Exam 7604 T/O #7604 Hiring Process

[TOSironi]

5 hours ago, BrooklynN said:

Let’s discuss the positive side of things. I read online first year new MTA employees have 3 weeks of accrued vocation in first year. 4 weeks second year. Can you put in vocation request any time of the year? Is it easy to get approved? 
How about 12 paid holidays per year work? 
Is over time easy to get, or need to kiss some as to get? Lol. 

Yeah I have read that too, but now I read that that's accrued after the first year, does that mean we don't get vacation or holiday pay the first year??

[Schecter]

2 minutes ago, FilippoSironi said:

So both Stillwell and 179 have parking lots?

Stillwell has an employee parking lot which idk where that is 179 no parking lot you can park in Jamaica yard and then go back to get your car, you're gonna need to get a permit for yards to park in only one you can't park in is east new york yard and 207 is tight right now because of the construction going on with the new tower being built there currently.

[Schecter]

Just now, FilippoSironi said:

Yeah I have read that too, but now I read that that's accrued after the first year, does that mean we don't get vacation or holiday pay the first year??

I got 5 days my first year and 10 days my 2nd year. 

[TOSironi]

2 minutes ago, Schecter said:

I got 5 days my first year and 10 days my 2nd year. 

That's really not that much. Especially considering it said on the job description benefits 3 weeks the first year. Can you at least request more time off unpaid?

[Schecter]

21 minutes ago, FilippoSironi said:

That's really not that much. Especially considering it said on the job description benefits 3 weeks the first year. Can you at least request more time off unpaid?

Any time off is paid via using your OTO or AVA you have to call 21 days in advance to request either one of those two and they either grant it or they don't. And then you have sick days you accumulate as well, while on probation you don't get paid your first day out, and using to many sick days can put you on sick control where they visit your house to make sure you're home. Using too many sick days can ruin your chance of having a promotion if you have less than half of what you're supposed to have. You get 12 sick days a year. Make sure all sick time used comes with doctor lines so they will be counted as substantiated sick time and not unsubstantiated.

[TOSironi]

1 hour ago, Schecter said:

Any time off is paid via using your OTO or AVA you have to call 21 days in advance to request either one of those two and they either grant it or they don't. And then you have sick days you accumulate as well, while on probation you don't get paid your first day out, and using to many sick days can put you on sick control where they visit your house to make sure you're home. Using too many sick days can ruin your chance of having a promotion if you have less than half of what you're supposed to have. You get 12 sick days a year. Make sure all sick time used comes with doctor lines so they will be counted as substantiated sick time and not unsubstantiated.

What about if you want time off without getting paid. I find it very strange that the mta would say in their benefits description that they offer 3 weeks paid vacation in the first year but they don't. I need to clarify the benefits they offer then before accepting the job. 

[Djx]

2 hours ago, FilippoSironi said:

So both Stillwell and 179 have parking lots?

I hear there’s a parking lot at Stillwell; I can’t verify. I park on the street at both places. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Djx

[MarkGuy]

59 minutes ago, FilippoSironi said:

What about if you want time off without getting paid. I find it very strange that the mta would say in their benefits description that they offer 3 weeks paid vacation in the first year but they don't. I need to clarify the benefits they offer then before accepting the job. 

I'm curious; where exactly did you see it say that we get 3 weeks paid vacation in the first year?

[BrooklynN]

8 minutes ago, MarkGuy said:

I'm curious; where exactly did you see it say that we get 3 weeks paid vacation in the first year?

MTA benefits

[SevenEleven]

3 hours ago, FilippoSironi said:

Yeah I have read that too, but now I read that that's accrued after the first year, does that mean we don't get vacation or holiday pay the first year??

 

3 hours ago, FilippoSironi said:

That's really not that much. Especially considering it said on the job description benefits 3 weeks the first year. Can you at least request more time off unpaid?

It’s how I explained it more or less as per our contract. It must be a typo on their end. @Schecter got 5 days his first year because he was hired in July. He accrued 5 days for the 5 months on the job. (July-December) Those 5 days (1 week) are usable the following year. (The first vacation pick) Now from January-December, he would have worked 10 months and thus accrues the 10 days, which gave him the 2 weeks for his second vacation pick. Year 3 (the third vacation pick) will be 2 weeks BUT for year 4, he will have 4 weeks for his use instead of 2.
 

