11 ms·

Two Weeks Vacation is only a Recommendation, not a Rule

• cstross 16y ago
  I wish I could take a month off! My manager won't let me, unfortunately: he gets all anxious and irritable after a few days whenever I don't show up at work. (I'm self-employed.)
  • jakevoytko 16y ago
    I never considered that before - how DO entrepreneurs take time off? Is this done post-post-/Ramen profitability? Never? Just for a day at a time? Or does the flexible schedule prolong burnout?
    • tptacek 16y ago
      You don't. This is one of the first things you'll notice being in business for yourself. It's hard to arrange time off. One of the benefits of working for a company is that there's a team in place to make sure the train stays on the rails while you're gone. You also don't get sick days.
      • ahoyhere 16y ago
        And yet, you'll probably find as I did, that if you disappear for a week or so, nothing really terrible happens. With clients, it's easy - tell them you're gone. When you run an SaaS, it's not as easy, but I became so ill I wasn't able to do a thing… and we lost maybe one customer. The others who were waiting on my emails got a very sincere apology and explanation, and we were all good. This goes to show that you only think you have to be there all the time.
      • abstractbill 16y ago
        This may be the median startup behavior, but I've seen plenty of counterexamples, at some quite successful startups.
      • deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      • pbhjpbhj 16y ago
        >You also don't get sick days. That's one of the hardest parts of running your own business IMO. I had to have an op, recommended recuperation was 2weeks of bed rest, I was back working the next day; yes there were deleterious effects on my health.
    • ericd 16y ago
      Automate everything that can possibly be automated, and when one goes on vacation, check email a few times a day. Might even be able to get some work in during the evenings. Also, the flexible schedule allows for mini vacations whenever you need it, which helps a lot. It's great to be able to blow off work whenever an opportunity to do something great comes up, as long as you're disciplined about getting things done other times.
      • nerme 16y ago
        If you're checking email a few times a day, you're not on vacation. You're just working remotely.
        • edster 16y ago
          You can look at it that way, but not so much true. The great thing about being a self employed is that it doesn't matter where you work. I take my computer with me everywhere I go, even on vacation. I've had conference calls in the morning and hit Disney World in the afternoon. Usually my customers don't even realize I'm out and about. So while you could say that your not really on vacation just remote, you could look at it the other way and realize you could spend a month in Florida on vacation and still make a few bucks in the process. I've been on vacations that have paid for themselves simply by putting a little work in for half a day here and there.
          • ericd 16y ago
            This is basically exactly what I was going to say. I'm currently spending a week far from home base wind and kite surfing. Once in the morning and once in the afternoon, I answer customer questions/suggestions, and after dinner I spend 4 or 5 hours fixing bugs and working on implementing something. It feels a lot more like vacation than work.
    • crikli 16y ago
      It's really hard, especially during the first couple years, but my only perspective is as a bootstrapper, I think funded people maybe have more flexibility (or maybe not? I dunno). My experience is that you just have to force yourself to stop working. It's terribly easy to let your business tak over your life. Me, I just force myself to forget about everything but the bat-phone on Sundays.
      • edster 16y ago
        I can't reply as a funded person since I'm also a bootstrapper, but having done work for some startups they typically have directors which work for the funding group that sit around and make sure their money is working hard. So I imagine they have less flexibility.
    • Vivtek 16y ago
      Time OFF?!? HAhahahha!
  • shimon 16y ago
    I've been happily self-employed (freelance web development) for two years. Last year I took about 2.5 months off to work on my own project. It goes like this: - start saying no to everyone - spend about a month winding down existing projects - enjoy your break, do something you love for a while - when you get below $X in savings, ask around for work Basically, there is a one month spin-down period and a one-month spin-up period. You have to have pretty good deal flow (i.e. you are already telling people no most of the time) to try this, and it's still stressful when you start to worry about whether your savings will last. But as long as your work doesn't inherently require you to be on call, you can wind things down and shift responsibilities around. As long as you're considerate of your customer's needs when doing this, they'll be willing to accommodate you. And you can practice this whenever you wind down an existing project in order to switch to a more interesting and/or lucrative one, a skill you ought to be practicing at least a couple of times a year if you're an excellent programmer.
