241–250 of 336 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is compared to a "long weekend" as described in the parent comment. Although it would be nice, taking a month off every year would be grail-status vacation time for a US employee I think. Also, I don't work in Silicon Valley.
Huh. My vacation started at a month when I joined. But I usually take it a week at a time. And I work in the US, for a Silicon Valley company.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, unlimited days off (or "open") and zero days off are identical. If you have unlimited vacation people are inclined to take less and people respect the vacation you take less ("as you can always take more!"). Here's a study[0] (PDF) called "Overwhelmed America: Why Don’t We Use Our Earned Leave?" It is biased (travel association) but interesting nonetheless. According to this…
> unlimited days off (or "open") and zero days off are identical. I get your point, but that's clearly hyperbole. If you're given zero days off, and you take a day off, you get fired (or at least disciplined).
Which is remarkably similar to what happens at a lot of "unlimited vacation" companies anyways - you take time off only when it can be "justified" beyond reproach.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, unlimited days off (or "open") and zero days off are identical. If you have unlimited vacation people are inclined to take less and people respect the vacation you take less ("as you can always take more!"). Here's a study[0] (PDF) called "Overwhelmed America: Why Don’t We Use Our Earned Leave?" It is biased (travel association) but interesting nonetheless. According to this…
> unlimited days off (or "open") and zero days off are identical. I get your point, but that's clearly hyperbole. If you're given zero days off, and you take a day off, you get fired (or at least disciplined).
The solution at my office has just become that nobody asks anymore. Who wants to be the first to stick out their neck?
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Laws in France state that employers have to make sure every employee takes at least 2 consecutive weeks (ie 10 work days) between June & September. So, yes, mandatory.
Taking vacations only outside summer is forbidden in France?
Another upside is forcing the company to learn to run without its founders or other key employees for a meaningful period of time. This forces good processes to be put in place, and is an excellent fire drill in general.
Talking fun, I think it would be fun for a company to run a bus factor fire drill from time to time -:just point to one employee and say "Bam! You're hit by a bus, leave the office now here's $2K, come back next Thursday. No email, no remote working and no phone contact with anyone from here." I wonder how many companies (let alone startups) could deal effectively with this situation.
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I think for many Americans, work is life. You get up, you spend an hour in the commute to work, you spend your 9 hours at work, you spend some more because overtime is expected, you commute home, you watch some reality television and go to bed. At work you have made friends, you spend time browsing the internet, following up on your hobbies, etc. This is where life ends up happening. 8 hours consumed by sleep, or the…
On a somewhat related note, one of the things that irks me the most (working in Germany) is that I have to take a 30 minute break after 6h of work and another 15 minute break after 9h and can't work more than 10h without someone signing off on it. I can't even opt out of this. This seems totally broken, especially since you are not technically supposed to take other breaks without signing out of work. As someone usin…
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As someone who works for a company that offers unlimited vacation, I don't think its as cut and dry as you make it, although I see where you are coming from. I think the success of unlimited vacation really depends on the company, your manager, your peers, and you. That is a lot of things to get right, but if everything works out, I think unlimited vacation is really great. At least for my team, I think everyone shar…
Did you ever counted how many days off you do end up taking, and how many consecutive days off?
This is a ways off, but in Jan 2016 I will probably be taking even more, because I have a 3 week long trip with my wife to visit her family in the Philippines + plus typical holiday time off and random days off.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think for many Americans, work is life. You get up, you spend an hour in the commute to work, you spend your 9 hours at work, you spend some more because overtime is expected, you commute home, you watch some reality television and go to bed. At work you have made friends, you spend time browsing the internet, following up on your hobbies, etc. This is where life ends up happening. 8 hours consumed by sleep, or the…
On a somewhat related note, one of the things that irks me the most (working in Germany) is that I have to take a 30 minute break after 6h of work and another 15 minute break after 9h and can't work more than 10h without someone signing off on it. I can't even opt out of this. This seems totally broken, especially since you are not technically supposed to take other breaks without signing out of work. As someone usin…
I last moved from a shop with unlimited PTO (where in practice people settled around 4-5 weeks per year) to one with 15 days per year. Quality of life is noticeably worse with the limited PTO, and people tend to hoard their days because they're scarce. Travis's tracked minimum vacation sounds better than either of those policies.
I honestly think 20 days PTO is the bare minimum for a decent work-life balance, and even that isn't all that great. If I were changing jobs, I'd actually be willing to exchange salary for extra PTO, if the default PTO were less than 20 days.
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Agree 100%. I am talking about giving people 1 month off per year. In those cases, how do you maintain efficiency without bloat?
What's wrong with bloat? Isn't profitability the goal, not efficiency? If it's best achieved by having more resources so you continue to be profitable when one resource is unavailable, then have more resources. This is as true of hard drives and fire exits as it is of employees. Expanding on a point by brational, see Tom Demarco's book Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency . It makes…