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

Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

technical.ly

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–239 of 239 posts

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#231

Post by stadium »

sneak wrote: post #227
stadium wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the company! If it's inauthentic though, employees can smell it from far away.

It's always inauthentic, as otherwise people would take all work days off, never show up again, and collect a paycheck in perpetuity. This is a business transaction. "Unlimited PTO" literally means free paychecks.

Sure, that's a literal definition of unlimited.

In reality, I've seen it implemented as a "take what you need" policy. Unlimited in that sense means there is no upper bound. Managers are trained to push people who are trending under 5 weeks per year to take more time off. Some people take a lot more than that. Work still get done and people seem happy to do the work. Sample size = 1 employer. Inauthentic?

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#232

Post by noirbot »

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #219
noirbot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because "unlimited" is the relevant part to the part of the company that cares - HR. If it was limited, it would need to be tracked. I get the objection to the fact that you can't literally take 200 days off or whatever, but that just feels like pedantry when at this point the colloquial meaning of "unlimited pto" is fairly clear.

The colloquial meaning doesn't seem clear at all. Am I OK taking 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks? 5 weeks? 6 weeks? 7 weeks? 10 weeks? Which is it, precisely? At what precise number of days does it go from being "a reasonable amount" to "lol are you nuts?"

I mean, the answer there is "it varies" and "it depends". Probably something around 3-5 weeks. If you need a precise number to feel ok about the situation, the colloquial meaning is going to be enough to tell you you shouldn't work there. I get what you're asking for, but you're essentially just complaining that it's not Static Days PTO, which is a fine opinion to have, but going "I don't think X is clear because it's not Y instead" isn't really a thing.

You can dislike what is meant by "Unlimited PTO" and the fact that it's not clear on how many days you can take off, but that doesn't mean it's unclear what Unlimited PTO entails.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#233

Post by [deleted] »

noirbot wrote: post #232
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The colloquial meaning doesn't seem clear at all. Am I OK taking 2 weeks? 3 weeks? 4 weeks? 5 weeks? 6 weeks? 7 weeks? 10 weeks? Which is it, precisely? At what precise number of days does it go from being "a reasonable amount" to "lol are you nuts?"

I mean, the answer there is "it varies" and "it depends". Probably something around 3-5 weeks. If you need a precise number to feel ok about the situation, the colloquial meaning is going to be enough to tell you you shouldn't work there. I get what you're asking for, but you're essentially just complaining that it's not Static Days PTO, which is a fine opinion to have, but going "I don't think X is clear because it'…

[deleted]

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#234

Post by ineedasername »

wccrawford wrote: post #195
ineedasername wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions do sometimes make it hard to get rid of bad workers... not sure that's the same as "rewarding" them though. I can't think of examples of punishing good ones though. Union contracts frequently have defined procedures for requesting a merit pay increase with a mandatory review process, along with similar procedures for reclassification to a higher level position, also with more pay, when a person's scope of resp…

Getting to keep your job when you don't deserve it is absolutely a reward. As for punishing good workers... I've heard plenty of stories where someone was really good at their job and they just needed some small thing done that they couldn't get the right department to do, so they did it themselves. The union jumped all over them because it's contractually obligated that the other department perform that function. It…

That's the punishment

That depends on the reason for the separation of duties. Think of a unionized construction work where a few people specialize on heavy machinery. You aren't designated as such, but you happen to know how to drive a forklift and you need something moved. I'd be pretty pissed off at you for taking it upon yourself to do it because knowing how to operate a forklift isn't the same as knowing all of the safety protocols and idiosyncracies of operating heavy machinery at that specific site. You could put yourself or others at risk, or screw up the project. Or maybe the construction company pays certain insurance premiums for each designated operator and you just opened them up to bankruptcy if there was an accident.

