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I think it's true that we're stuck in an uncanny valley between the old ways of lifelong employer/employee commitment and the more modern ways of transitive, as

I think it's true that we're stuck in an uncanny valley between the old ways of lifelong employer/employee commitment and the more modern ways of transitive, as-needed-type employment. The old way was always dangerous, but there was a strong social expectation that you'd take care of your people. Now no one has "people" any more per se, so the social expectations of committed employment have dissipated. However, I _don't_ think the answer to this is to depend on companies to issue more vacation time. That's expensive for everyone, and it's hard for little guys to compete with the bigger guys who can afford to pay 6-12 weeks of salary to someone who isn't working. The answer, I think, is for each individual to take more individual responsibility, save their money, work in contracted increments, and go on vacation between contracts. We should complete the transition and get out of the uncanny valley.

mackwic 13y ago
And only the executives and high-end employees will be able to save money for vacations. Brilliant. Strongly disagree with you when you say that no one can pay 6 weeks of vacations, using this as an argument to say "no one can pay vacations at all". It's clearly the question of our social model that you are asking and I will say that: the social model I want for me, my children, and the others, is a world where you don't have to sell yourself as a work slave if you don't want. Paid vacations are not perfect, they are expensive, but they also are a not so bad approximation of a world where you can live your life outside of the work if you want (at least periodically).
- matwood 13y ago
  Actually vacations are more affordable than ever with the rise of companies like AirBnB and other VRBO websites.
glesica 13y ago
That would be nice, but as long as healthcare is also tied to employment, it won't happen. Those same people who have their time off eaten up by obligations generally can't afford to be without health insurance for two weeks every few months. Additionally, they can't justify paying for private health insurance when their employer forces them to accept its own coverage (and won't give them the cash equivalent). Also, I think that while "contract" employment is nice for programmers, there are a large number of jobs (majority?) for which that simply doesn't make much sense because it increases training costs for employers. It is still, to this day, very common for employers to look for employees who plan to stick around for awhile. They want the best of both worlds, basically, long-term employees who can be laid off at a moment's notice.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Unless Obamacare eliminated COBRA (haven't checked but I doubt it), you get to keep your health insurance for 1 year after you leave a job. The out of pocket cost is 101% of what your employer paid. So basically, this is only a problem if you want a 13 month vacation.
  - georgemcbay 13y ago
    COBRA still exists and it is good that it does, but it doesn't address this situation. COBRA exists to give people a safety net between full-time jobs. In the context of the original argument, COBRA is somewhat part of the problem because it too is tied into the world view of people having full-time jobs with employer-provided healthcare insurance. If you're a contractor who is working in 3-6 months contracts you very likely aren't going to have employer health insurance coverage to begin with (thus COBRA doesn't apply to you) and will need to have your own individual plan... which (even with Obamacare in its current state) is going to cost you on average significantly more than an employer offered plan would because of economies of scale and our steadfast refusal to make real changes to the way healthcare insurance works in the US.
    - timr 13y ago
      "your own individual plan... which (even with Obamacare in its current state) is going to cost you on average significantly more than an employer offered plan" I don't disagree with your greater point about the US system, but my experience is that ACA individual policies were about the same cost as what I can purchase as an (admittedly very small) employer. If you buy an ACA plan, you're in a much larger risk pool than any individual employer can provide.
      - georgemcbay 13y ago
