Company and Hiring Red Flags

Yesterday, I scrolled past a job ad that made my skin crawl.

The so-called “benefit”?

“You can buy or sell your paid time off!”

Let’s get real: selling vacation days isn’t about choice—it’s a safety net for employees drowning in bills. When 68% of workers who sell leave do it to cover rent, groceries, or debt—not luxury purchases—this isn’t a perk. It’s a poverty premium dressed up as flexibility.

The Illusion of Flexibility

On the surface, “buy/sell PTO” sounds like a win-win for work-life balance. But scratch a little deeper and you’ll find the ugly truth:

• You’re probably expected to work even on your days off.

• “Just this call, just this urgent email, just one more short decision meeting…”

• Time off becomes a mirage, and suddenly, selling it feels like the only rational choice.

This isn’t flexibility—it’s silent coercion. When you’re overloaded and underpaid, what looks like a benefit is just a bandage on systemic underpayment.

The Real Cost of “Unused” Vacation

Remember all those vacation days you can never actually take because the workload never allows it?

You might feel a small win at the end of the year, selling those days for extra income. But here’s what really happens:

• The cost of your rest is outsourced from company expense to public healthcare.

• You eventually burn out, or your body gives up.

• Medical leave (if you even have any) is now your problem, funded by public costs (if available) or your own money.

This is the hidden cost of normalizing overwork. It’s the company’s way of moving your well-being off their balance sheet and onto yours.

Humanity for Sale

And it doesn’t stop there.

These “benefits” become a bargaining chip whenever you ask for basic flexibility—like working from home when your kid is sick.

Suddenly, your humanity is replaced by a line item on their balance sheet.

Selling PTO: A Marker for Systemic Underpayment

Let’s be clear:

Selling vacation days isn’t about choice, it’s a last-resort safety net.

When you’re forced to choose between burnout today or eviction tomorrow, that’s not a benefit—it’s a symptom of a broken system.

Stop Normalizing Overwork

We’re better than this.

Stop normalizing overwork and bending over for every so-called “benefit.” If change can’t happen top-down, then let’s make it bottom-up.

A great mentor once told me: “When the company cannot adjust its pay grade to the workload, then you always adjust your workload to the pay grade!”

Final Thoughts

Don’t let clever HR packaging fool you.

If a company’s “benefits” require you to auction off your recovery time just to stay afloat, they’re not offering flexibility—they’re profiting from your vulnerability.

Seriously. Let’s demand better. For ourselves, and for the future of work.