Sorry you've had such a bad experience. My experience varies as others have mentioned in the thread. I've worked at companies where we had accrued days off and

Sorry you've had such a bad experience. My experience varies as others have mentioned in the thread. I've worked at companies where we had accrued days off and it was a nightmare. Any time we took vacation was met with scrutiny. I've also worked with unlimited vacations companies as well. A past employer made you feel quite crappy about taking vacation days. That said, I've worked for two companies (including my current) who have unlimited vacation and stay true to it. My current company gives me quite a bit of freedom. Being a manager, I personally make sure that my colleagues take time off. I currently have an engineer who is on a 10 day vacation in which we highly encouraged him to not check email, jira, or anything else. I think it really depends on the company, the stage they're at (small, medium, etc.), and the growth they're experiencing. The two companies I worked at where it was not a problem were both stable companies growing at a modest rate and were larger in size. IMO, this helps spread around the workload better when employees take vacation. At smaller companies, since most are wearing multiple hats, it makes it harder to lose someone for a few days.