    • crikli 16y ago
      I think this works if you're a one man shop...once you hire employees, though, things change. A lot. You have to keep your business running because your devs have trusted you with their family's financial well-being; you have a responsibility to keep the business healthy.
      • tbrownaw 16y ago
        How much "keeping things running" is actually needed? I'd imagine disappearing completely for a couple months wouldn't work, but what about a couple months of signing on only on Monday mornings?
        • crikli 16y ago
          I think that's contingent on your business model and the maturity of your company. I can only speak to my biz: most of our revenue is service (although we're trying to migrate to product). So we have three primary "departments," if you will: sales, production, service/support. I've chosen to staff out "production" first with kickass developers. But somebody has to take care of sales and service. Service/support, we've automated that pretty efficiently and only bother devs with processed support issues. Sales, however, still requires the cultivation and management of client relationships. You can't just phone that in, and the way we've grown our business has been via relationship (i.e., referrals and word-of-mouth). So even if I was 100% out of production (which I'm not, yet), there's still the bizdev side. At least that's how it is now; two years in the future I'll probably have a different answer and perspective. A lot of this stuff you just figure it out as you go; there's not a book out there that tell you how to run your biz.
  • DaveChild 16y ago
    You know your manager is sleeping with your wife, too, right? That bastard.
• kylechafin 16y ago
  What typically happens to your benefits (Health insurance?) while taking a leave of absence? Is it reasonable to expect my employer to maintain them?
  • stuff4ben 16y ago
    yeah, this sounds fine for the bachelor developer with no one dependent upon them. When you have a family things change. I am good at what I do and I have plenty saved up in an emergency fund, but the risk of potentially losing my job, benefits, etc. just to take a month off isn't worth it. That being said, I do get 4 weeks PTO (no sick/vac all is PTO), so I suppose I could take a month off if I wanted to. But I'd rather split it up during the year.
• wdewind 16y ago
  I'm not saying we shouldn't live a relaxed, sustainable work-life, but seriously? Sounds to me like you abused your leverage. Almost any employee, especially at a small company, is extraordinarily valuable and, sure, can use that to take (see: extort) 6 weeks vacation, but it's disrespectful to the organization. The cost to replace you outweighs the cost of letting you leave for 6 weeks if you are good. You're right economically. Ethically it's a dick move (even if you do it "once every few years" 6 weeks of unannounced leave is really not cool). And if you don't feel like you have a relationship with your work where you have to respect it you shouldn't come back from that vacation.
  • exit 16y ago
    i strongly endorse employees exploiting their employers as much as employers exploit their employees.
    • wdewind 16y ago
      Absolutely, but my point was if you have a relationship with your employer where you feel they are extorting you you should leave and find some place where they aren't.
    • staunch 16y ago
      Unless you have an equity stake, like at a startup. Then you're probably just hurting yourself.
    • rubashov 16y ago
      There are plenty of non-exploitative work places. At most places I've worked the organization genuinely cared for employees. There is such a thing as being a dick to an organization that has treated you well.
    • ErrantX 16y ago
      Or, preferrably, work at companies who treat they employees like individuals :) (on the basis that if they get all the good talent more companies will act like that)
    • 16y ago
• staunch 16y ago
  Just make sure it would take longer to hire and train someone for your job than your vacation is.
