5 ms·

A year ago I had a 6-week paternity leave at 33 years old. It was the first time since I started my career that I was able to unplug for a significant amount o

A year ago I had a 6-week paternity leave at 33 years old. It was the first time since I started my career that I was able to unplug for a significant amount of time. This time off was truly a magical time for me, and even though I had to do a ton of work around the house and with the baby, I felt a sense of purpose. I started to feel like a real person again. I came back to work and I made some huge gains for the company for a short period of time... my creativity was back, my motivation was back. The things I did after paternity leave paid off a huge amount and had ripple effects of increased productivity for the entire company. Then, I burned out again. Now I'm just a zombie who occasionally writes code and counts down the hours until I can go home. It's obvious to me that I just need some extended time to myself, but that doesn't fly in America. I think my employer would rather me be a zombie than to just have some time off to recharge.

zamfi 7y ago
> I think my employer would rather me be a zombie than to just have some time off to recharge. And you probably don't think you can even ask your employer about this: what would it say about your devotion as an employee?
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  > don't think you can even ask your employer about this I wonder how much of that is in our own minds, though - my boss is a pretty cool Chinese guy, and I tell him I need time off to deal with something, he says no problem, let me know when you’re back. But I still feel like I’m being silently judged - not just by him, but by everybody.
  - zamfi 7y ago
    > But I still feel like I’m being silently judged - not just by him, but by everybody. Does "everybody" include you, too, by the way? Are you actually just judging yourself for taking time off, and assuming everyone else is? Do you judge others for taking time off too? I don't have an agenda here, really, except the point out that this being "in our own minds" is not that different from "assumptions that come from our culture"...
- phaedrus 7y ago
  I worked at a satellite office of a medium software company. A fellow programmer asked for more time off instead of pay raises. He was put on a shitlist for even making that request. The company HQ was in a college town where there was no comparable employer for developers, but our satellite office was in a bigger city. Startups here starting offering 4 weeks vacation as a sign-on enticement. My coworker came back to management with this counter-offer and was told go to Hell. So he took the other offer and left. One by one, EVERY developer in our satellite office got the same offer, came to our management to ask if they'd match or at least increase the amount of vacation, and all got told to piss off. One by one we watched ALL of our development staff (at the satellite office) leave and not get replaced (interviewees ended up going to the startups offering more leave). Management (at corporate HQ) demonstrated they would rather ride that sinking ship to the sea bottom than budge on not giving more vacation. Why? Because there was a vesting schedule for earning leave, 10 days/yr first 6 years, 15 days/yr 6-12 years, 20 days/yr after 12 years. If they let recent hires jump right to 20 days/yr that's manager compensation territory AND it would invalidate the years those with 11 had been waiting. (You might think the silver lining is all the new companies without similar hangups employing the programmers who left; unfortunately AFAIK all of those startups folded in the couple years since then.)

zamfi 7y ago

> I think my employer would rather me be a zombie than to just have some time off to recharge. And you probably don't think you can even ask your employer about this: what would it say about your devotion as an employee?

commandlinefan 7y ago
> don't think you can even ask your employer about this I wonder how much of that is in our own minds, though - my boss is a pretty cool Chinese guy, and I tell him I need time off to deal with something, he says no problem, let me know when you’re back. But I still feel like I’m being silently judged - not just by him, but by everybody.
- zamfi 7y ago
  > But I still feel like I’m being silently judged - not just by him, but by everybody. Does "everybody" include you, too, by the way? Are you actually just judging yourself for taking time off, and assuming everyone else is? Do you judge others for taking time off too? I don't have an agenda here, really, except the point out that this being "in our own minds" is not that different from "assumptions that come from our culture"...
phaedrus 7y ago
I worked at a satellite office of a medium software company. A fellow programmer asked for more time off instead of pay raises. He was put on a shitlist for even making that request. The company HQ was in a college town where there was no comparable employer for developers, but our satellite office was in a bigger city. Startups here starting offering 4 weeks vacation as a sign-on enticement. My coworker came back to management with this counter-offer and was told go to Hell. So he took the other offer and left. One by one, EVERY developer in our satellite office got the same offer, came to our management to ask if they'd match or at least increase the amount of vacation, and all got told to piss off. One by one we watched ALL of our development staff (at the satellite office) leave and not get replaced (interviewees ended up going to the startups offering more leave). Management (at corporate HQ) demonstrated they would rather ride that sinking ship to the sea bottom than budge on not giving more vacation. Why? Because there was a vesting schedule for earning leave, 10 days/yr first 6 years, 15 days/yr 6-12 years, 20 days/yr after 12 years. If they let recent hires jump right to 20 days/yr that's manager compensation territory AND it would invalidate the years those with 11 had been waiting. (You might think the silver lining is all the new companies without similar hangups employing the programmers who left; unfortunately AFAIK all of those startups folded in the couple years since then.)