What? The schmucks are not happy with coding in the human equivalent of a bucket of crabs? Did you try giving them coffee? Did you try saying the phrase "unlimited vacation"? Did you jingle your keys?
It should be called undefined vacation, because there's clearly a limit, unless taking half of the year off is fine.
That definitely hasn't been the case for me. I've had unlimited vacation and take off 4 weeks a year + assorted random days off (2/month).
I would never work somewhere with constrained vacation. Having to file paperwork for a random day showing family around town is ridiculous.
That being said, I think "untracked" is the best definition. It's obviously not unlimited, but there's also no hard limit. And the limit depends on behavior (leaving for 6 weeks is frowned upon, but 3 random days off every month is fine).
I've taken as many as 44 days off, which is a lot more.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement
While I agree with the status analysis, I don't think that's why programmers are forced into open offices.
Traders are high status, but work in a terrible environment (wide open trading floors).
Traders work in an environment where very quick turnaround matters.
Most software development roles are nothing like this.