It could be used to give yourself a random day off here or there, if you want to. It doesn't have to be a vacation or a holiday (in the American sense), just a random (though usually pre-requested) day where you feel like staying inside in pajamas, marathoning movies all day, and getting paid for it. (AKA a mental health day.)
It's also important (and sad) to note that not all jobs offer PTO. Ditto for sick leave and parental leave. The US is straight-up backwards...
Companies are rolling vacation time and sick time into one block called “Paid Time Off” make themselves look better.
That's horrifying.
I guess?
PTO can usually just be used anytime as long as you give notice and get it approved. That doesn't match with the American definition of 'holidays' since those are specific calendar dates, but I think British English uses the term interchangeably with vacation?
It's not always an acronym- a lot of people will just say 'vacation time.'
But yeah it's basically so that you have one pool for vacation time and sick time that's paid. A lot of places expect you to take unpaid leave if you're sick- or just fuckin work anyways- because unchecked capitalism.