        I believe you're right and I didn't make my reasoning clear in my original post, but in the case of employee-provided healthcare insurance it is common (though not universal, YMMV especially based on company size) for the employer to cover some portion of the actual per-employee cost which means a lower out of pocket cost for the employee (though not the employer). This is another aspect of our current system that has some negative side effects -- a lot of people don't realize what the actual overall cost of their healthcare insurance is. I currently pay $46 per two-week pay period for good single-person PPO coverage (of course the actual cost to the employer is significantly more), so $92 a month. That cost becomes my mental baseline for insurance, and then I go look at the cost of ACA plans which apparently average $328 and that seems insane, over 3x the cost!!! Thanks, Obama!!! (of course, it isn't really more, the overall cost of my prior coverage has just been obscured by the old system where my employer subsidized me).
byoung2 13y ago
The answer, I think, is for each individual to take more individual responsibility, save their money, work in contracted increments, and go on vacation between contracts. That's been my approach for the last few years, except I do it as a full-time employee. Your employer gives you 2 weeks paid vacation, but you can also take additional time as unpaid vacation. I have averaged 6 weeks of vacation per year for the last 5 years by taking a month unpaid each year.
pcrh 13y ago
>guys who can afford to pay 6-12 weeks of salary to someone who isn't working This is the basis of the misconception that time off is optional. For a healthy life, time off is not optional. Denying employees sufficient time off is effectively asking them to sacrifice their health and well-being for the company, a condemnable practice. As to how much time off is sufficient or necessary, and in what sized chunks of time, I would leave that to the professional psychiatrists to figure out.
- cookiecaper 13y ago
  People should take time off, I agree. It's not a matter of the employer denying it, they aren't dictators. Citizens in the United States are free persons and they can choose not to work for an employer who they don't feel is willing to buy them enough vacation time. The question is, "Who should have to pay for [large amounts of] vacation time?" Also, I don't know if you've ever been involved with a small business before, but "can't afford it" in that context usually means "literally do not have that much money", not "can't afford to take it out of my bonus because then I'd have to buy last year's yacht model".
  - tomkarlo 13y ago
    Giving employees less vacation is just the same as underpaying them, except it's even worse for morale and turnover. If a business can't afford to pay it's employees a reasonable market rate, it either needs to hire more junior folks or start charging more.
  - HarryHirsch 13y ago
    Citizens in the United States are free persons and they can choose not to work for an employer With unemployment in the US at 7 % and voluntary quits still unusually low the picture isn't nearly as sunny as you paint it. One does wonder why you are saying things that aren't quite so. If you are running a small business yourself, consider that in more civilized countries, like the EU, small businesses are exempt from many regulations. If you are running a small business that isn't doing too well, perhaps it's time to let it go under - the market has spoken, it shouldn't be kept afloat for a few months more on the backs of your employees.
sliverstorm 13y ago
How long do you envision these contractual relations being? To suggest vacation will be replaced by the time between contracts says to me you figure the average contract would be somewhere between 6-12 months, but there are vast swaths of jobs that take months just to get up to speed...
tomkarlo 13y ago
An additional week off is maybe 3% higher pay. If you're a little guy, it seems like you should look at offering 3-4 weeks of vacation in your base package, given the dual benefits of attracting candidates and having happier, healthier employees. Few large companies are offering more than 2-3 weeks vacation to new hires any more. I don't think any are offering 4-6, much less "6-12". For longer tenured employees, getting an extra week off after 3 or 5 years is equivalent to a 1-2% raise each year. If a business can't support that, something's wrong.
zenbowman 13y ago
I personally like working with the same people day-in, day-out. Contracting is not the same as being a part of a company and forming a strong team to solve real problems. It might work for small time "innovation" like snapchat and domylaundry.com, but I highly doubt you can get the kind of work we saw come out of Bell Labs with anything less than a well-paid team of long-term employees who'd been working there for a while together.

