If I don't work I don't get paid

This is the indignant comment I sometimes used to hear from people who had stayed at home waiting for an operative who didn't show.

Apart from the fact that it seems very unlikely that the person simply sat at home waiting and had nothing else to do - no unread books, housework up-to-date, admin all done  - there is a glaring mathematical fault behind this statement: Like is not being compared with like.

Here are some simplified figures to make my point

Let's say you earn £26K a year - £500 a week. That's £500 a week, and if you are salaried you probably get £26K/12 per month irrespective of how much leave you take in each of those months.

 But let's also say you get 6 weeks leave. So per week worked you get £26K/46  = £565.22. And let's say your working week is 35 hours - you're getting £16.15 / hour.

Now if you worked for that hourly rate for 35 hrs a week 52 weeks a year you'd earn £29,391.30 pa. You won't, but provided you don't take more than 6 weeks unpaid leave, you'll still earn £26K or more. Although your pay would fluctuate each week/month because your time off would be variable, your average pay per week/month would be the same.

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