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Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

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Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#51

Post by hotnfresh »

j7ake wrote: post #23

In Europe it’s common to take an entire month off.

EU-wide minimum vacation allotment is 4 weeks, right? With some member states going as high as 7? Plus holidays (another 10 days, I wanna say, in the case of France for example).

The US has no minimum vacation time. Most folks go their whole career without ever seeing 5 weeks off in a single year. It's common for workers to start at 5-10 days. At the bottom end of the economic ladder, there's no paid time off at all, and if you try to take off a whole week off you might be told "no" with the alternative of "quit".

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#52

Post by Rastonbury »

Faaak wrote: post #24
bklw wrote: post #17

I have to take at least 2 consecutive weeks once every year. Switzerland.

Same here in CH. And it's not uncommon for some people that have a lot of OT to take maybe a month straight (with a bit of advice in advance)

Europe's PTO is like another world, I recall emailing someone in the summer and the auto-response was like "be back in 2 months"

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#53

Post by Clubber »

samsolomon wrote: post #21

There's a lot of "it depends" here. As both a former founder and early startup employee these are the things that come to mind— How far out did you discuss this with your employer? Were they aware of it when you joined? There's a pretty big difference if this is 6 months or two weeks away. Setting expectations go a long way here on both sides. What is the size of the business? People are more critical the smaller the…

Not to mention, just about every position in an early startup is mission critical. I'd say 3 weeks off would be fine in the company I work at, but I'd be expected to be contactable and available if an emergency happened. We're about 5 years in though. The first few years, I really couldn't take vacation other than a 3-4 day weekend here and there.

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#54

Post by ender341341 »

chunkymilk wrote: post #35

The only "rule" around vacation is the longer the vacation the more notice you _should_ give. I've had colleagues take 5-6 weeks off, but they let the team know 4-5 months in advance so it wasn't a big deal and we could work around it.

Yeah, I've had several teammates take a month-ish of to travel, most of it comes down to just giving a good heads up that it's coming.

I set up a shared team calendar and asked people to mark when they're off so others can be aware and try to minimise overlap (not that it's banned, just be aware and if you're like "well were going either this week or this" and someone else is already off one of those weeks strongly consider it a point in favor of the other).

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#55

Post by Clubber »

Random_BSD_Geek wrote: post #45
foota wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you want your boss to replace you when you go on vacation.

The point is that some arbitrary number of weeks of vacation isn't the business-destroying choice this founder makes it out to be. Use your PTO. You earned it.

It depends on how important you are. If you are the director of sales, software architect, or something like that, it can be business destroying; particularly if some unforeseen emergency happens. An example is a new big client is suddenly requiring something happen before signing a contract and everyone needs to be on deck for that to happen.

If you are one of 100 CSRs, then it wouldn't be business-destroying obviously.

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#56

Post by jjeaff »

SoftTalker wrote: post #22

When I worked in academia, yes absolutely if the weeks aligned with breaks in instruction. So winter holidays, or pretty much any time in June, July, or August were fine for long stretches of PTO. In the private sector, I think I took one two-week vacation. It was not a problem, but it had to be approved. One company I worked with had a mandatory 8 week sabbatical after 10 years, and every 5 years thereafter. It had…

A company policy requiring large blocks of time off strikes me as a really good idea for companies that can afford it. The employees get time to decompress and destress thus making them more productive and creative. And the company is given a chance to figure out what it takes to cover your job if you were to leave. Like finding out that no one else has credentials to that one ultra important service that only has to be accessed every 6 months or so. Or learning that someone else needs to be trained as a backup in that one special thing you always take care of.

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#57

Post by adverbly »

Depends:

How much banked vacation do you have?

How many weeks do you get per year?

How much notice are you giving?

Are there any major resourcing demands in the target time?

Are there serious conflicts with other co-workers?

How does your TC compare to the rest of your team and the industry at large?

Assuming favorable answers to the above, I've never been at a company which would reject PTO. Admittedly, I work at companies that actually understand that work-life balance is in everyone's best long-term interest, but Id say 75% of requests get approved without need for modifications. Probably depends a lot on industry.

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#58

Post by Ekaros »

hotnfresh wrote: post #51
j7ake wrote: post #23

In Europe it’s common to take an entire month off.

EU-wide minimum vacation allotment is 4 weeks, right? With some member states going as high as 7? Plus holidays (another 10 days, I wanna say, in the case of France for example). The US has no minimum vacation time. Most folks go their whole career without ever seeing 5 weeks off in a single year. It's common for workers to start at 5-10 days. At the bottom end of the economic ladder, there's no paid time off at all,…

Depends by country. But 4-5 weeks after first year for example. And then depending on local customs you could swap some special pay for more time off... And then public sector workers might get even more time off.

And this is not counting any public holidays that might or might not fall on weekdays, which also depend on per country.

Not to forget that sick days are well sick days. So it could be if you get sick on vacation you don't lose that vacation time...

Re: Ask HN: Can you take more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?

#60

Post by fnimick »

jejeyyy77 wrote: post #48
devoutsalsa wrote: post #18

This is why unlimited PTO is stupid. You have to get permission for ANY time off. Lame.

Yep, unlimited PTO is a scam. But, to make lemonade, I make sure to take 4-5 weeks of PTO per year, EVERY year. That way, it's actually a perk/advantageous over traditional PTO packages.

How do you successfully advocate for that?

These experiences blow my mind - I have managed to take 4-5 weeks of PTO, total, over the course of a decade in my career at "unlimited PTO" startups due to pretty much always being mission critical, and even those took some real pushing.

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