• CaptainDecisive 16y ago
  He's right about two weeks not being the rule; in most western countries four or five weeks is the rule. To me the amount of holiday/vacation is a Big Deal. I was lucky when I lived in the US that my company offered four weeks (and I could earn extra comp days doing weekend tech support). Although I once had the general manager ask me point blank how I was taking more time off for a trip to Peru, so I went through and proved I had enough vacation days left. He still didn't seem too happy about it though. Perhaps most people didn't use all their vacation days? Lack of vacation days is one of the reasons I'd be uncomfortable about living in the US again, so I could definitely see myself taking unpaid leave every few years like TFA suggests or just quitting my job. Then I could do important things like visiting family in NZ or getting in some serious skiing.
  • henrikschroder 16y ago
    Meanwhile, in Sweden, 5 weeks paid vacation per year is the legal minimum, and everyone has the legal right to get 4 weeks continuous vacation in the period between June-August if they want it. (I think you have to spend a few winters up here to understand why we appreciate summer vacations so much. :-) )
    • alaithea 16y ago
      Shouldn't you be enjoying the summer in Sweden, then, and taking vacation in the winter?
      • gst 16y ago
        Here in Europe vacation does not necessarily imply that you're flying somewhere else. For example, I currently have 3 weeks of, but I'm only spending one of these weeks hiking. During the other weeks I'll do just whatever makes fun (maybe going on a multi-day bike ride). Of course, you can also take less vacation in one year, and therefore take more in the next year. For example, I only took 3 weeks of vacation last year, and I've planned 7 weeks of vacation this year. All of them paid. :)
      • henrikschroder 16y ago
• tjsnyder 16y ago
  I completely agree. Many Indians here often travel to India for a month or two and even save up vacation time over a couple years and use it all at once.
• crikli 16y ago
  I've implemented a "get it done" based vacation policy at my company. I.e., as long as my devs are getting the work done, I couldn't care less about their seat time, physical location, state of dress, etc. Hell, if you're on a beach in Cancun and only working a couple hours a day, that's cool, just make sure you get your code checked in and answer emails within a reasonable timeframe so we don't miss a deadline. And wear sunscreen. Developers and sunlight don't usually mix well. With that said, if one of my guys did what this guy is advocating, I'd have little choice but to replace them. I have to be able to rely on my guys; I trust the hell out of them. Bailing for a month plus with little to no warning...that fractures our relationship of trust, and no relationship can succeed in that condition.
  • autarch 16y ago
    I think this makes a really good point. What the blog post advocates is essentially blackmail. There's a huge difference between planning for a month or two off with several months notice and simply walking in to your boss's office and telling them you'll be gone for a couple months, starting this Friday. Also, why not simply bring this up when you're being hired. I regularly take a 4-5 week vacation once every two years or so to visit in-laws in another country. I tell my employers about this up front.
  • thomas11 16y ago
    Don't get me wrong, I love this kind of "get it done" policy, but it's not vacation if you work "a couple hours a day". Vacation is when you are able to really forget about work for a while. That being said, I fully agree about the impossibly short warning time he's advocating. Six months sounds more like it.
    • rdez6173 16y ago
      I don't remember a vacation where I didn't "work" - willingly. I usually get bored and get the itch to write some code. I guess that happens when your work is the same as your hobby. You know what they say.. "love what you do.."
      • 16y ago
• robryan 16y ago
  Depends on your current projects, don't think I would be comfortable coming in one day and telling my coworkers that what I was working on is going to stand still for a month or someone else was going to have to pick it all up if a project is at a key point in development.
  • mcantor 16y ago
    There was a big emphasis in the post about making sure your projects are tied up before you leave. I don't think anybody is advocating leaving your coworkers high and dry by skipping out on your deadlines at the drop of a hat.
• demallien 16y ago
  You'd want to be pretty sure of your value to your employer before trying this stunt. Here's a counter-example: a young guy that reports directly to me tried to reduce the number of hours he has to work, by threatening to leave if we didn't reduce his hours (whilst keeping pay at the same level). This conversation was with my boss, I only gave him work to do, HR stuff was always handled by my boss. He was out the door of the company 24 hours later.
