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America’s national vacation problem
- michaelt 11y agoIt's impressive how big cultural the gap is between people not taking their full vacation entitlement and people not taking their full salary. I've had people try to hand back vacation days - but I've never had anyone try to hand back salary. Personally I try to take all my vacation because, as a professional, I have an obligation to make sure the company could keep going if I change jobs or get hit by a bus. Doing routine tests for bus factor resiliency is as important as testing your backups restore and your backup power works right :)
- eru 11y agoBankers in many countries are even required to take off two weeks in a block each year; and no communication with the office. That's to make the books harder to cook, but I am sure it helps many of them stay sane.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hliyan 11y agoExactly. Often, "loyalty" in this context boils down to "not leaving when you want to or are able to". If this is not reciprocated by the company in some way, then it's just a voluntary reduction of your own bargaining power, and as a consequence, your income.
- lockes5hadow 11y agoIts a mind hack that companies use to trick naive people out of their time, money, and happiness.
- rodgerd 11y ago> slashing costs in a bad economy your getting fired It's not even like it takes a bad economy. "We made record profits and met all our targets, but sacking people is what analysts want to hear this year. Security have your things at the front desk."
- zo1 11y agoDo we have statistics on this? Or are you just amalgamating a bunch of different anecdotes you've heard, and your personal experiences? Rather than some tangible evidence that indicates that it is prevalent for companies to request "loyalty" while simultaneously not reciprocating? Note, I don't quite think a company should "be loyal" when it's in dire financial problems. The only loyalty they can provide at that point is to the few employees it can keep.
- invaliduser 11y agoThis depends on what "loyalty" means. What does it mean for a company to ask for "loyalty"? Does it mean "please put aside any personal gain in order to contribute to the prosperity of the company" ? Is it "please work harder because it's tough time for us right now"? Does it imply a Quid Pro Quo, "if you are loyal, whatever that means, you'll benefit personally from it"?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- amelius 11y agoReciprocity on loyalty is a strange concept if you think about it. First, if the company can't pay for personnel, then they have to get rid of them; it is as simple as that. Second, loyalty could be used by employees to make sure they are the first in line to get a promotion. But be honest, do we really want that?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 6t6t6 11y agoIt is just a matter of legislation. You cannot expect "good will" from a company because this is not how capitalism works. And even if I think that it is right that laws allow companies to fire people when they need it, it should never be easy or cheap. Being able to fire at will makes a nation of slaves that must always obey their employers unless they want to risk themselves to loose everything.
- onion2k 11y agoAll the people in the video who say they check in with work while they're on vacation 'in order to help out their colleagues' - if you really want to help out your colleagues, pick up their work when they're on vacation so they don't need to do work when they're on holiday.
- Already__Taken 11y agoChecking in with work like this is a sign you aren't well organised or the structure of the company isn't correct. Why aren't you keeping colleagues informed enough to cope without you for even a week. Why are you the only person contactable for certain issues. etc. Drives me mad when schools shut for summer and the only person who can purchase things has sodded off.
- onion2k 11y agoWhy are you the only person contactable for certain issues. etc. One of the best pieces of advice I was given very early in my career was 'If you can't be replaced then you can't be fired, but you can't be promoted either.' Being indispensable is a career limiting move.
- FilterSweep 11y agoThat second part of the advice just rocked my world as a young guy. Thanks.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoIt's not always easy or possible to have redundancy for every role. At a company with 20 devs, hiring 2pms, 2 data scientists and 2 DBA just to handle vacation coverage is not realistic. At MS or FB this makes sense, but lots of places are much smaller. Sometimes the best business decision is not the most convenient one for the employees - life is full of tradeoffs.
- cmdkeen 11y ago
- simonh 11y agoI'm a UK employee of a US bank and manage 3 employees based in NY. To be perfectly honest I've not noticed any significant pressure on my US colleagues and team to not take vacation days. If anything my own US based manager is frequently reminding everyone to plan their vacations and not leave too much of their allowance until the end of the year. So clearly this culture of not taking full vacation days isn't ubiquitous, and of course the culture may be different in other parts of the bank - I work on the tech side. Maybe it's partly because as a global organization the US side has absorbed some of the vacation culture from other regions. Don't know. Having said that, contract employees are only paid for the days they attend, and they tend to take much fewer days off in the US than UK based contractors, typically maybe 2-5 or so per year. But that's their decision.
