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Comment by p1esk | Hacker News Reader

What the hell is “unlimited vacation”?

It's a way for companies to eliminate their vacation payout when you're fired. If you have a defined vacation policy, then by law the company is obligated to pay you out for the unused vacation days in case of termination/resignation. But in the case of an "unlimited" policy, there's no such obligation. Great for the company. Not so great for the employee.

This is the truth in my case. Having quit my last job yielded in a huge payout (5 figures). I do understand that this was basically the salary for the time off that I didn’t take. I still took decent amount of vacations but over time with PTO rollovers the balance built up to a significant amount.

In the end, it was a very nice bonus though.

But weren’t you entitled to this?

Not if you're working for a company that has an "unlimited vacation" policy.

> If you have a defined vacation policy, then by law the company is obligated to pay you out for the unused vacation days in case of termination/resignation

I think this is only the case if vacation is accrued. If it's a single yearly lump, it doesn't appear they have that obligation (at least, not in NYC)

It has become pretty common. You don't track the days you take off. You are expected to honorthe commitments you make. At most companies this becomes an informal 5-8 weeks.

At first, I was extremely skeptical, but it actually works well when you work with people who act like reasonable, understanding adults. If you don't, then the vacation policy won't matter, because it's going to suck working for them no matter what.

5-8 weeks? Most places I've worked it's been an informal 2 weeks plus sick days.

I had a very accommodating boss who let me take 5-6 weeks. People on most other teams in my company end up taking 3ish.

Most people don't end up taking 5 weeks, and I think 8 is more along the extenuating circumstances - i.e. at one job I needed to leave early on a regular basis to deal with trips to the vet for a very sick dog. My boss was very understanding and since I was one of the more senior and productive team members, no one minded.

Honestly, I don't think I would take a job offer that only included 2 weeks vacation, even if the pay was exceptional. Early on in my career I didn't mind not having much vacation, since I rarely, if at all, used it. Now that I'm older, the added flexibility is more important.

FWIW, I have yet to find a job in NY with a non-unlimited policy that gave more than 10 days combined PTO plus a handful of holidays.

Tho at places with unlimited at least you can usually justify taking 3 weeks plus sick days even if 2 is the norm.

Maybe workaholism is just more common here than in other areas?

Maybe it's my level of experience? I've been in the industry over 12 years now, with some variation of senior / staff / principle title for I think 8 of those years. No idea what the market is like in NY, but I would imagine you could also pretty easily negotiate starting with 2.5 or maybe 3 weeks.

Just like the list of requirements are a guideline, so too are perks offered on job postings, and you don't actually have to settle for what they first offer you. So long as the labor market for programming is hot, you should take advantage of it.

FWIW, I’ve been in the industry even longer than that. And yes, senior developers have the leverage to sometimes negotiate for more. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the most common policy or that most people (especially those in less in-demand occupations) aren’t stuck with it. Nor that it doesn’t influence how people interpret unlimited-PTO policies.

As for me, most of the 10-day-PTO gigs were earlier in my career (startups seem to almost universally opt for “unlimited”). Going into the most recent one, I had other priorities to negotiate for.

But mostly, the way we think about time off and work/life balance in the US bites.

You spent 15days in one year year off work taking your dog to the vet?

I had a one hour commute each way at the time, so if i had an appointment, I took the day off / worked from home, depending on the appointment. She was a very, very sick dog, went from healthy and happy to put down because she could no longer eat on her own over the course of 6 months. It was a painful (not to mention expensive) experience.

Though, I was also doing some real estate transactions (selling and buying a house) so some of the days were also for that.

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