The only exception to getting the 4 weeks is if you are hired in January. Since your vacation weeks/days are technically awarded to you on January 1st, you must have the 3 full years of service completed before then. So if you start on 12/31, you’ll have 4 weeks as you start your 4th year. If you start in January, you will have to do 4 years before you get your 4 weeks because you would not have 3 years on the job before January 1st. Unused vacation time (if you have days left over and no requests pending) will be cashed out at the end of the year. 
 

===
TA Holidays (AVAs). I call them as such because not every holiday will get you an AVA. Again, I’m in Buses so this list might not match up with RTO (because each department is different). You will be eligible for AVA accrual after 90 days of service for working as scheduled the day before, the day of the holiday and the day after on these days:

1. New Years Day

2. MLK Day

3. Presidents Day

4. Memorial Day

5. Juneteenth

6. July 4th

7. Labor Day

8. Veterans Day

9. Thanksgiving

10. Day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday)

11. Christmas

12. Your birthday after 1 year of service. Again, will be awarded the January 1st after completion. 
 

If your RDO falls on any of these days, you will get the AVA. For each TA holiday, you can elect to be paid an extra 8 hours on top of your run pay or you can accrue it into your Leave Balance and use it to request a day off. (The phone call you make 21 days out that Scheter was talking about) You cannot put in to off on these holidays unless it’s your RDO, you have a picked vacation week that the holiday falls in, or if it’s your birthday. (Someone correct me on this, bdays are automatic in buses) Also, you can hold a max of 10 AVAs in your bank at any given time. The 11th bankable AVA is automatically paid out. AVAs carry over from year to year.

You get one personal day (an extra AVA) on January 1st and every one thereafter, after completing your first year of service. You get 1 personal day and it will be cashed out at the end of the year if you don’t use it. 

[TOSironi]

15 minutes ago, BrooklynN said:

MTA benefits

On the mta career center. It says accrued in the first year to be used on the second. But it does say 3 weeks

[SevenEleven]

The OTO leave balance is for Overtime Offset. What this means is that you can work overtime and instead of being paid for this, you can take the straight time worked and bank it. You need 8 hours of time accrued before it becomes an actual day for you to use. You can have 100-something hours of OTO time in your bank and they carry over each year. However, you can only use a max of 9 days in a year. Anything past that is subject to approval. 
 

Let’s say you max out your leave balances. You will (eventually) have 2 weeks of vacation, 10 AVAs (another 2 weeks), your personal day and the 9 hard OTO days. That becomes 3 weeks of paid time off, if you were to get every requested day off. Then it becomes 5 weeks when you get the bump in vacation weeks.

In regards to sick time, it’s 1 day per month worked in your first year. On May 1st after you complete your first year, you will get 12 sick days and be credited the difference from your first couple months on the job. After that, it’s 12 sick days every May 1st. Don’t use them unless you have to and get your sickness documented. Every day you use a sick day or otherwise go unpaid, will extend your probation day for day. 

[SevenEleven]

23 minutes ago, BrooklynN said:

MTA benefits

 

7 minutes ago, FilippoSironi said:

On the mta career center. It says accrued in the first year to be used on the second. But it does say 3 weeks

That particular pamphlet is for the people in Capital Construction. That is a whole different department from RTO hence the different benefits package. 

[BrooklynN]

1 minute ago, SevenEleven said:

That particular pamphlet is for the people in Capital Construction. That is a whole different department from RTO hence the different benefits package.

Their benefits look much better. Lol. 
What a week of typical work of schedules look like? Some morning shifts, some evening shifts and some night shifts? Or more consistent? 
If worked on weekend last week, would they schedule you off this weekend? 
 

[TOSironi]

9 minutes ago, SevenEleven said:

 

That particular pamphlet is for the people in Capital Construction. That is a whole different department from RTO hence the different benefits package. 

Oh ok thank you

[Schecter]

2 minutes ago, BrooklynN said:

Their benefits look much better. Lol. 
What a week of typical work of schedules look like? Some morning shifts, some evening shifts and some night shifts? Or more consistent? 
If worked on weekend last week, would they schedule you off this weekend? 
 

If your PMs you'll stay PMs for 1 week with set rdos for that week the following week you can be either midnights or AMs with different days off just because you were off a weekend last week doesn't mean they'll keep you weekends off the next week. 

