10/02/04 Antigua Cruise

[papa]

My wife's nephew just returned from Iraq almost a month ago. My nephew has just been alerted and will head to Iraq at the end of the year. Keep him in your prayers. Mike

 

[piglet33]

Mike,

Kim (bettemom) and Jim (usetheforceluke) posted some websites a while ago about Antigua. One of the sites had info on a "Lunch Pass" for a Resort that allows you to use their pool, lounge chairs, etc and proivdes you lunch and drinks and access to their beach. I checked that out, and it seems pretty good. I think it's $35 per person, and we're probably going to do that. It goes from 11 am - 6 pm. Since we're supposed to dock around 8 am, I figured we'd check out some shopping and stuff on our own until then.

Now I just have to decide what to do in St. Thomas......

Boy, I really wish October would get here already.

See you in DC.

Renee'

 

[papa]

Just got an email from Jamie near Lebanon, TN she is with a group of 23 people who will be joining us on the cruise. I have invited her to join the thread and with 25 people from Tennessee I guess we would be the largest state represented. Mike

 

[Viking]

Originally posted by papa
Just got an email from Jamie near Lebanon, TN she is with a group of 23 people who will be joining us on the cruise. I have invited her to join the thread and with 25 people from Tennessee I guess we would be the largest state represented. Mike

Sounds like a lot of work for the Keeper-of-the-List
Perhaps you can forward them one of our lists and they fill in all the info and then send it to me.

 

[Viking]

Mike,
I've just sent you a nearly blank list, which you can forward to the other Tennesseans. This way I should be able to the next update much quicker.

10 minutes ago I won an auction at Ebay: I bought "Open Range" by and with K. Costner on an RC1-DVD for €18.11 (~20 Bucks), which still runs in the cinemas over here. I won't have the time to go to the cinema, but don't want to wait til the German DVD will be available.

 

[papa]

Haven't heard anything out of the Lebanon bunch yet Eric. Mike

 

[Hygiene99]

yes it is Snowing here in the north woke up this morning after raking the lawn last week to about an inch of fresh snow.....

should melt quick...

 

[cdnmickeylover]

Depressing this morning with the new snow fall. Not much really, about an inch but still..... it was 18C on Friday which broke/came close to breaking the record so to then turn around and get more snow and cold was yucky. Ah well, the joys of almost spring here in the great white north.

We are still debating about Washington. Who all is going?

Saw the accident in Baltimore which was a little scary since we were on the water taxis last summer. Hopefully it was just a freak accident but my prayers go out to the families especially those of the missing.

Mike -- How goes the tooth?

Take care everyone for a Monday morning.

Fiona

 

[piglet33]

Snowing here in NJ too. Not much...about an inch, enough to make the trees look pretty and make driving a pain.....

Renee'

 

[cdnmickeylover]

Where is everyone staying in Washington? Was it Alexandria? Can't remember obviously. Suggestions for hotels anyone? Have never been to Washington so would like to go but we are looking at the length of drive and how much time I can take off work. According to Mapquest it's 9.5 hours but that's how long Mapquest said it was to Baltimore and it wasn't even close to 9 hours to Baltimore -- closer to 12 hours.

Would rather see trees covered in cherry blossoms than covered in snow at the moment.

Fiona

 

[Sarah'sMomfrom PA]

My boss is currently in Antigua for two weeks (returning to work on 3/15) and he said he will bring me back information on excursions there (that is "if" he remembers--a big "if"!!) so whatever I receive, I can pass it on.

We are not doing Washington, D.C. Sam's plant is having another layoff and he will not be affected but I am still watching our money and not spending anything unnecessarily. We have a trip planned for two weeks in August for a week in Colorado and a week in Utah (utilizing the three round trip U.S. Airways tickets that we received for taking the bump! and I was able to get two five star timeshares in both states so I will save my money for that trip.)

No snow here today--just rain but it is chilly.