mackwic 13y ago

And only the executives and high-end employees will be able to save money for vacations. Brilliant. Strongly disagree with you when you say that no one can pay 6 weeks of vacations, using this as an argument to say "no one can pay vacations at all". It's clearly the question of our social model that you are asking and I will say that: the social model I want for me, my children, and the others, is a world where you don't have to sell yourself as a work slave if you don't want. Paid vacations are not perfect, they are expensive, but they also are a not so bad approximation of a world where you can live your life outside of the work if you want (at least periodically).

matwood 13y ago
Actually vacations are more affordable than ever with the rise of companies like AirBnB and other VRBO websites.

glesica 13y ago

That would be nice, but as long as healthcare is also tied to employment, it won't happen. Those same people who have their time off eaten up by obligations generally can't afford to be without health insurance for two weeks every few months. Additionally, they can't justify paying for private health insurance when their employer forces them to accept its own coverage (and won't give them the cash equivalent). Also, I think that while "contract" employment is nice for programmers, there are a large number of jobs (majority?) for which that simply doesn't make much sense because it increases training costs for employers. It is still, to this day, very common for employers to look for employees who plan to stick around for awhile. They want the best of both worlds, basically, long-term employees who can be laid off at a moment's notice.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
Unless Obamacare eliminated COBRA (haven't checked but I doubt it), you get to keep your health insurance for 1 year after you leave a job. The out of pocket cost is 101% of what your employer paid. So basically, this is only a problem if you want a 13 month vacation.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  COBRA still exists and it is good that it does, but it doesn't address this situation. COBRA exists to give people a safety net between full-time jobs. In the context of the original argument, COBRA is somewhat part of the problem because it too is tied into the world view of people having full-time jobs with employer-provided healthcare insurance. If you're a contractor who is working in 3-6 months contracts you very likely aren't going to have employer health insurance coverage to begin with (thus COBRA doesn't apply to you) and will need to have your own individual plan... which (even with Obamacare in its current state) is going to cost you on average significantly more than an employer offered plan would because of economies of scale and our steadfast refusal to make real changes to the way healthcare insurance works in the US.
  - timr 13y ago
    "your own individual plan... which (even with Obamacare in its current state) is going to cost you on average significantly more than an employer offered plan" I don't disagree with your greater point about the US system, but my experience is that ACA individual policies were about the same cost as what I can purchase as an (admittedly very small) employer. If you buy an ACA plan, you're in a much larger risk pool than any individual employer can provide.
    - georgemcbay 13y ago
      I believe you're right and I didn't make my reasoning clear in my original post, but in the case of employee-provided healthcare insurance it is common (though not universal, YMMV especially based on company size) for the employer to cover some portion of the actual per-employee cost which means a lower out of pocket cost for the employee (though not the employer). This is another aspect of our current system that has some negative side effects -- a lot of people don't realize what the actual overall cost of their healthcare insurance is. I currently pay $46 per two-week pay period for good single-person PPO coverage (of course the actual cost to the employer is significantly more), so $92 a month. That cost becomes my mental baseline for insurance, and then I go look at the cost of ACA plans which apparently average $328 and that seems insane, over 3x the cost!!! Thanks, Obama!!! (of course, it isn't really more, the overall cost of my prior coverage has just been obscured by the old system where my employer subsidized me).

byoung2 13y ago

The answer, I think, is for each individual to take more individual responsibility, save their money, work in contracted increments, and go on vacation between contracts. That's been my approach for the last few years, except I do it as a full-time employee. Your employer gives you 2 weeks paid vacation, but you can also take additional time as unpaid vacation. I have averaged 6 weeks of vacation per year for the last 5 years by taking a month unpaid each year.

pcrh 13y ago

>guys who can afford to pay 6-12 weeks of salary to someone who isn't working This is the basis of the misconception that time off is optional. For a healthy life, time off is not optional. Denying employees sufficient time off is effectively asking them to sacrifice their health and well-being for the company, a condemnable practice. As to how much time off is sufficient or necessary, and in what sized chunks of time, I would leave that to the professional psychiatrists to figure out.

cookiecaper 13y ago
People should take time off, I agree. It's not a matter of the employer denying it, they aren't dictators. Citizens in the United States are free persons and they can choose not to work for an employer who they don't feel is willing to buy them enough vacation time. The question is, "Who should have to pay for [large amounts of] vacation time?" Also, I don't know if you've ever been involved with a small business before, but "can't afford it" in that context usually means "literally do not have that much money", not "can't afford to take it out of my bonus because then I'd have to buy last year's yacht model".
- tomkarlo 13y ago
  Giving employees less vacation is just the same as underpaying them, except it's even worse for morale and turnover. If a business can't afford to pay it's employees a reasonable market rate, it either needs to hire more junior folks or start charging more.
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  Citizens in the United States are free persons and they can choose not to work for an employer With unemployment in the US at 7 % and voluntary quits still unusually low the picture isn't nearly as sunny as you paint it. One does wonder why you are saying things that aren't quite so. If you are running a small business yourself, consider that in more civilized countries, like the EU, small businesses are exempt from many regulations. If you are running a small business that isn't doing too well, perhaps it's time to let it go under - the market has spoken, it shouldn't be kept afloat for a few months more on the backs of your employees.

sliverstorm 13y ago

How long do you envision these contractual relations being? To suggest vacation will be replaced by the time between contracts says to me you figure the average contract would be somewhere between 6-12 months, but there are vast swaths of jobs that take months just to get up to speed...

tomkarlo 13y ago

An additional week off is maybe 3% higher pay. If you're a little guy, it seems like you should look at offering 3-4 weeks of vacation in your base package, given the dual benefits of attracting candidates and having happier, healthier employees. Few large companies are offering more than 2-3 weeks vacation to new hires any more. I don't think any are offering 4-6, much less "6-12". For longer tenured employees, getting an extra week off after 3 or 5 years is equivalent to a 1-2% raise each year. If a business can't support that, something's wrong.

zenbowman 13y ago

I personally like working with the same people day-in, day-out. Contracting is not the same as being a part of a company and forming a strong team to solve real problems. It might work for small time "innovation" like snapchat and domylaundry.com, but I highly doubt you can get the kind of work we saw come out of Bell Labs with anything less than a well-paid team of long-term employees who'd been working there for a while together.