Sometimes these barriers exist for a good reason. And sure, when you run into one it can be frustrating if it seems harmless-- even productive-- to break protocol. But it's not for each individual worker to determine which protocols they will follow and which ones they will break. That's a recipe for disaster that I have seen happen in & out of unions. The right path on that is to work to change protocol. I've done it plenty of times myself so that I could be more productive but also be in the loop on any special considerations I should be aware of, like not querying the production system directly during certain hours when it could be under high load.

That doesn't means there aren't any useless barriers, but it my experience a barrier is usually--initially-- put into place for a reasonable purpose, and people get frustrated because they don't know what the purpose was. Going cowboy isn't the solution though. Asking questions and finding out if the reasons still apply, and initiating change if they don't, that's the path forward. Sometimes it doesn't work, for stupid reasons, but stupid reasons aren't the sole domain of union beauracracy. They exist everywhere. I don't know if they're more prevalent in unions, but it doesn't make sense to look at unions as useless or bad when they simply share the same behavioral patterns as any other organization of sufficient size and complexity. I have seen unions that are completely dysfunctional, I have also seen businesses that are the same (and had the misfortune of working for one or two)

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#235

Post by ineedasername »

tharkun__ wrote: post #212
ineedasername wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And suddenly the union has made me very uninterested in performing my duties at that company at all. I want to be able to work with flexible hours I was in a union for a little bit, and there was a set process for this. You simply requested & justified a modified schedule, and so long as your boss signed off that it wouldn't negatively impact operations, it was all fine. Not all unions may do this though.

Absolutely agreed that unionized doesn't mean only bad things. That's not what my parent asked about though. My dad was at a sort of unionized place. The core business wasn't Software but they spun their own IT needs out into an IT service company that became quite large on its own too. This was in Germany though. The actual union negotiated with the core business and for their employees. There's also another system…

Pretty much agreed, I just think the same types of good & bad things happen without unions, just on an individual or departmental scale. It's more visible with unions because it happens all at once and on a larger scale, but I'm not convinced that the overall magnitude is that different.

As an example of the individual/departmental level where there was no union involved: I was embedded within a large, mostly customer-facing area. A scheduling change came down that said everyone had to work late hours twice a week on a rotation, for two six-week periods each year when there was increased demand. I don't work with customers, there was no need for me to modify my schedule. I ran things up the chain and a few days later there was a minor policy change that basically said "everyone except him".

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#236

Post by tharkun__ »

ineedasername wrote: post #235
tharkun__ wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agreed that unionized doesn't mean only bad things. That's not what my parent asked about though. My dad was at a sort of unionized place. The core business wasn't Software but they spun their own IT needs out into an IT service company that became quite large on its own too. This was in Germany though. The actual union negotiated with the core business and for their employees. There's also another system…

Pretty much agreed, I just think the same types of good & bad things happen without unions, just on an individual or departmental scale. It's more visible with unions because it happens all at once and on a larger scale, but I'm not convinced that the overall magnitude is that different. As an example of the individual/departmental level where there was no union involved: I was embedded within a large, mostly custome…

Then you are lucky (as many of us in software are) that you had enough pull for that.

Where unions or worker organization (even without a formal union and dues and such) come in is if this doesn't work because individual pull is not enough.

Your case you were lucky, in many an organization you would just have been told "you gotta take one for the team, we cannot make exceptions, then everyone wants one" (note that I don't agree with that but seen/heard this too many times)

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#237

Post by nickd2001 »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #230
physicles wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there companies that would let you take the rest of the week off in that situation? If so, shouldn’t they also make you work overtime to finish some work that you underestimated? Isn’t the trick to just work at a sustainable pace, day in and day out, and celebrate the wins along the way? All that said, in the last five years my longest holiday has been a week. The work really is endless.

> All that said, in the last five years my longest holiday has been a week. The work really is endless. Sometimes, even the week off doesn't mean less work, because the few weeks before the vacation you have to work harder to compensate for your coming absence.

