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Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

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Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#261

Post by alxndr »

nekopa wrote: post #195
qeorge wrote: post #65

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.

I really like this idea! Wonder how I could convince my day job to try it out.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#262

Post by jarek »

apetresc wrote: post #257
jarek wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can it really be the case that the vast majority of US companies are too short-sighted to make a policy change that would be in their own best interest? You can ask that about anything. Are the U.S. banks really so short-sighted to offer absolutely crap person-to-person transfers and get undercut by any number of hacky startups? Were the U.S. car manufacturers really so stupid? Are California taxpayers really too s…

That's not really a rebuttal. Sure, maybe we can ask that question about those things too. Why not? Are you expecting everyone's political opinions to mesh with yours so closely that we'll all agree if a theory seems to contradict them, it must obviously invalidate the theory?

> That's not really a rebuttal. Sure, maybe we can ask that question about those things too. Why not?

I gave my questions as examples of large groups behaving unoptimally. That happens all the time everywhere, so using the "well why hasn't the market sorted it out then" argument against any one question (vacation policy in this case) is a little naive.

> Are you expecting everyone's political opinions to mesh with yours so closely that we'll all agree if a theory seems to contradict them, it must obviously invalidate the theory?

I don't see where politics come into this unless you think Prop 13 is good for Californians or that U.S.'s nation-building in Iraq went swimmingly.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#263

Post by [deleted] »

zeidrich wrote: post #132
Arjuna wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link to that study. In "europe" a two week vacation (10 work days) is common/standard. As opposed to American's "long weekends." To that point, if you've ever wondered (as I have) about the differences in philosophy on the topic of vacation between America and Europe, you may enjoy this paper [1]. It attempts to examine those differences. It's entitled "Europeans Work To Live and Americans Live To Work…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#264

Post by smokey_the_bear »

mhurron wrote: post #109
Arjuna wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link to that study. In "europe" a two week vacation (10 work days) is common/standard. As opposed to American's "long weekends." To that point, if you've ever wondered (as I have) about the differences in philosophy on the topic of vacation between America and Europe, you may enjoy this paper [1]. It attempts to examine those differences. It's entitled "Europeans Work To Live and Americans Live To Work…

> This study suggests that as the number of work hours increases, Americans become happier about life This makes sense. From a very early age, Americans are inundated with the idea that their worth is tied to if they work hard and have a job. Those that don't have a job or those that aren't perceived as working hard are below them. The worst thing they can say about someone is they are lazy. I work from home 2-3 days…

My husband and I work from home, and my inlaws can't figure out why we also send our toddlers to daycare.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#265

Post by jarek »

evanpw wrote: post #231
jarek wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can it really be the case that the vast majority of US companies are too short-sighted to make a policy change that would be in their own best interest? You can ask that about anything. Are the U.S. banks really so short-sighted to offer absolutely crap person-to-person transfers and get undercut by any number of hacky startups? Were the U.S. car manufacturers really so stupid? Are California taxpayers really too s…

I don't disagree that bad decisions are made all of the time, but the questions is how the same bad decision can be made everywhere in a competitive marketplace. You've given a couple of good examples where the answer is government: banking is highly regulated, so breaking into the industry is tough, and the big U.S. auto companies actually would have gone out of business and been replaced without a bailout. But if i…

> But if increasing vacation time makes your employees happier and you also get more productive work out of them, why don't the companies that switch then get all of the best employees and eat the lunch of everyone else?

Because marketplaces aren't as competitive as you think they are. An advantage in one factor isn't sufficient to decisively kill off a competitor.

To give an example: Do you think one could find ten people who could each do a better job than your local muffler shop? Do you think one could find ten people who could each create a company that would eventually do a better job than IBM? Than Yahoo? Than Facebook? Then why does IBM still exist?

How come, in a competitive marketplace, corporations still make decisions based on where the CEO lives and who the executives play golf with?

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#266

Post by karmajunkie »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #259
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...)

I think a 4 day workweek should become a thing. I am more than happy to put in extra hours monday through thursday so I can have an extra day for the weekend.

I don't think you should have to put in extra hours to have the extra day on the weekend. We should have moved to a 30h workweek years and years ago.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#267

Post by thoman23 »

The only thing surprising to me about this is to hear that this founder apparently had noble intentions at the start. I just assumed that every company that does this is cynically inducing more (short-term) work out of their employees while clearing some liabilities from the books, all at the cost of long-term success and morale. I would never work for a company with one of these "unlimited" vacation policies.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#268

Post by hipsterrific »

encoderer wrote: post #112
Someone1234 wrote: post #30

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…

At Trulia we have an unlimited vacation policy and it really does work for us. People routinely take extended, foreign trips of two or more weeks. This year I will be taking 4 weeks off in total, 2 on proper vacation and one week each with my family and my wife's. So take this as an anecdotal data point. Oh, and come work for Trulia, we need great iOS and Android engineers desperately.

I think many companies dive head first into unlimited vacation policy without really thinking things through. I had a job where we had it and it somehow worked (despite the CTO's inability to follow any kind of project management structure).

Our PTO's were scheduled ahead which was policy. So if you took a two week trip, you filed it three months in advanced. You let your team, your PM, and business know you'll be out of town so they can manage expectations (e.g., less work). Our sprints were based on how much work we can do based on the existing resource. My team had a team of 3 so we never scheduled PTO's were two or more people were off for any prolonged period of time. Sometimes schedules collide, but we do our best to be transparent about big trips so that we can all plan accordingly.

You know, it worked well. I'm glad it worked well for you at Trulia (which, btw, helped me butt loads when I was shopping for a home, so thanks!). I'd work for you guys except I'm not a mobile dev, I like where I'm at, and I'm not looking to move. :)

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#269

Post by mightybyte »

tspike wrote: post #207
mightybyte wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to this study[1] you need at least ten consecutive days of leave to "de-stress" from work. Short vacations aren't as effective as long ones. That can't be true across the board. I haven't taken a vacation in 3 or 4 years by that definition. And frankly, I feel fine. I work with awesome people solving cool problems and love what I do. I've had friends tell me I should take a vacation, and my response is, "…

The fact that you're an outlier doesn't mean that the findings of the study are invalid. There are lots of people who are genuinely good at their jobs, but who would do something completely different with their lives if a billion dollars dropped into their laps. Those people stand to gain much more from a long vacation than you do.

Yes, I realize that...hence my first sentence "That can't be true across the board." But people tend to cite these things like they're a fundamental truth about humans. I think the generalization is less useful than it might seem.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#270

Post by KennyCason »

I see a lot of people saying that they would "never work for a company with unlimited vacation." I also understand their reasoning and have seen similar examples.

At DataRank we balance this with a small amendment. It's unlimited vacation but you MUST take a minimum of two weeks off. We are also very flexible about remote work. If you feel the itch to travel to Japan for a 2 week vacation + 2 weeks working remote, go for it. If you just feel burned out and want to watch Netflix at home all day. Go for it, just let someone know.

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