Regarding "snow days" at work--working at a hospital in PA, if we call off (anyone on staff from a nurse to housekeeper), we do not get paid for the day to make it a fair policy for everyone. The only time you can use sick time is if you are admitted to the hospital. We even have a travel authorization letter to show to anyone in case we get stopped (sometimes, our roads get shut down if the state is declared an emergency) on our way to work. Our policy states that you can't use sick time, Personal days or vacation days--you just don't get paid. Mary Jo

 

[jeanniec]

Mary Jo -- Thanks for the information regarding snow days at your hospital. I can understand that the hospital must be staffed, but why should you be punished if you physically can't get out of your driveway or street and the hospital will not make any arrangements to get staff to the facility? When I was a nurse back in Illinois, our hospital would use 4-wheel drive vehicles and even snowmobiles to get the nurses into work. I won't miss a day's pay, but there are many non-professional workers who will have financial problems with a short check.

Also interesting hearing about your sick day policies -- really strict. We used to have sick pay but then we changed to PTO which covers vacation, holidays, sick time, etc. I had a bunch of sick time saved up when we converted to PTO. We were allowed to keep only 240 hours in a sick bank, but we cannot use our sick time until we have first taken 5 days of PTO. By that time, I am sure I would probably be in the hospital. I often think of those people who were dishonest about taking sick days as soon as they were earned. They got to use all the sick time they earned whereas the honest people have it locked away where they will probably never be able to use it.

 

[Viking]

What's PTO? In my field of profession it means Part Time Operation, but that wouldn't really fit here, would it ?

 

[Sarah'sMomfrom PA]

jeanniec...actually our sick days policy that I mentioned was just for snow "emergencies"--however, our sick time policy has just changed also for the new year--we get one sick day a month and can accumulate up to 120 days. Once we get over 120 days, we can buy back sick time days (12 days gets you cash for 3 days and then you go back to 120). However, the new policy also involves "occurences"--we are allowed three occurances a year and after that we can be disciplined or fired. This does nothing to curb the sick time abusers who used to use their day a month so now they will take a few days three times a year instead of one a month!! Seems the abusers find a way around everything!!

I'm thinking PTO might be Personal Time Off or Paid Time Off--we do get vacation (I'm up to 4 weeks) and 3 Personal Days a year plus our other 7 holidays.

 

[Viking]

Thanks for the explanation, MaryJo.
These sick day rules are completely different to ours:
When I'm sick I have to call not later than 10am and state that I'm sick. Up to and including three days that's all I have to do. If the sick time exceeds 3 days in a row, I have to get a 'yellow slip' (It's printed on yellow paper) from a doctor stating how long I will be sick.
My normal pay continues to come in for the first six weeks of sickness, after that period my health insurance takes over, but only pays 80%. There is no limit to sick days per year (OK, there is a limit: 366 this year - Just to prevent the odd joker making a funny remark ). The only penalty we have in our company is a deduction from our Success Sharing Plan: Approximately a month or so of sick time and you won't get your annual bonus of ~$2000-3000.
The average number of sickdays per employee per year in our company is about 5 to 6 days - compared to about 7 to 8 days for the whole country.
If you are suspected of being an abuser, you may be excluded from the 3-days-in-a-row for just a call, which means that from now on you have to get a yellow slip each time.
In my company you have 27 days of vacation when you start and 31 days for everybody over age 35 or being with the company for more than 2 years. If you start with the company at 35 or older, you automatically have the 31 days. You can get additional days by saving time on your account, but usually only for single days and not in connection with your regular vacation.
There is no fixed number of holidays in Germany, they vary from year to year, because if they fall on a weekend it's bad luck for you. This year we lose 5 holidays due to a very unfortunate constellation: Xmas, New Year, Labour Day and our National Day all are on weekends But fortunately this a leap year and next year will be better again.

 

[cdnmickeylover]

It's actually interesting hearing about other people's policies re vacation and sick days. Eric, how come you get more vacation days if you are over 35? Not a bad perk for getting older.

