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Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

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Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#31

Post by jemfinch »

sudonim wrote: post #12

No vacation really sucks. I took 2 months between jobs once, but I've always been able to take a week or two weeks at a time. Now, we have the same policy as netflix. Basically you take time off when you want it, and you take as much as you want. It's all paid. Our only designer is gone for 3 weeks to get married. We'll struggle a little bit for those 3 weeks, but I'm grateful that when it's my time to take a week or…

The funny thing is, the Netflix policy is tied to a corporate culture that's reputed to be very high stress, performance-focused, and quick to terminate. In such an insecure environment, I would be very surprised if Netflix employees took more vacation than the average industry employee.

I would never want to work for a Netflix-model company. When I take vacation, I want to feel entitled to it (because I am!), and when I forgo vacation, I want to be paid out for that sacrifice when I leave the company.

I think the Netflix model exists more to improve the company ledger by reducing liabilities than to help the employee or promote a healthy work environment. Maybe it's different where you work, but that's my perspective, from my comfortable 12 company holidays, 15 days PTO perspective.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#32

Post by patio11 »

sosuke wrote: post #17

My employeer recently went unlimited vacation! Which in practice really means no vacation unless you bully your way into it which is very stressful.

That is definitely the perk that isn't. Imagine a startup offering employees unlimited pay -- "Whoa whoa whoa, you drew $3,000 this month? $3,000!? You're a single guy, what do you need $3,000 for? Don't we give you enough soda?"

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#34

Post by stefanobernardi »

That's really crazy, but it gives employers the chance to hire and retain the best talents not only with salary wars.

I still think that the major problem is that the US is one of the three only nations in the world that does not have paid maternity leave. Absurd.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#35

Post by pavel_lishin »

wladimir wrote: post #21

This is crazy from our (Western European) perspective. It was one of my reasons for not taking a job in the USA that was offered me a few years ago. Yes, it paid somewhat more than here in Europe but I'd rather have the benefits such as more free time and better health care than more income.

I can't speak for the health care, but I imagine that you could have negotiated for better vacation time.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#37

Post by silversmith »

michaelpinto wrote: post #13

The flip side of this is that we have Summer vacation for schools (unlike the rest of the world) and have institutionalized Spring Break for college students. Sadly we see the idea of vacation as being for the very young or the very old who retire.

Latvia chiming in here:

Mid-june till september off for schools. July and august off for college students. One week prior to christmas and one week some time around easter off for both. Four weeks paid yearly vacation for the 9-to-5ers. Two weeks additional paid vacation for working students finishing their graduation works. National holidays and sickness don't count towards your vacation time. If a national holiday happens to be in weekend, friday or monday is usually free.

Honestly, the more I read about US working conditions, the more I feel like people there are deliberately misinforming everyone else in attempt to reduce immigration and competition on job market.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#38

Post by tjogin »

nixy wrote: post #26

I'm a Swedish developer. This year I have 7 weeks of vacation, and I plan to use it all. I normally get the 5 weeks required by law. Last year, I only used 4 of those 5 weeks, so one spilled over to this year. I also got a bonus week of vacation for working a lot of overtime last summer. So that makes 7 weeks.

Also please note that this is paid vacation we're talking about.

In Sweden, we have five weeks of vacation by law. And, the right to take four of those weeks consecutively.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#39

Post by leftnode »

joss82 wrote: post #14
leftnode wrote: post #9

There is a good article from another software developer around here who told his boss he was taking a 3 month vacation. He made the point the business needed him more than he needed it; he was a competent developer and could easily get work, didn't have any living/large financial dependencies. At first I thought it was absurd, but the more I thought about it, he was absolutely correct. Take a long vacation some time.…

Here it is, and it's awesome: http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...

Yes, that's exactly it, thank you.

Re: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

#40

Post by Vivtek »

America doesn't do vacation because of a mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word "productivity".

As long as you have management consultants who specialize in the single metric of productivity (i.e. number of dollars of profit vs. number of dollars spent on people making the profit), you will have miserable people.

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