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Comment by LiquidSky | Hacker News Reader

>Of those who did not take advantage of it, the third most common reason given was an “unfavorable atmosphere” in the workplace.

This brings to mind stories of workplaces in the US that officially offer unlimited vacation time but no one ever takes it because actually using it is viewed so negatively.

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I knew coworkers who worked for another company in the US that switched from 3-4 weeks of vacation time to unlimited vacation time. He said that people now generally took less than 1 and a half weeks of vacation because it was quietly frowned upon to be taking vacation time while other people are working. He said he had been better off with fixed vacation time because it wouldn’t come with this guessing game and stigma.

Depends on the company.

My employer offers unlimited vacation time. And people use it. My boss has taken off 3.5 months in the year since she started (not all at once). Other people in my department have racked up nearly 2 months of vacation in the 8 months since they started.

Our company encourages it, and HR has been diligent with managers about enforcing employees' rights to take vacation as long as it doesn't interfere with their work. As part of that, they require managers to structure assignments so that employees can take time off between projects if they would be too busy to take time off during a project, i.e., by requiring staggered staffing.

There is no such thing as unlimited vacation time. If you want to know how much vacation time you have, ask your HR manager at your “unlimited vacation” org how much vacation they’re required to pay out by law if you separate from the org.

But that's the point. People in the comments here seem to think that the unlimited vacation policies are about guilting people into not using any vacation. While that may be a secondary effect, the primary reason is actually to remove unpaid vacation days as a liability from the books, since that's quite expensive especially with the increase in software engineering company salaries in the past decade.

Anecdotally I worked at VMware and Dropbox when they rolled out these policies. I took about the same vacation time as I had used previously and the difference was mainly that I wasn't owed any vacation money when I resigned.

I interviewed with such a place and started questioning them about what this really means. How much do people take on average? What would be unacceptable? The response was pretty much something like "You can take off when the workload and your projects allow it" and they didn't give any hard numbers. It made me wonder if people there actually take less vacation than the usual few weeks.

In my experience it leads to less vacation for most workers. But some people take advantage of it without raising suspicion.

The average worker has no baseline for what amount is appropriate. They think they are always too busy. Their boss thinks they are too busy.

But some people get more by being untransparent. If I’m going on a fishing trip, I don’t tell anyone. If something comes up, “I’m out of the office, I can meet when I get back or do a call.” Nobody knows if I’m traveling for work or vacation.

> But some people get more by being untransparent.

Untransparent...mmm...I think I like I that word :)

Opaque...? :)

Ah, yes, the tyranny of structurelessness and shifting the burden of the answer on the employee.

By giving a vague answer the allow themselves the option of pretending like the workload and projects did not allow it at the time you were going to take your vacation.

It's dishonest at best and a devious dark pattern at worst.

So true. It's also interesting to me that many companies have switched from "Unlimited" PTO to "Flexible" PTO...

I had a co-worker recently who started counting up the time they'd taken off in the last year, realized it was much less than the industry average, and took off for Australia. Seemed like a very reasonable response to me.

This is false; you're misunderstanding the concept of accrued vacation. If you work for a company with accrued vacation (aka accrued PTO), you must be paid for it when you leave...for any reason including involuntary termination. But at a company with unlimited vacation, you don't accrue vacation days, so they don't need to pay you anything for vacation when you leave. Companies do this because they don't have to treated accrued vacation as a liability in their financial statements, so their financials look better.

The flip-side is also that they can't cap your vacation time, and indeed capping your vacation time could trigger a DoL investigation. Additionally, in some states like Illinois, the company must make vacation payouts equal to the amount of vacation the employee could have taken. (No guidance on this but lower level rulings suggest that it's at least the "capped" amount.)

There's also FMLA issues with unlimited leave most startups don't realize. (If you have unlimited vacation, you must pay out 12 weeks under the FMLA. If you offer paternity/maternity leave and accrued vacation, you only have to pay out pursuant to your leave policy.)

I work remotely for one of those companies in the US that offers unlimited vacation time. As far as I can tell, it's a real thing - some of my coworkers have taken 30+ day vacations with no negativity from the rest of the team. I've never taken a long absence myself - I enjoy my daily work.

There is a very prominent disclaimer that any employee will tell you... "don't fuck up". That means...if you have a pending deliverable; don't vacation. If someone else is depending on you for their deliverable; don't vacation. Basically, support the company first and foremost and your extended absences are OK.

tldr; I work for a SDN provider with unlimited vacation and high expectations of employees

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