  • dagw 16y ago
    I wouldn't really consider it a counter-example since in your case the guy was essentially demanding a raise. It's all about how you ask and being reasonable. Less hours for the same pay is not reasonable. Less hours for less pay would be far more reasonable, and might even have been accepted.
    • wwortiz 16y ago
      Well less hours and same pay in the form of a raise is perfectly reasonable when you provide a substantial value to the company, though this is obviously not the case with your parent comment. Another thing is that you only tend to add value to a company after a large amount of time (decade[s]) and even so you may not even be adding value after that amount of time.
      • billswift 16y ago
        You are adding value from the beginning or they wouldn't be paying you - that is what you are there for. Caveat - sometime it takes a little while for a new hire to be brought up to speed on exactly how a company does things, the code base, and so forth, but it is rarely as long as a month.
    • roc 16y ago
      Less hours for same pay is an extremely reasonable compromise, in these times when many companies can't/won't pass out much in the form of direct raises. Explicitly threatening to quit during any negotiation is the unreasonable part. Frankly, it's an implied threat in any conversation about compensation, just as being fired is an implied threat in any conversation about performance. But coming out and saying it, is wildly unprofessional and immature; there's just no up-side.
• bmj 16y ago
  Fortunately, I work at a shop where I don't need to force this issue. I took four weeks off this spring to road trip and climb with my family. I had three weeks of PTO in hand, and my manager, and his manager said go for it, under the condition that I wouldn't go dark for more than a few days at a time. So, I checked my email every few days, and I think twice over the course of that month I actually had to fire up my laptop and spend 30-60 minutes to troubleshoot an issue. That's a compromise I can live with.
• c1sc0 16y ago
  That's one of the few things I like about our dirty socialist system over here in Europe: it recognizes that 2 weeks of holidays / year simply is not enough.
• Nekojoe 16y ago
  It all depends on where you are. One guy tried to get 4 weeks off at a place I used to work. He needed sign off from a high up manager to do this. The manager retorted if we can get by without this guy for 4 weeks, why do we really need him at all? Suffice to say, he didn't take his 4 weeks holiday.
  • deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  • generalk 16y ago
    The manager retorted if we can get by without this guy for 4 weeks, why do we really need him at all? I usually go the other direction. If you can't get by without someone for a month, what do you do when he leaves the company (resigns, medical emergency, what have you)? On the other hand, if you have good folks who feel like they can take the time they need when they need it, you're likely to have them when you really need them.
  • gst 16y ago
    Honesty, I wouldn't want to work at such a place but rather quit.
• damoncali 16y ago
  I'd wager this gets you fired more often than not. Nobody is so great at what they do that they can contribute while not working. When I've people try something similar at work, the request is met with "lets have a talk". The guy making the request usually leaves the company a few days/weeks/months later, as it "just wasn't working out".
  • mattm 16y ago
    But you're saying the guys are leaving, they're not fired. Maybe after the talk they realise that their life is more important than being loyal to a company that won't let them take a little time off.
    • damoncali 16y ago
      Absolutely. Most people leave before they get fired in my experience. When something's not working, you tend to leave. Sometimes for good reason.
• Schmidt 16y ago
  Aah Sweden is good sometimes, 5 weeks paid vacation every year, and you have to take out a minimum of 3 consecutive weeks. It's the law... :)
  • nixy 16y ago
    You need to take three weeks, but not consecutive.
  • gst 16y ago
    Not only Sweden. It's the same in Austria and most other European countries.