- tallanvor 11y agoBanks are a slightly different entity... It wasn't long ago when bank employees were actually required to take at least 2 weeks straight off once a year. Of course, this wasn't for the employee's health, rather it gave the bank time to catch any sort of embezzlement or other such activities the employee may have been up to. These days there are more controls and technology has ended some of common ways to try and hide bad transactions (such as sending checks to the wrong processing center or structuring transactions such that they'll take longer than they normally would). A lot of banks have removed this requirement now, but the culture of planning vacations remains in that industry.
- Tepix 11y agoSo telling you that I have 30 days of paid vacation here in Germany wouldn't actually make a difference because you wouldn't take your 30 days if you had them? Btw, when I'm on sick leave that is also paid.
- pgeorgi 11y agoyou probably didn't even think of it, but I fear it needs to be spelled out explicitly here: those paid days of sick leave don't count against your vacation either.
- Tepix 11y agoExactly. Plus if you get ill during your holiday you can get that counted as ill day instead of holiday.
- repsilat 11y agoI don't know how widespread this is, but in some places if you get sick while on your vacation you can use your sick leave and get some vacation days returned to you.
- anon4 11y agoAlso, I don't know how it's in Germany, but in other parts of Europe, your employer can force you to take your vacation days. Most do it at the end of the year, because if you have unused vacation days and you quit, they have to pay you extra for the vacation days you lose by quitting. And as you noted, sick days aren't counted in that. In fact, I can take a one-day sick leave whenever I want without so much as a doctor's notice (company policy mainly due to the fact that taking a sick leave with a doctor's notice creates more administrative work which isn't worth it for a single day).
- i_don_t_know 11y agoI don't know either if your employer can force you to take your vacation. But I heard that your health insurance may deny benefits for stress related issues if they find out that you didn't take all of your vacation days.
- throw09072015 11y agoI've always been one to take full advantage of my vacation, since I don't define myself by my work. Everyone looks forward to the weekend, right? Then why not take a few vacation days to make your weekend longer, or 2 weeks off to totally refresh? Downside is that one time I was "let go" while out of the country and told I didn't need to come back to the office. I guess sometimes the vacation days in your contract are more of a threat than a perk.
- daxfohl 11y agoI'll stand up for the US system. I personally like it. I don't like "vacations". What do you really gain just spending a couple weeks elsewhere? I don't even particularly care for weekends. I'd far rather be able to really focus on work, really getting stuff done, not have to deal with coworkers all being on vacation, saving hard for retirement or whatever, and then every couple years, go off and do something completely different (paid or unpaid). And I'm certainly not saying this from a "this proves American workers are the most hardworking" junk attitude. I simply find life more enjoyable this way. Then, that's my young, single self talking. Perhaps with a family moderation is more important. EDIT: People are misunderstanding my post, assuming I mean I don't do anything but work. On the contrary I've been to 30+ countries, lived in 5, biked across Asia, spent a year teaching English in Korea. This is difficult with just "vacation time". PLUS this style allows me to be really focused on / interested in my work when I'm in that phase of life.
- tonyedgecombe 11y agoI suspect you are in the minority.
- iSnow 11y agoDo you really have zero interests than those met at work? Never want to see other countries, or at least other parts of your country? Never want to spend times out of the office in nature? I am very happy I have six weeks of vacation and I have to take them or get written up. To me, there's more to life than delivering the next iteration of some product.
- daxfohl 11y agoExactly my point: On the contrary I've been to 30+ countries, lived in 5, biked across Asia, spent a year teaching English in Korea. You can't do this with "vacations".
- ctolsen 11y agoI don't see why you can't go on vacation even if you take a couple months off on a sabbatical every couple of years. It's mostly about financial priorities, especially for most people on HN.