At my firm although there is a policy for staff -- you start at 2 weeks vacation, after 5 years it's 3 weeks and after 10(?) it's 4 weeks and then after 15(?) it's 5 weeks and that's the maximum. I'm not sure if there's any sick day policy in effect. As a lawyer as near as I can determine I have no set vacation time but having said that it can't be too excessive. Nobody takes more than 2 weeks at a time and most only take 1 week at a time. The staff can take all their time at once if they want to although I don't think that anyone does. I just have to call in when I'm sick, no loss of pay or doctor's note required. Nobody here abuses it though we do get strange calls -- my secretary was off about a year ago for a couple of days because her dog scratched her eye!! He was very old and didn't mean to do it but it's still not fully healed. If her eye gets dry she has to put a cream in it and she still goes to the eye doctor every couple of months to get it looked at. Another secretary accidently sprayed cleaner into her eye and she also another time twisted her neck in the shower.

One bad thing about a small firm is that there are no set bonuses or raises. It's kinda hit and miss. First year I got a bonus and a nice raise, the next year a small raise and no bonus. It actually depends more on the firm's billings than anything I do per se. There is also no set time for getting a raise -- anytime between now and the end of April -- depends when the partners get together to do the budget.

My brother who works for a large firm has set rules about vacation, sick days, bonuses and raises although their bonus' and raises have a lot to do with how the firm is doing and also how his dept does within the firm. If the economy is good then the securities associates have been known to get bonus' as high as $50-60K. My brother who works in insurance has never been that lucky.

Fiona

 

[cdnmickeylover]

Oh, here in Canada if the holiday falls on a weekend we get the following Monday off -- hence this year we'll get December 27th and December 28th off since Christmas and Boxing Day fall on the weekend. We don't actually have that many statutory holidays though -- only 9 as I look at the calendar. We don't get Easter Monday off although that depends on the company -- lots get it off we just aren't lucky.

Fiona

 

[jeanniec]

Mary Jo -- You are right. PTO is "paid time off". I get 36 days a year (after 15 years at the hospital). That 36 days has to be used for vacations, holidays and sick time. Luckily I am hardly every sick (knock on wood!) so I get a fair amount of vacation time. I am also lucky enough to work four 10-hour days a week, so I always have a 3 day weekend. During holidays, I switch my day off to the holiday and save even more time for WDW and DCL.

 

[Sarah'sMomfrom PA]

Fiona...your story about the secretary who had her eye scratched brought back memories--my last dog was laying with me in bed and heard someone at the door and pushed against my face..specifically my eye and scratched my cornea...we had fertilized the lawn that day and it turned out that she had fertilizer in her claw/nail and it caused a chemical breakdown in my eye/cornea and I ended up in Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia for 3 weeks in an isolation room due to this...I was actually a candidate for a corneal transplant because they thought that the cornea was going to perforate. To this day, my eye doctor can't believe that my vision is 20/40 in that eye because of the amount of damage to the cornea!! Talk about a freaky accident. Then there was the time that I fell off of a ledge at the "Land of Make Believe" in New Jersey and fractured my ankle in 3 places (we won't go into that story!!) so needless to say, my boss knows that I am a klutz and when I call him to tell him of my latest injury, he just shrugs!!

I started with 2 weeks vacation (nurses start with 3 and add on) and after 6 years, got 3 weeks and after 15 years, get 4 weeks. We have to be here 25 years to get 5 weeks vacation (the maximum) and I am here 23 years so two more years to go!!
Sam gets over 6 weeks vacation but doesn't receive any sick time at all (after 33 years) and he has to work most major holidays but does get paid triple time to do so which isn't too hard to take!

 

[Twinave]

I am a happy camper! My receptionist, who I LOVE, who put in her 2 week notice last Thursday, is not going to quit! She and the doctor had a nice long talk, and she even came out of it with a Raise! (Which she deserves!)
Then when we were finished with patients for the day, the three of us sat down and came up with a way of handling problems when they come up. Life is good.

Later, Ave'