  • mkramlich 16y ago
    Idea for my fellow Americans: we need to ask our bosses here for a 5-week leave of absence so we can vacation in Sweden. Once in Sweden start looking for a job and then citizenship. :)
• HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
  It is nearly impossible to hire a good developer [Sigh] He's right. And it's getting worse. We have a bunch of open req's right now as we're staffing up a new project and you'd think with all the handwringing about the economy and how many great engineers are being laid off it would be easy, right? Nope. It actually seems like the quality of applicants has gone down since the last time I was interviewing people. Out of all the people we've interviewed, there's ONE that I would say is a good hire (as opposed to just "can probably do the job with some hand-holding"), and the rest of the interview team is lukewarm on him. And this is after HR has screened out the bottom of the barrel and our technical phone screens have filtered out a few more. ONE person who's just a "nice to have" and there's a good chance we're going to pass on him. If anyone here threatened to quit, at this point we'd probably chain him to his desk :-)
  • yummyfajitas 16y ago
    It actually seems like the quality of applicants has gone down since the last time I was interviewing people. Many companies didn't need to lay people off, but used the financial crisis/recession as an excuse to clean house. Last time around, you were interviewing people who were leaving because they wanted something better. This time around, you are interviewing a lot people who were forced out.
  • BrandonM 16y ago
    You don't have contact information in your profile, and I didn't find it easily on your blog. I'd love to hear details about the positions that are available.
    • HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
      Thanks for the reminder; I've practically abandoned that blog due to lack of time to play with LEDs. I thought I had email addy in my profile, have to check that. Basically, if you have a technical degree (I think HR drops that requirement if you have 20 years experience) and show up for an interview with a robot or other automated mechanism you built yourself from scratch (yes, I work with a few people, self included, who've done just that), I'll go all out to find a reason to hire you because that tells me you can probably learn whatever we want you to know on the job. Lacking a robot: OK, I just deleted a bunch of "real" job requirements that we would claim we need. They don't really matter to me or the hiring team. We want someone who's bright, who's somewhat personable and not afraid to talk or even brag about his/her accomplishments during the interview and who understands OO development and has at least passing familiarity with C++. Those, and at least a BS in a technical field, are the only really "must have" requirements. You should be able to show during the interview that you can at least attempt to solve problems. We don't ask trick questions like how many gas stations are on top of Mount Fuji, we just want to know if we drop a pile of requirements on your desk, you can design and implement a solid solution to meet them. You'd think that wouldn't be hard to find...you'd be wrong!
• techiferous 16y ago
  I've found that frequent, little getaways (3-day weekend, for example) are more refreshing and improve my quality of life more than one rare, large vacation. YMMV.
  • francoisdevlin 16y ago
    I like doing both :)
  • JoeAltmaier 16y ago
    I need at least 3 days to START feeling like I'm on vacation. 10 days and I start to forget where I used to work. Something in between is good.
    • techiferous 16y ago
      That might be a sign that your typical workweek is too stressful. For most jobs I've had, it took zero or one day to wind me down. My most stressful job (as a middle school teacher) took me two days to wind down.
• jamesseda 16y ago
  You have to take this advice on a case by case basis. At my last job they offered me a 10k raise as I was walking out the door, but also got upset when anyone used more than 3 sick days a year. At my current job I take 4-8 weeks of paid vacation a year and probably could take more, but if I asked for a 10k raise they would tell me to move into sales.
• briancooley 16y ago
  About three weeks ago, I went to my employer to negotiate part-time employment. I am now working 3 days a week at 2/3 pay, full benefits, and prorated vacation. The caveats are that I was prepared to resign, the agreement includes a stipulation that either side can rescind the arrangement with 30 days notice, and our HR department was already set up to handle such arrangements. I wanted to do something like this for a long time, but I was too afraid to ask.
  • ahoyhere 16y ago
    Several years ago, at my second "real job", I walked in with a job offer for 20% more and got to keep my salary and work 20% less (4 days a week) instead. I was literally shaking, but it worked!