- hellofunk 11y agoAfter moving to the Netherlands, my wife and I were astounded and rather impressed by the extraordinary attitude towards holidays here. Every single person we know on our street and acquaintances we have met since being here takes nearly an entire month off during July or August. Now that is quite refreshing! People actually leave work around 430 or five in the afternoon. The one difference however is that everyone is usually at work quite promptly no later than 8 AM.
- datalist 11y agoThe minimum leave in the Netherlands is 20 days, four weeks. So that would mean that those people take their entire vacation in one go, not having anything (or barely anything) left for the rest of the year (eg. end of December, ....).
- dagw 11y agoHow many professional only have the minimum leave in the Netherlands? Most people I know in Sweden have more than the minimum after a few years of work.
- datalist 11y agoCant tell how common additional days above the minimum leave are in NL (you'd need to know these numbers). But even if you consider the usual five to eight days it would come as a surprise to me if it really was common to take off an entire month in one go as even then one would be barely left with any remaining days (as compared to none before). Some people will certainly do it, but not everybody.
- 5555624 11y agoI may be the only one, but I see a difference between "vacation" and "vacation days." It's been a long, long time, since I took a "vacation," where I had a week to ten days off. On the other hand, I use all of the 26 vacation days I get. While I take a few days here and there, mostly I take Fridays off and make three-day weekends. (Sometimes four-day weekends.)
- Bonogongo 11y agoWhat I found interesting in the past compared to the US: "Why Germans Work Fewer Hours But Produce More: A Study in Culture" http://knote.com/2014/11/10/why-germans-work-fewer-hours-but-produce-more-a-study-in-culture/ http://knote.com/2014/11/10/why-germans-work-fewer-hours-but...
- newman314 11y agoWhich is why work is a social contract. Well, it used to be but the pendulum has swung too far in one direction.
- greggman 11y agoMet a French woman who gets 4 months off a year. 4 MONTHS!!! Apparently 2 months is the minimum in France. I will note she hates her job (some kind of auditing). I don't hate my job but at the same time the more I hear about many European countries vacation policies the more I question the USA's typical policies.
- datalist 11y agoThe minimum in France is 25 days = five weeks, like in many other European countries.
- greggman 11y agoWTF was this downvoted? What did I say that pissed people off so much they felt this was worth of a downvote? First off 7 French natives have told me the minimum is 2 months. 3 work at Nintendo of France and brought this up in relation to their Japanese co-workers in Japan. Even though Nintendo is a Japanese company it has to abide by French laws for it's office in Paris. 1 works at a Nuclear Power Plant. She's the one that gets 4 months off a year. Yes, she actually gets 4 months off paid vacation. This is not a lie. 3 others are currently working in Japan, 2 in Kyoto, 1 in Tokyo, not working for French companies, frustrated at the lack of vacation relative to France. They might have been wrong but that's what they believe. Second it doesn't matter if it's 40 days off a year or 25. That's still INFINITELY MORE THAN THE USA which is has a mandatory minimum of ZERO days off and still entirely makes the point that lots more vacation than is typical in the USA is at least something to be considered.
- mirsadm 11y agoI personally am strongly against any kind of "unlimited" vacation days or other such perks. In my experience hardly anyone takes advantage of them because they are made to feel guilty. Even most places that claim to offer working from home rarely have people take advantage of it due to the culture (not at desk means you're lazy). I prefer the employer just to be upfront and if I want to work from home then I'll negotiate to do that once a week upfront.
- StavrosK 11y agoThese are two different issues. What you have a problem with isn't the "unlimited", it's the "no minimum". Would you have a problem with "unlimited vacation days, four weeks a year mandatory minimum?". As in, if you haven't taken any vacation when December rolls in, see you after new year's.
- mirsadm 11y agoThat is a reasonable point. It is definitely one way to fix that particular perk.
- staticelf 11y agoWow. Work-life-balance reallys sucks in the US and A. Get your shit together // Sweden.
- thearn4 11y agoAs a federal employee, I already know I would probably have a hard time adjusting to the terrible work/life imbalance common in American private industry. I don't think closing the pay gap (probably about $10k-$15k difference in my case) would change my mind much either. I work a very honest 80 hours per two-week pay period, and use my 4 weeks of annual leave far removed (at least mentally) from the workplace. Seldom do I feel any push back on that, either.