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Comment by johnnyb9 | Hacker News Reader

The fact that it's a paid for trip is why it is worth mentioning, not necessarily the length. Five weeks of vacation, while not very common, is common enough that it's not really worth writing about otherwise. Edit: Agreed that 5 weeks of contiguous vacation is rare

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> Five weeks of vacation, while not very common, is common enough that it's not really worth writing about otherwise.

Where do you work that you think this is common?

My wife and I are both in reasonably well compensated professional careers, and while we get to take more vacations than most americans, a solid 5 week block is basically impossible. And I don't think that's atypical: the Bureau of Labor Stats certainly doesn't support that idea (https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/private-industry-workers-r...)

It's common for teachers and many positions in higher education.

In Sweden, five weeks of paid vacation per year is the legal minimum, and you also have the right to take four weeks contiguous in the summer if you want. But you don't have the right to choose when exactly if you exercise that right. Different industries do it differently, some shut down and kick everyone out in July, others try to get their employees to spread their vacation over summer so that there's at least someone in the office.

The difference in mentality and expectations is absolutely crazy.

It is the length that makes it worth mentioning. A month long consecutive vacation in the US is rare. The paid vacation portion is not particularly generous, liberally assume $200 for lodging and $50/person for meals, it's worth somewhere around $12 to $14k including flights on the high end, i.e. $2k to $3k per year bonus.

This almost makes me feel lucky to be on “sabbatical” while trying to recover from illness.

A paid five weeks trip, flights, hotel, food for two people is maybe $20k.

Split over five years is $4k/year. I don't know how much Epic pays, if they're up to silicon valley standards, but say you make $120k/year there? An extra $4k is fucking peanuts.

Also multiply that with the five-year employee retention rate, and you get the true cost for this "perk".

If a perk costs the company peanuts, the proper valuation of the perk should probably also be peanuts. Don't get suckered in by companies that do these kinds of things. Always think about what each perk actually costs the company.

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