    • mahmud 16y ago
      At a previous job, after an arduous interviewing process including programming tests, several interviews, background and credit checks, and finally my references being grilled over the phone, I made it to salary negotiation and I was too tired by then and didn't care if I got the job or not. So I asked for $X (in annual salary) the CEO misunderstood me and thought I wanted $X/hour. I signed the papers and was pulled into the balcony where hands were shaken and well deserved cigarettes were lit by all involved. I didn't realize what happened until my girlfriend went over the papers (she was worried about the IP papers I might have signed, given my startup ambitions) but when we saw the figures .. It was $55k in excess of what I thought I was worth. Pants. Shat. That gave me some serious professional backbone; once you start to make serious money, you tend to respect your career a whole lot more. I was so proud of myself I took up management responsibilities, studied software engineering really well, took on more tasks. Sure, it made me a workaholic, but it drove the point home that what I do is serious business.
      • mmelin 16y ago
        Great story, but do you really mean you got your annual salary per HOUR? Perhaps you meant per month? Still awesome, of course, but within the realm of reason :-)
• Androsynth 16y ago
  "Cut to 3 years later, and I'm on a small, tight programming team for a little dot-com startup. I've been there for almost a year, and it's time for a bit of R&R in Central America. 6 weeks off should just about do it" Does this remind anyone of yesterdays article about the guy who took a month off for a honeymoon? It's one thing to take advantage of a large corporation but if you are screwing your startup for your own vacation, you are being extremely selfish and possibly detrimental to the company. It's fine if you need to recharge your batteries, but its another thing entirely to leave your startup, and your friends, to get more vacation time. If the startup failed, you lost much, much more than you gained by going to Costa Rica.
  • fizx 16y ago
    Slavery (in America) died in the 1800s. Your job doesn't own you.
    • Androsynth 16y ago
      I'm not talking about working at a normal job, I'm talking about working at a startup. At a startup you have a tremendous amount of responsibility because a large portion of the companies success/failure rests on your shoulders. You also have other people who have put a tremendous amount of faith in you and rely heavily on you. If you would rather take month long vacations to go backpack around exotic locations, go work for a big company. If you do this at a startup, chances are you are putting your company, and your co-workers, future at risk. If you want to work at a startup, especially as an early employee, there are certain responsibilities that you must live up to. This author, like the founder of the failed YC company, is selfish. Either life gets in the way of a startup or a startup gets in the way of life, but its not often you get both.
      • mattm 16y ago
        > This author, like the founder of the failed YC company, is selfish Everyone is selfish.
• periferral 16y ago
  totally true. the most valid point being that you have to be good at what you do. hell, you can do even better if you are really good. I wanted to see what it was like to live in London so I told my boss I'll be working out of there is he's okay with it. If not I'll be taking a leave of absence. He agreed to the work remotely. Tap on 3 weeks on vacation to the end of that and you feel like half the year is done for.
• jamesbritt 16y ago
  At my last "real" full-time job, developers could accumulate vacation time that was not used in a given year. Sometimes it was on purpose, so as to take longer vacations later on, often it was required because of deadlines, staffing shortages, whatever. Then one day the new company owner declares that vacation time could no longer be accrued. Use it or lose it. Some folks had many weeks of time saved up. The owner said that people can use up what they've already saved, but added, Keep in mind that if your department can afford to do without you for several weeks then perhaps you're not so essential. He all but winked when he said it. This was just one of the things that convinced me to just leave and work for myself.
  • logicalmind 16y ago
    I have a somewhat-related story about the last place I worked. During my first year there the company was in the process of replacing half a dozen consultants with a handful of full-time employees. We worked very hard with limited resources and weren't allowed to take a vacation. Even working on the end-of-year holidays to complete deadlines before the end of the calendar year. Our manager kept telling us that we could carry over our accrued vacation time and be "taken care of" next year. And there was a policy of carrying over vacation days to the next calendar year. So the start of the next year comes and my team gets our first paycheck and for some reason we all have zero vacation time. We are all stunned and quickly talk to HR. It turns out that employees can carry over vacation days, but _NOT_ in your first year of tenure. So the team lost all of our vacation days and restarted at zero. Our manager looked into it and discovered that those were the rules. He went to his manager to see if we could get our vacations back but he couldn't get anyone from HR to change their mind as "that was the policy". Needless to say, we were pretty pissed off.
