4 ms·

I hope you're not waiting until you retire to enjoy your free time and your community.

claydavisss 8y ago
No, I'm waiting for the day I can avoid the world of work, which has become progressively shittier since I graduated college in the early 90s. When I started as a developer, it was NORMAL for an employer to: - 1:1 match 401k fully, some even offered pensions - offer PAID vacation time, not this bullshit scam "unlimited PTO" which is really just unpaid vacation. - offer full zero-deductible/zero-contribution health insurance - offer real equity to rank-and-file employees - realize you came in to work at 9 and left around 5 and weekends were yours. Practically everything about the working world has become progressively worse and I cannot wait to be done with it. I really feel sorry for people entering the industry now, they will probably see health insurance benefits worsen or disappear, and may even see themselves paid by the hour.
- TylerE 8y ago
  Uh, doesn't the "P" in PTO stand for paid?
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    No, "Personal" Responder "flerchin" below, please tell me what employer offers "unlimited PAID vacation"....do you even know what "paid" vacation is? Here is what it is. If you accrue four weeks of vacation and leave the company, they give you a check for four weeks of pay. When I left a job in 2009, I had six weeks accrued. I walked out with a check big enough to buy a car. They HAVE to give you the money when they are accounting for PAID time off. This is also why employers that offer PAID vacation will cap it or require that you use a certain number of days per year...they need to actually account for these as days they are obliged to pay you for - its TAX LAW. In the public sector, there have been a lucky few that have negotiated away this cap. When my father retired from the fire dept he had THREE YEARS of sick time accrued...they had to pay him for it! It wasn't 100% pay, but it was still a huge check. "unlimited PTO" is NOT PAID vacation. It just isn't. Unlimited PTO is the company telling you it will look the other way if you decide not to come into work on a certain day if you have followed company guidelines for scheduling the day off. By accounting rules, they are actually giving you ZERO actual paid vacation days. Yes, zero. Ask your accountant. Amazingly they convinced a generation of workers that the new model was a perk. If you do not see vacation day accrual on your paystub, you are not getting paid vacation. So says the IRS, so I don't really care if you downvote me.
    - flerchin 8y ago
      In most, if not all, places with unlimited PTO, the P stands for paid. The rub is that it's not unlimited, by convention. What you have described is a sabbatical policy.
      - newnewpdro 8y ago
        They're not describing a sabbatical policy, sabbaticals are generally unpaid. PTO is accrued, is part of the compensation package, and when unused results in a check for those hours of unused PTO at the salary rate in effect when employment terminated. The "unlimited personal time off" scam is a compensation regression from the previously standard accrued/earned PTO package. For employees with leverage, the "unlimited time off" can turn out fine if they take advantage of it without harming their role in the company. But, for such employees, the previous system of accrued/earned PTO is typically advantageous anyways because they will often be able to take time off or "work from home/remotely" while effectively taking time off without depleting their PTO balance, leaving it for payment when employment terminates. In any case, for the majority of employees, "unlimited time off" is really just a loss of compensation as they don't usually have the leverage and/or diligence to take sufficient time off before termination. <anecdata> At a past startup, in an attempt to get better terms in an upcoming funding round, the executives got the brilliant idea of switching from a standard PTO policy to "unlimited". They sold it to the employees at an all-hands meeting as a compensation upgrade. The sales and operations folks celebrated, while us engineers, who had largely taken zero vacation under continuous crunch since starting immediately asked what would happen to our respective unused PTO balances. Their response? The unused PTO would be zeroed "now that it was unnecessary, since you could take unlimited vacation anyways." It was a sleazy attempt to erase the unused PTO balance commitments to all employees from the books before raising the next round. At everyone's expense. We engineers called the executives out on it, and threatened to quit immediately which would force them to cut PTO checks to all of us - and said we'd be in tomorrow to interview and renegotiate our positions if desired. That forced them to instead freeze our unused PTO balances. We were unable to prevent them from pivoting to the "unlimited time off" plan however, everyone was effectively demoted that week. I did however receive my substantial unused PTO check when I eventually left that sinking ship. </anecdata> Hopefully that (true story) helps illustrate the difference...
