What's even more concerning for me is that it is "15 Days of Paid Time Off." Not sure about Dropbox, but at a previous employer of mine that meant "15 Days of Vacation/Sick Time."
Yeah that's the trend now, PTO is either a sick day or vacation day. It's best to clarify upfront what they mean. My last job had 15 PTO days (to be used for vacation or sick time), but my current job is 15 PTO days plus 6 paid sick days. Plus we get 13 holidays vs my last job's 8 (adding Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Columbus Day, MLK Day, and the employee's birthday).
Ugh, I had heard that too. Sick days are completely separate over here. I don't understand doing it otherwise - do you want sick people to come in? Go home, recover, and don't infect the office.
I don't know the details, but when I worked for a company based in SF (like Dropbox), they claimed there was a law that compelled them to count sick time and vacation in one bucket.
CA has some really weird rules. In addition to that, there's also a cash-out rule that vacation can't be expired without compensation.
So, managers have to be persnickety about having you track the time you spend out of the office going to the dentist, etc. because otherwise the company can get shafted with a bill for the "untaken" paid time off at the end of the year / when the employee leaves.
Cash-out can be abused, but on the other hand, if you don't exert pressure on your employees to continually work overtime, or take as little sequential leave as possible, that's less of a problem.
Though I know it's somewhat common practice here in New Zealand to start not taking leave if you're about to quit, so you can get one or two extra paychecks when you quit, and time it so you have two weeks to a month before your new job starts.
Same benefit, plus a nice cash bonus.
Not saying it's the best thing to do for employers that treat you right, but if you're not being paid overtime, and being asked to work it and weekends a lot, it's not like you don't deserve getting that back if you leave.