[TOSironi]

29 minutes ago, SevenEleven said:

 

It’s how I explained it more or less as per our contract. It must be a typo on their end. @Schecter got 5 days his first year because he was hired in July. He accrued 5 days for the 5 months on the job. (July-December) Those 5 days (1 week) are usable the following year. (The first vacation pick) Now from January-December, he would have worked 10 months and thus accrues the 10 days, which gave him the 2 weeks for his second vacation pick. Year 3 (the third vacation pick) will be 2 weeks BUT for year 4, he will have 4 weeks for his use instead of 2.
 

The only exception to getting the 4 weeks is if you are hired in January. Since your vacation weeks/days are technically awarded to you on January 1st, you must have the 3 full years of service completed before then. So if you start on 12/31, you’ll have 4 weeks as you start your 4th year. If you start in January, you will have to do 4 years before you get your 4 weeks because you would not have 3 years on the job before January 1st. Unused vacation time (if you have days left over and no requests pending) will be cashed out at the end of the year. 
 

===
TA Holidays (AVAs). I call them as such because not every holiday will get you an AVA. Again, I’m in Buses so this list might not match up with RTO (because each department is different). You will be eligible for AVA accrual after 90 days of service for working as scheduled the day before, the day of the holiday and the day after on these days:

1. New Years Day

2. MLK Day

3. Presidents Day

4. Memorial Day

5. Juneteenth

6. July 4th

7. Labor Day

8. Veterans Day

9. Thanksgiving

10. Day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday)

11. Christmas

12. Your birthday after 1 year of service. Again, will be awarded the January 1st after completion. 
 

If your RDO falls on any of these days, you will get the AVA. For each TA holiday, you can elect to be paid an extra 8 hours on top of your run pay or you can accrue it into your Leave Balance and use it to request a day off. (The phone call you make 21 days out that Scheter was talking about) You cannot put in to off on these holidays unless it’s your RDO, you have a picked vacation week that the holiday falls in, or if it’s your birthday. (Someone correct me on this, bdays are automatic in buses) Also, you can hold a max of 10 AVAs in your bank at any given time. The 11th bankable AVA is automatically paid out. AVAs carry over from year to year.

You get one personal day (an extra AVA) on January 1st and every one thereafter, after completing your first year of service. You get 1 personal day and it will be cashed out at the end of the year if you don’t use it. 

Thank you so much for the very thorough reply. That was very helpful. So If I need to take time off on my first year for visiting family abroad or other reasons, would I be able to do so (of course unpaid)?

[BrooklynN]

4 minutes ago, Schecter said:

If your PMs you'll stay PMs for 1 week with set rdos for that week the following week you can be either midnights or AMs with different days off just because you were off a weekend last week doesn't mean they'll keep you weekends off the next week. 

So 12-8, 8-4, 4-12? Nothing random like 2am to 10 am?

[Jay-Oh]

2 minutes ago, BrooklynN said:

So 12-8, 8-4, 4-12? Nothing random like 2am to 10 am?

Different jobs have different start times.

Usually the jobs that have “round” start and end times are yard/switching jobs and board.

Otherwise; jobs have random start times within the range of your tour (AM, PM, MID).

[SevenEleven]

12 minutes ago, FilippoSironi said:

Thank you so much for the very thorough reply. That was very helpful. So If I need to take time off on my first year for visiting family abroad or other reasons, would I be able to do so (of course unpaid)?

You get to start banking AVAs after 90 days like I said, so let’s use being hired today as an example. You’ll get 2 vacation days in January 2022 to use for that year. Now let’s say you want to take time off in November. You’ll start accruing AVAs after MLK Day. Between then and October, you’ll get 5 AVAs. 
 

Now you’ll call up and want to request each day you want off on that 21st day out. 5 of any type of leave balance is a week off and you’ll have your 2 RDOs every week. Let’s say you have a job that has Sunday and Saturday off. You will just have to request Monday thru Friday and however which way you get it, you get it off. 
 

Try not to take time off unpaid unless it’s an emergency. You will have your probation extended on the back end and it’s not a good look for management. If you take a paid day off, then it doesn’t go against you or your probation. All of the leave balances I explained above are paid time off. (Except for sick time, that’s for your medical emergencies)

When you get out school car, you’ll learn about more scheduling options such as mutual swaps and such to make planning something more easy.