- woodruffw 8y ago
  I just entered the industry, and the benefits you listed were included in every offer I considered. My current job includes all of them except equity and, based on conversations with my peers, that's the exception rather than the rule.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    I'm happy for you but increasingly your experience is the exception. Even tier-one companies offering me positions with "top of market" pay have offered me health insurance that requires a monthly contribution...with a family these contributions are often meaningful. These are a stealth pay cut. If you are being paid $200k but have to contribute $1k a month for your health insurance contribution... Paid vacation is becoming as rare as a white rhino. Even big companies are moving to the "unlimited PTO" model because they know full well no one actually exploits the "unlimited" time off; if they do, they put their jobs at risk. Companies are increasingly out of the business of accounting for your vacation time. Amazingly, there are some rubes out there that think "unlimited PTO" is a perk. if you don't see vacation days accrued on your paystub, the IRS says you are getting none. Once again, when I entered the industry, you didn't even have to ask about these benefits, they were assumed. Indeed, lots of companies did 2:1 matching of 401k. Try finding that now.
    - taurath 8y ago
      In each of the teir 1 companies minus Amazon and Facebook you’ll get that and more. Most large t2 companies give all those benefits as well, just with less RSUs and free stock bonuses.
      - barrow-rider 8y ago
        I'm not even in a T2 company and they offered us similar bennies. Not amazing stock options or anything, but solid healthcare and 401k. "Small" business (200-500 bodies) out of the DC area.
- anticensor 8y ago
  Unlimited PTO policies are paid time off, but not contractual accrued leave. As descendant posts say, you do not need to account for unlimited PTO whereas you need to account for annual leaves. This only matters at the time of quitting the institution.
- magic_beans 8y ago
  I work as a developer. - I have matching up to 8% on 401k - I use my unlimited PTO for two week vacations about once every two quarters when work is slower. I take random Fridays/Mondays off often. - My insurance is free. - No equity, I'll give you that. - I get in whenever, leave whenever, and work remotely as I want. My manager is completely fine with this and trusts me to do my work. It sounds like you're at the wrong company.

No, I'm waiting for the day I can avoid the world of work, which has become progressively shittier since I graduated college in the early 90s. When I started as a developer, it was NORMAL for an employer to: - 1:1 match 401k fully, some even offered pensions - offer PAID vacation time, not this bullshit scam "unlimited PTO" which is really just unpaid vacation. - offer full zero-deductible/zero-contribution health insurance - offer real equity to rank-and-file employees - realize you came in to work at 9 and left around 5 and weekends were yours. Practically everything about the working world has become progressively worse and I cannot wait to be done with it. I really feel sorry for people entering the industry now, they will probably see health insurance benefits worsen or disappear, and may even see themselves paid by the hour.

TylerE 8y ago
Uh, doesn't the "P" in PTO stand for paid?
- claydavisss 8y ago
  No, "Personal" Responder "flerchin" below, please tell me what employer offers "unlimited PAID vacation"....do you even know what "paid" vacation is? Here is what it is. If you accrue four weeks of vacation and leave the company, they give you a check for four weeks of pay. When I left a job in 2009, I had six weeks accrued. I walked out with a check big enough to buy a car. They HAVE to give you the money when they are accounting for PAID time off. This is also why employers that offer PAID vacation will cap it or require that you use a certain number of days per year...they need to actually account for these as days they are obliged to pay you for - its TAX LAW. In the public sector, there have been a lucky few that have negotiated away this cap. When my father retired from the fire dept he had THREE YEARS of sick time accrued...they had to pay him for it! It wasn't 100% pay, but it was still a huge check. "unlimited PTO" is NOT PAID vacation. It just isn't. Unlimited PTO is the company telling you it will look the other way if you decide not to come into work on a certain day if you have followed company guidelines for scheduling the day off. By accounting rules, they are actually giving you ZERO actual paid vacation days. Yes, zero. Ask your accountant. Amazingly they convinced a generation of workers that the new model was a perk. If you do not see vacation day accrual on your paystub, you are not getting paid vacation. So says the IRS, so I don't really care if you downvote me.
