from Hacker News

TikTok tells staff impacted by wildfires to use sick hours if they can't work

by sylvainkalache on 1/10/25, 3:08 AM with 183 comments

  • by declan_roberts on 1/10/25, 3:41 AM

    > Employees who can work from home still must go into their “My RTO” portal, where they manage their sick time, and change their work-from-home status to “natural disaster” to not be penalized. This won’t subtract from their PSSL hours, though.

    So was this just headline bait? It's a sick day but not counted against you.

  • by ummonk on 1/10/25, 4:47 AM

    Just a reminder to people: if a company is monitoring for screenshots, you can take photos with your personal phone to send to journalists.

  • by ralph84 on 1/10/25, 3:38 AM

    Import Chinese companies, get Chinese working conditions.

  • by cevn on 1/10/25, 4:17 AM

    > Additionally, after the story was published, TikTok enabled a feature that now alerts everyone in a company-wide Lark channel — a Slack competitor from TikTok parent ByteDance — when a screenshot is taken.)

    Luckily their employees don't have phones.

  • by xilni on 1/10/25, 3:35 AM

    Rough given how little PTO they have for a tech company to begin with.

    Our HQ (over 3k people) is in the LA area, CEO posted on slack offering up to 10k for any fire related relocation costs during this time.

  • by callc on 1/10/25, 5:43 AM

    This is why we need our governments to protect the people.

    It is exuberantly clear that some companies will treat their workers with the minimum amount of decency up to the point of illegality, or past that if they can get away with it.

    How about an “asshole employer” gov program? Society needs to fight back against those doing harm to society.

  • by zephyreon on 1/10/25, 3:42 AM

    Can’t say I’m surprised given how ByteDance is their parent.

    There’s a Netflix documentary called American Factory that illustrates just how different the work culture is in China vs the U.S.

    Hope they change their mind and give these folks free PTO.

  • by righthand on 1/10/25, 3:41 AM

    The employees should unionize in response and demand better benefits and support during emergency situations.

    This is the kind of abuse USA citizens think is: deserved, earned, self-inflicted.

  • by scarface_74 on 1/10/25, 6:53 AM

    >TikTok’s LA employees have 10 paid sick/personal (PSSL) days per year in addition to 15 PTO (paid time off/vacation) days… as TikTok’s strict return-to-office policy requires employees to work from the office a minimum of three days per week. (The days of the week are chosen by the team and can’t be swapped for other days if needed.)

    Is this amount of strictness normal for the large tech companies? I’ve only worked for one - Amazon - and my position was “field by design” and didn’t come under any RTO mandates until this year. I left in late 2023.

  • by tevon on 1/10/25, 6:09 AM

    Some user here called “cma” commented twice about how “this headline is libel”.

    Both comments are now deleted/taken down. Do we have a Chinese gov shill in the mix?

  • by Waterluvian on 1/10/25, 3:34 AM

    Today my employer’s HR sent out an email telling everyone to put their family’s safety first and work can wait.

    And I kind of did a mental “well, yeah… you’d have to be a real ghoul to think otherwise,” perplexed by the very idea that HR would feel the need to say it at all.

    Guess I was wrong.

  • by barbazoo on 1/10/25, 3:58 AM

    Are their sick days limited? If not, no harm done?

  • by emh68 on 1/10/25, 5:55 AM

    How are other companies handling this?

  • by aurareturn on 1/10/25, 3:31 AM

    I don't see what the problem is.