This seems horrific to me. Why do people let companies do this to them? Let me guess.... US health insurance? (i:e the need to always be employed to be covered)? A former (US) colleague I had, every year after 9 months he quit the same job to go round S America on his motorcycle. Then after 4 months travel he got hired back. They couldn't manage without him. Eventually they started saying he wouldn't be able to keep doing this and return next time, so he smiled sweetly, said "OK" then 4 months later said "do you need anyone?" and of course they snapped him back up. Part of why he was so good at his job was having a decent break and recharging. In fact arguably he was far more use to his employer by doing this, than what they "wanted" him to do, i:e stay there all the time only 2 weeks annual vacation get burnt out. Sometimes people have to turn to this sort of extreme behaviour to have any sort of life outside work, in the USA at least. I suppose he risked no health insurance for 4 months, or bought some. Maybe now he's older that wouldn't work. Well, please people, look after yourselves.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#238

Post by yumaikas »

t0mbstone wrote: post #143
karaterobot wrote: post #53

When I've been burned out or hated my job, I didn't take vacations, because the crushing realization that I'd have to return to work was almost worse than losing myself in the uninterrupted, repetitive, dead-eyed grind. While on vacation, I'd start thinking about the countdown to the end of the vacation. > Well, root out the real causes of burnout. I'll offer the definition that's made most sense to me. I didn't come…

What about people who build tons of successful things and get win after win after win, but are still feeling burned out? For me, a "win" would be accomplishing something and then getting to bask in the success and take a fucking break and do nothing for a year. Shoot, even being able to take a break for a month after busting my butt on a project for a year would be nice. But nope. You never really "finish" anything i…

The grind is eternal, so adjust your pace accordingly, IMO.

I do think that many orgs don't have any sense of pacing when it comes to software dev. So, don't set expectations too high for an org if they don't have PTO in place to compensate for hard work.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#239

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

robocat wrote: post #98
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not looking very hard for counter examples. Is the screen actors guild punishing Will Smith and rewarding struggling, untalented commercial actors? Is the NBA player's association punishing LeBron and rewarding D league players? Is there even such a thing a "superstar" plumber? I mean, I'm sure there are awful plumbers and amazing plumbers - but do how much can they scale, realistically?

I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions. A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market. When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with…

> I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions.

There are a TON of actors in SAG (160,000). Sure, that's more than an order of magnitude smaller than the 4.4M SWEs in the US. But the idea that everyone in SAG is a "star" is absurd.

Similarly, deep bench players in the NBA - sure they are really good - but they are far from stars. And yet, most of them make substantially more money than overseas "stars". This is because of the players' union.

> A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market.

I think you missed my point entirely. SAG and the players' union are good for both stars and non-stars.

GP seemed to think that unions by definition are bad for stars. I was merely pointing out that there are examples of unions that are not bad for stars. It just so happens these unions are also examples of unions that are also not bad for non-stars.

> When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with company requests — unless you are part of a union that collectively acts in the interests of the workers.

Google is not unionized, and there are a million people that would take my job for much lower pay - and a lot of them could probably end up doing my job after a substantially long learning period. Despite that, I have my job.

The same is true at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft (and many other companies). Theoretically, since these are global companies with large presences all over the world - this isn't (at least) entirely because I'm a US citizen.

I agree with your point for most other professions, though. And maybe this will be truer in the future for "FAANG". But, it's not really true now.

> Edit: I did a quick search for "software developer" on https://seek.co.nz job board and about 1% of jobs were for USD140k+ and most of that 1% were not dev jobs. I know zero developers earning >= $200k. AFAIK pay in NZ for developers is significantly below the US.

The majority of people working at "FAANG" in NZ should be >$200k - if for no other reason than because of RSU appreciation.

Not trying to be rude - but if you want to make more money - just read Cracking the Coding Interview cover to cover and get referrals at FAANG. You honestly might triple your salary. You can DM me on Reddit if you want more feedback / advice / referrals.

Post reply on HN