[rwz]

At my first job in US I had about a year and a half of unused PTO accumulated. I gave my two week notice like a good team player I was and then left on the agreed upon date.

I obviously didn't get any of the PTO paid to me and in retrospect realize that I could have just taken my last two weeks off with the same outcome.

I was so sure that there must be some law that would force employer to pay out unused PTO, that I haven't even thought about researching it in advance. This was a rude "welcome to United States, bitch" awakening for me.

[londons_explore]

How does one accrue a year and a half of paid time off?

Don't most companies cap it at 5 days or something?

[moftz]

A place I used to work set it at 160 hours, got bought, then changed it to 80 hours, everyone made a big enough stink by threatening to take off during critical times. They changed it the cap to two times your yearly accrual rate which put the cap somewhere between 240 and 400 hours depending on your seniority. The cap was nice but it was almost impossible to use that much leave with the amount of job responsibility you had. You could sell your hours but it had to be agreed on at the beginning of the year and the payout spread out across the year so there was no way you could get a quick influx of cash.

[hoaw]

Presumably what is meant is PTO accrued over a year and a half of working, which would most likely mean a couple of weeks of PTO.

[rwz]

Sorry, didn't make it clear enough. I meant I worked for a company for a year and a half without ever taking time off.