  - flerchin 8y ago
    In most, if not all, places with unlimited PTO, the P stands for paid. The rub is that it's not unlimited, by convention. What you have described is a sabbatical policy.
    - newnewpdro 8y ago
      They're not describing a sabbatical policy, sabbaticals are generally unpaid. PTO is accrued, is part of the compensation package, and when unused results in a check for those hours of unused PTO at the salary rate in effect when employment terminated. The "unlimited personal time off" scam is a compensation regression from the previously standard accrued/earned PTO package. For employees with leverage, the "unlimited time off" can turn out fine if they take advantage of it without harming their role in the company. But, for such employees, the previous system of accrued/earned PTO is typically advantageous anyways because they will often be able to take time off or "work from home/remotely" while effectively taking time off without depleting their PTO balance, leaving it for payment when employment terminates. In any case, for the majority of employees, "unlimited time off" is really just a loss of compensation as they don't usually have the leverage and/or diligence to take sufficient time off before termination. <anecdata> At a past startup, in an attempt to get better terms in an upcoming funding round, the executives got the brilliant idea of switching from a standard PTO policy to "unlimited". They sold it to the employees at an all-hands meeting as a compensation upgrade. The sales and operations folks celebrated, while us engineers, who had largely taken zero vacation under continuous crunch since starting immediately asked what would happen to our respective unused PTO balances. Their response? The unused PTO would be zeroed "now that it was unnecessary, since you could take unlimited vacation anyways." It was a sleazy attempt to erase the unused PTO balance commitments to all employees from the books before raising the next round. At everyone's expense. We engineers called the executives out on it, and threatened to quit immediately which would force them to cut PTO checks to all of us - and said we'd be in tomorrow to interview and renegotiate our positions if desired. That forced them to instead freeze our unused PTO balances. We were unable to prevent them from pivoting to the "unlimited time off" plan however, everyone was effectively demoted that week. I did however receive my substantial unused PTO check when I eventually left that sinking ship. </anecdata> Hopefully that (true story) helps illustrate the difference...
woodruffw 8y ago
I just entered the industry, and the benefits you listed were included in every offer I considered. My current job includes all of them except equity and, based on conversations with my peers, that's the exception rather than the rule.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  I'm happy for you but increasingly your experience is the exception. Even tier-one companies offering me positions with "top of market" pay have offered me health insurance that requires a monthly contribution...with a family these contributions are often meaningful. These are a stealth pay cut. If you are being paid $200k but have to contribute $1k a month for your health insurance contribution... Paid vacation is becoming as rare as a white rhino. Even big companies are moving to the "unlimited PTO" model because they know full well no one actually exploits the "unlimited" time off; if they do, they put their jobs at risk. Companies are increasingly out of the business of accounting for your vacation time. Amazingly, there are some rubes out there that think "unlimited PTO" is a perk. if you don't see vacation days accrued on your paystub, the IRS says you are getting none. Once again, when I entered the industry, you didn't even have to ask about these benefits, they were assumed. Indeed, lots of companies did 2:1 matching of 401k. Try finding that now.
  - taurath 8y ago
    In each of the teir 1 companies minus Amazon and Facebook you’ll get that and more. Most large t2 companies give all those benefits as well, just with less RSUs and free stock bonuses.
    - barrow-rider 8y ago
      I'm not even in a T2 company and they offered us similar bennies. Not amazing stock options or anything, but solid healthcare and 401k. "Small" business (200-500 bodies) out of the DC area.
anticensor 8y ago
Unlimited PTO policies are paid time off, but not contractual accrued leave. As descendant posts say, you do not need to account for unlimited PTO whereas you need to account for annual leaves. This only matters at the time of quitting the institution.
magic_beans 8y ago
I work as a developer. - I have matching up to 8% on 401k - I use my unlimited PTO for two week vacations about once every two quarters when work is slower. I take random Fridays/Mondays off often. - My insurance is free. - No equity, I'll give you that. - I get in whenever, leave whenever, and work remotely as I want. My manager is completely fine with this and trusts me to do my work. It sounds like you're at the wrong company.