4 ms·

I was speaking to someone the other day who has recently retired, and it took him 25ish years of working at a large company to get 5 weeks of vacation time :/

by kzisme 10y ago

I was speaking to someone the other day who has recently retired, and it took him 25ish years of working at a large company to get 5 weeks of vacation time :/ I think many people should get vacation time more quickly, or it should be a standard of five weeks just like the Netherlands.

teekert 10y ago
Many people also buy the additional 12 days (this is comparable to unpaid leave.) The collective working agreement of my company also allows for 3 months of unpaid (to be combine with max 6 weeks of paid) leave starting last year.
- kzisme 10y ago
  That's interesting - do you ever take advantage of unpaid leave?
  - teekert 10y ago
    Definitely, most people do. I now have Parenting leave so it's less needed (the 1000 hours), I take it regularly. This arrangement ensures that I can always get my 1 FTE back when I finish the 1000 hours. Currently I take 8 hrs every two weeks roughly. I use it to have some time for myself when the kids are at school, others go for 1 month summer vacation and come back to still have a week of skying and two weeks around Christmas, although we get the 25th and 26th of December off anyway, do you? Then there is kingsday, easter, ascension day, are those days off in the US as well?
    - kzisme 10y ago
      Currently for me (not having children and such) I don't see myself taking non-paid time off. Something about that to me just seems wasteful for some reason.
    - teekert 10y ago
      At below: Wasteful? That is a strange state of mind to me. One works to be able to live and hopefully in a fulfilling position. But my most valuable moments are experienced at home, or on vacation, with my family. If you have enough money to live, eat and do fun things, why work more? That seems like wastefulness regarding life.
    - kzisme 10y ago
      Reply to below: Since I'm fairly young (23) the amount of stress I get from working is relatively low. Sure I could take unpaid days off probably, but that would just decrease my earnings for that year. I normally take one week long vacation a year with my family, but would honestly like to travel more. We only get the 25th off of December off, and 6 holidays not including a floating holiday that we can choose to take off (and if we don't we get another day of paid time off)
      - teekert 10y ago
        I wanted to say that before I had a kid I was much like you :) but my noprocrast kicked in :)
teekert 10y ago
But they way, people still have stress here. But the way I read this comments, it's less than in the US and you can often work less of be less achieving, earn less but still be able to come by easily and loose the stress. Stress seems to be more implicit at any level in the US. We still have people burning out here though and occasionally there are departments that almost develop a japans "stay a work as long as the boss then drink together culture", somehow. Work life balance is recognized as very important here and the correct way to deal with a too large workload is to go to your Project lead and ask him where your priorities should be if you can only finish one of 2 things. This was really hammered in during an application interview at ASML. I answered that I'd pull an all-nighter if required, they were very adamant about never putting myself in a situation that could lead to burn out, even temporarily. Perhaps I'm a bit in a "highly educated" bubble and truck driver have more stress? Although truck drivers can actually get fined when they don't take their obligatory breaks and stick to decent working hours.
- kzisme 10y ago
  That sort of culture exists at my company, but I wish there was more team atmosphere at work. (or free time outside of work to do this) That's true I'm not sure it's very easy to quantify the stress of a nation/industry and compare it to another nation. At my current company it's pretty do as you please with breaks/lunch/time off. I believe I have 3.5 weeks and I've been here a year. I pretty much just go to work and then go home (not right at 5pm on the dot). So I wouldn't say work/life balance is great, but it is what it is I guess.

by kzisme 10y ago

teekert 10y ago

Many people also buy the additional 12 days (this is comparable to unpaid leave.) The collective working agreement of my company also allows for 3 months of unpaid (to be combine with max 6 weeks of paid) leave starting last year.

kzisme 10y ago
That's interesting - do you ever take advantage of unpaid leave?
- teekert 10y ago
  Definitely, most people do. I now have Parenting leave so it's less needed (the 1000 hours), I take it regularly. This arrangement ensures that I can always get my 1 FTE back when I finish the 1000 hours. Currently I take 8 hrs every two weeks roughly. I use it to have some time for myself when the kids are at school, others go for 1 month summer vacation and come back to still have a week of skying and two weeks around Christmas, although we get the 25th and 26th of December off anyway, do you? Then there is kingsday, easter, ascension day, are those days off in the US as well?
  - kzisme 10y ago
    Currently for me (not having children and such) I don't see myself taking non-paid time off. Something about that to me just seems wasteful for some reason.
  - teekert 10y ago
    At below: Wasteful? That is a strange state of mind to me. One works to be able to live and hopefully in a fulfilling position. But my most valuable moments are experienced at home, or on vacation, with my family. If you have enough money to live, eat and do fun things, why work more? That seems like wastefulness regarding life.
  - kzisme 10y ago
    Reply to below: Since I'm fairly young (23) the amount of stress I get from working is relatively low. Sure I could take unpaid days off probably, but that would just decrease my earnings for that year. I normally take one week long vacation a year with my family, but would honestly like to travel more. We only get the 25th off of December off, and 6 holidays not including a floating holiday that we can choose to take off (and if we don't we get another day of paid time off)
    - teekert 10y ago
      I wanted to say that before I had a kid I was much like you :) but my noprocrast kicked in :)

teekert 10y ago

But they way, people still have stress here. But the way I read this comments, it's less than in the US and you can often work less of be less achieving, earn less but still be able to come by easily and loose the stress. Stress seems to be more implicit at any level in the US. We still have people burning out here though and occasionally there are departments that almost develop a japans "stay a work as long as the boss then drink together culture", somehow. Work life balance is recognized as very important here and the correct way to deal with a too large workload is to go to your Project lead and ask him where your priorities should be if you can only finish one of 2 things. This was really hammered in during an application interview at ASML. I answered that I'd pull an all-nighter if required, they were very adamant about never putting myself in a situation that could lead to burn out, even temporarily. Perhaps I'm a bit in a "highly educated" bubble and truck driver have more stress? Although truck drivers can actually get fined when they don't take their obligatory breaks and stick to decent working hours.

kzisme 10y ago
That sort of culture exists at my company, but I wish there was more team atmosphere at work. (or free time outside of work to do this) That's true I'm not sure it's very easy to quantify the stress of a nation/industry and compare it to another nation. At my current company it's pretty do as you please with breaks/lunch/time off. I believe I have 3.5 weeks and I've been here a year. I pretty much just go to work and then go home (not right at 5pm on the dot). So I wouldn't say work/life balance is great, but it is what it is I guess.