Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

paperplanes.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 336 posts

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#81

Post by JoeAltmaier »

CalRobert wrote: post #70
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... unless you just take vacations normally. Then perhaps you have already taken your vacation when you leave, and the company is out that work. It cuts both ways.

Until I left the US every I worked operated on the basis of accrued vacation. The day you started you had 0 vacation days, after 6 months you could use half your annual allotment, etc.

I admit I don't know how my vacation schedule works, officially. I just take time off and inform HR. They do whatever they do.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#82

Post by vonmoltke »

CalRobert wrote: post #70
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... unless you just take vacations normally. Then perhaps you have already taken your vacation when you leave, and the company is out that work. It cuts both ways.

Until I left the US every I worked operated on the basis of accrued vacation. The day you started you had 0 vacation days, after 6 months you could use half your annual allotment, etc.

My previous company ran a PTO system and advanced the entire balance on 01JAN every year. There aren't many, but they are out there.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#83

Post by organsnyder »

CalRobert wrote: post #74
oakesm9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 2-3 weeks off a normal amount of time in the US? I get 28 days off per year in the UK, which is around the standard amount.

Outside tech (which is dripping with privilege) it's common to have 0-2 weeks of vacation in the US. There is no legal minimum, and I've had jobs offering 0, 1, and 2 weeks of vacation. In some cases you can take time off and simply not be paid for it.

Not only that, but many employers aren't required to offer maternity leave (let alone paternity leave). My wife has had to combine accrued vacation time, sick days, and unpaid leave just to get to six weeks of maternity leave.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#85

Post by wahnfrieden »

padobson wrote: post #27

If I worked somewhere that had an unlimited vacation policy, I think I'd probably stop working on Fridays all together. An unlimited vacation policy could be an open invitation for a 4-day work-week (or 3 day or 2 day...)

It's expected that you don't abuse the policy. While what constitutes abuse may be a line that needs elaboration, making your standard work week 2-3 days under this policy is not a gray area.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#86

Post by sportanova »

GFischer wrote: post #60
robzyb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Australian living in Japan. I moved here 2 months ago. Most Japanese get around 3 weeks of annual leave per year - but each day expires after 24 months. It is quite common for leave to expire.

Here in Uruguay, if you don't take your leave, the company has to compensate you (pay it as an extra worked day). Same if they fire you.

Time to move to Australia or Uruguay!

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#87

Post by hedwall »

delluminatus wrote: post #72
hedwall wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your normal pay + $1000 or just $1000 ? In Sweden you actually get a ~12% higher pay during your vacation.

Do you know why? Is it just to encourage people to take more vacation time?

Don't know, it is generally mandatory to take 4 weeks, where you can't be denied taking 3 weeks in a row in the months June to August.

I think the idea is that you should be able to spend while on vacation... but not really sure.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#88

Post by sportanova »

debacle wrote: post #40
sportanova wrote: post #2

Of course the other reason for 'unlimited vacation' is so when an employee leaves, the company doesn't have to pay them for unused vacation days. Huge red flag when a company has 'unlimited vacation'

IIRC, the company doesn't have to pay you for unused vacation days even if you don't use them. It's pretty much at the discretion of the company.

I'm assuming that most of the companies offering this 'perk' are tech companies in CA

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#89

Post by my_username_is_ »

I'm glad to see someone trying this out. It's something I've been wondering about [1], and it seems pretty uncommon. I'll be looking forward to seeing how this works out for them, and any other companies that are so inspired to try to improve the status-quo.

Frankly the American culture of working continuously seems like a negative to employee and employer both--and even if it were only a negative to one, it would be something worthy of change.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053580

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#90

Post by asgard1024 »

I would go even further and postulate that lack of rules about who is in power kills societies. Many equate "lack of rules" with "freedom", but it's a problem. People without conscience will freely abuse the lack of rules or start to fight with each other, while the good people will get screwed. Eventually, the good people, who usually just want to do the work, will get unhappy and leave.

This applies not only to vacation, but to governance as well. So called "consensual democracy", where there is no hard and fast rule about who has how much power, has the same kind of problem. The most important thing about democracy is that it is very specific - everybody has the same amount of power. That discourages political fights, because you cannot (without explicitly changing the rule) accrue more power. In my opinion, many institutions (for example Wikipedia) suffer from this problem.

Post reply on HN