    • loewenskind 16y ago
      If all you were is pissed off then he has good reason to exploit you like this over and over.
• ahoyhere 16y ago
  Lots of Swedes in this thread huh! In Austria, 5 weeks is also the legal minimum for paid vacation - not to mention all those holidays…
• utefan001 16y ago
  White Oak Technologies in the Washington DC area has more than 2 dozen job openings offers 5 weeks Vacation after one year. http://woti.com/benefits.cfm http://woti.com/benefits.cfm http://woti.com/jobs.cfm http://woti.com/jobs.cfm Must be a US citizen
• rit 16y ago
  I like the message given about taking time for yourself - relaxing, etc. I do it far too infrequently and every time I do take a real vacation I realize how badly I need to. But to walk in with no notice and tell your employer that you're disappearing for 3 months is unprofessional and unreasonable. You work for a company which has schedules and deadlines; just as you expect them to pay you on time, they expect to have at least a little bit of warning before you up and disappear on them. 3 Months vacation - great. Presumably you expect to get it unpaid (Your employer probably gives you 2 weeks PAID vacation) and many employers with a few weeks warning would be happy to accomodate you. But to tell them "I'm leaving - see ya!" and expect to have a job waiting for you? Come on.
  • Periodic 16y ago
    I think he said he had a ticket, which is best bought months in advance.
    • dedward 16y ago
      And if you don't bother telling your manager ahead of time - you run the very real risk of his ire and wrath... As the trunk poster said - you can only pull this off if you are really good at what you do, and prepared for the negative consequences if they happen.
• xexers 16y ago
  I work for Microsoft in Ireland. We get 25 vacation days (5 weeks) as soon as we are hired! Getting an extra week of unpaid leave is common enough with very little hassle. Instead of gambling your job, move to Europe.
• jrockway 16y ago
  Yeah, he is right on with respect to "your employer needs you more than you need them". We have been trying to hire someone for months, and it's just insanely difficult. If I left for some reason, I would get an instant raise for going to a competitor, and the department's productivity would be lower until they could find a replacement, which is very difficult and expensive. Fortunately, I have never even had to hint at this option.
• yason 16y ago
  I don't live in the U.S. and I have five weeks of paid vacation in a year, but I usually take several weeks of unpaid vacation as well to go with it. My employer doesn't really care which type it will be, they're more concerned about schedules etc. In fact, after I've got the time of my vacation approved, I'll just mark some days as paid and some days as unpaid and they don't mind. With regard to vacation allocations, I play it safe: if I need anything longer than a week off, I'll request the absence in good time. This works well because a) they can project it into the project schedules and b) if I want six weeks off next fall, they really don't have a practical schedule for next fall yet, so I get implied priority. Oh, and I work part time as well. There was more to that when I started it but basically it boiled down to them saying "we'll rather keep a good guy working less for us than not at all". I get roughly the same amount of work done as before, the shorter days just mean that if I want to take a half a day off and go cycling, that's actually the default mode of operation as nobody expects me to work till 5 or 6pm.
• davidmurphy 16y ago
  Vacation time is a brutal inhumane joke in America, IMHO. There's no minimum, and a number of companies provide no vacation time for employees in their first year. Even when vacation time is provided, sometimes its pretty limited or the company culture makes it hard to take all the time allowed. Other countries, particularly in Europe, get it, but we don't. I recommend reading "Work to Live" (as opposed to 'live to work') by Joe Robinson http://www.amazon.com/Work-Live-Joe-Robinson/dp/0399528504 http://www.amazon.com/Work-Live-Joe-Robinson/dp/0399528504 for an overview of the US vs. European nations. I'm all for having a killer work ethic, but I believe you're more efficient when you're refreshed and not burned out. And sometimes your subconscious mind works well on solving problems that you wouldn't be able to tackle if you keep down in the trenches without a break.