[TOSironi]

11 minutes ago, SevenEleven said:

You get to start banking AVAs after 90 days like I said, so let’s use being hired today as an example. You’ll get 2 vacation days in January 2022 to use for that year. Now let’s say you want to take time off in November. You’ll start accruing AVAs after MLK Day. Between then and October, you’ll get 5 AVAs. 
 

Now you’ll call up and want to request each day you want off on that 21st day out. 5 of any type of leave balance is a week off and you’ll have your 2 RDOs every week. Let’s say you have a job that has Sunday and Saturday off. You will just have to request Monday thru Friday and however which way you get it, you get it off. 
 

Try not to take time off unpaid unless it’s an emergency. You will have your probation extended on the back end and it’s not a good look for management. If you take a paid day off, then it doesn’t go against you or your probation. All of the leave balances I explained above are paid time off. (Except for sick time, that’s for your medical emergencies)

When you get out school car, you’ll learn about more scheduling options such as mutual swaps and such to make planning something more easy.

Ok thank you so much!

[Keikyu Motorman]

7 hours ago, BrooklynN said:

MTA benefits

Note that at the top of the first page, it notes that the benefits are for "For non-represented MTA Headquarters and Capital Construction employees". In other words, non-union white collar employees at agency offices.  

[Schecter]

7 hours ago, BrooklynN said:

So 12-8, 8-4, 4-12? Nothing random like 2am to 10 am?

Anytime nothing is set its all sporadic times it's not a usual 8 hour shift like that some jobs are but you can start for example 2:37pm and end at 10:56pm 

[TOSironi]

9 hours ago, SevenEleven said:

 

It’s how I explained it more or less as per our contract. It must be a typo on their end. @Schecter got 5 days his first year because he was hired in July. He accrued 5 days for the 5 months on the job. (July-December) Those 5 days (1 week) are usable the following year. (The first vacation pick) Now from January-December, he would have worked 10 months and thus accrues the 10 days, which gave him the 2 weeks for his second vacation pick. Year 3 (the third vacation pick) will be 2 weeks BUT for year 4, he will have 4 weeks for his use instead of 2.
 

The only exception to getting the 4 weeks is if you are hired in January. Since your vacation weeks/days are technically awarded to you on January 1st, you must have the 3 full years of service completed before then. So if you start on 12/31, you’ll have 4 weeks as you start your 4th year. If you start in January, you will have to do 4 years before you get your 4 weeks because you would not have 3 years on the job before January 1st. Unused vacation time (if you have days left over and no requests pending) will be cashed out at the end of the year. 
 

===
TA Holidays (AVAs). I call them as such because not every holiday will get you an AVA. Again, I’m in Buses so this list might not match up with RTO (because each department is different). You will be eligible for AVA accrual after 90 days of service for working as scheduled the day before, the day of the holiday and the day after on these days:

1. New Years Day

2. MLK Day

3. Presidents Day

4. Memorial Day

5. Juneteenth

6. July 4th

7. Labor Day

8. Veterans Day

9. Thanksgiving

10. Day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday)

11. Christmas

12. Your birthday after 1 year of service. Again, will be awarded the January 1st after completion. 
 

If your RDO falls on any of these days, you will get the AVA. For each TA holiday, you can elect to be paid an extra 8 hours on top of your run pay or you can accrue it into your Leave Balance and use it to request a day off. (The phone call you make 21 days out that Scheter was talking about) You cannot put in to off on these holidays unless it’s your RDO, you have a picked vacation week that the holiday falls in, or if it’s your birthday. (Someone correct me on this, bdays are automatic in buses) Also, you can hold a max of 10 AVAs in your bank at any given time. The 11th bankable AVA is automatically paid out. AVAs carry over from year to year.

You get one personal day (an extra AVA) on January 1st and every one thereafter, after completing your first year of service. You get 1 personal day and it will be cashed out at the end of the year if you don’t use it. 

How came if you work January to December it only counts as working 10 months and not 12?

[TOSironi]

2 hours ago, Keikyu Motorman said:

Note that at the top of the first page, it notes that the benefits are for "For non-represented MTA Headquarters and Capital Construction employees". In other words, non-union white collar employees at agency offices.  

Oh ok. That's very misleading since that's the benefits link to any position on the mta employment page.