Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'? | Hacker News Reader

Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

cnn.com

413 pointsmarcinw412 comments

There is a good article from another software developer around here who told his boss he was taking a 3 month vacation. He made the point the business needed him more than he needed it; he was a competent developer and could easily get work, didn't have any living/large financial dependencies. At first I thought it was absurd, but the more I thought about it, he was absolutely correct.

Take a long vacation some time. Even if you do have a family, save up enough money and go travel for a while. Take some decent time off work (4+ weeks). Let them fire you if they want. That's (one of my) my goal(s) over the next 2 years: take an extended vacation (I haven't taken more than a week off since I graduated college).

Here it is, and it's awesome:

http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...

Yes, that's exactly it, thank you.

That is a good story, and I know as a manager I granted more than a few unpaid personal leaves of absence for top employees. Way better to have them come back refreshed and productive than to try to replace their domain knowledge with a new hire! It won't work for everyone though...but is a good litmus test of how much your employer values you.

It is also a solid testimony to the fact that for every HR policy there is an exception. If you are valued and make your case in the right way, you can get a lot! (think double-promotions, out of cycle raises, better gear, etc.) HR advises, Managers decide (if your manager doesn't know this, shop for a new one)

you can do that only if you are a senior dev.. what do junior devs, recent college grads do?

Save up for a few years so you can take your dream trip once you've gained some leverage?

Live on less than half of your net(take-home) pay and save the rest. Now for every month that you work, you are also saving a month's worth of living expenses. After two years of this you have two years of fuck you money. Two years is enough time to learn python or something else significant.

Your savings can last even longer if you get a $10/hr job such as waiting tables part-time.

Work daily on developing marketable skills. Work daily on communicating how your work impacts the business you're in. Imagine your boss asks you tomorrow, "Why shouldn't I fire you right now?". What would you say?

Always have a resume prepared.

Once you have done this you can go up to your boss and tell her you are taking two months off and you won't care what she says in reply.

Recent grads are only making ~40k, some times less, some times considerably less (people have posted Ask HNs about this topic before). As someone who used to be in that camp, living off half your net at that salary range is not realistic; living on 75% is barely so, if you're eating bologna sandwiches every night.

Having a second job is a great idea, it's just too bad you can't get a good consulting job when you're a junior dev. Once you have a couple of years of experience you can start to get consulting work and from there you are pretty much set financially. The first couple of years are tough though. Vacations aren't realistic unless you have family that helps you out.

Most undergrads are only making ~$0/year, and seem to get by just fine. Adding an extra $40k into the mix would only seem to help.

I made $37k at my first job, and managed to put $10k of that into the market for the first four years. So yes, it's possible.

Everything the grandparent says is good advice (apart from the waiting tables thing. Freelancing pays 10-30x as much.) Live cheap when you're young, bank away as much as possible, spend your 30s living on a beach. It's very doable if that's what you want.

I just mentioned waiting tables because it was a job almost anyone could do and that pays decently. It's something you could find quickly to stretch savings between jobs. I don't have any experience with freelancing but that's probably a better idea.

The biggest advantage of waiting tables is that you can get a job, and eat before you get your first paycheck.

Most undergrads are only making ~$0/year

They're also generally not supporting themselves on that $0 income.

Dunno where you are, but in New England $60k seems to be entry level and you can get much more if you're skilled and have good college-age work experience.

Up until January of this year I was making $40,084.00/yr. That means about $2k/month net.

I was paying $156/month on rent by living in a small house with two roommates. I drive a 15yo car that is paid off and I live 3km from work so I don't depend on it.

You can live on $12k/yr, you just chose not to.

I can't imagine you were living anywhere desirable that you could pay $156/month in rent.

People living in high cost of living areas can't reasonably live on $12K/year. Luckily, they mostly get paid a lot better $40K/year because they have to.

> People living in high cost of living areas

Feudalism has been eliminated, you could always move. But you're absolutely right. People who choose to live in pricey areas don't get to enjoy extended vacations right out of college. It's your choice to make though.

I visited San Jose a month ago. It's a gorgeous area and the culture is something really special, but it's expensive as hell. But that's fine if you think it's worth it.

Where I live a 3br/2bth house can be rented for <$500. It makes a level of financial independence available that I couldn't have living in CA or most of the east coast.

Where I live a 3br/2bth house can be rented for <$500.

How's the tech/software job market in that area? I can't say I've seen a whole lot of recruiting for jobs in the cheapest towns I've visited.

I don't think people so much "choose to live in pricy areas" as that's where the jobs are. As a result, that's where the people are. As a result, that's where the most expensive living is. You can find a cheaper place to live, but it's likely cheaper, because there's less of a job market there.

Graduate students live on that amount. We are particularly prevalent in high cost of living areas. It can be done, but it might be unpleasant.

I lived in Boston on $800/month. It's no picnic, but it's not hard.

There is no point in your life that you can more easily take 3 months off to do whatever you want than when you are a "recent college grad".

My biggest life regret was not realizing this at the time. I jumped into the workforce and pursued my career at 95 mph.

I should have spent a year travelling.

Unless you have college loans that you start paying on immediately after leaving college... which is bordering on most people these days.

Depending on the loan, you may qualify for "Income-Based Repayment" plans, which reduce monthly payments to $0 if you are making little or no money. You still accrue interest, and the crushing psychological weight of all that debt is still there, but it's definitely an option for new grads.

I doubt it. State schools are still pretty cheap. After a minimal scholarship, UIC cost me something like $1300 a semester. That ends up being a not-that-crippling debt.

If you go to a University of California, it costs at least $10,000 in tuition a year alone,definitely more now, that's what it was two years ago. Plus books and rent for most people.

Usually (or at least back when I graduated from college the first time) there was a six-month window before you had to start re-paying the college loan.

I did that as a mid level dev. I had timing on my side though. I waited until we finished a big project, and then I presented my two week letter and went on a month long trip. I came back and found a job almost immediately. My point being that when your body asks you for change, do not hold back, and make that change. Be confident in your skills and don't be afraid of telling your boss that you need a break. Because even though the Germans may think so, we are not robots.

Improve your skills, build a portfolio, and switch into contracting as soon as you can. You make a lot more if you're good, can make your own schedule (including long vacations if desired, or working vacations), and the somewhat higher risk and uncertainty are easy to manage when you're young and without dependents.

You also get more diverse experience and contacts that increase your desirability if you want to return to 9-5 land AND if you're adventurous, you can go live in a developing nation with a low cost of living, which has the same effect as a big income boost, plus you get to spend your time somewhere that isn't yuppie land (and presumably has nice weather).

I took the month of August off from my software dev job between my freshmen and sophomore years of college. That was in addition to ~3 weeks of other vacation time spread throughout that year. I spent the month traveling and volunteering. It was unpaid, but my expenses were pretty low at the time and I had enough in savings to get by just fine. I highly recommend it.

As a student I took time off from class and enjoyed 2 weeks skiing is switzerland, then another 2 weeks in the sun in Uruguay. All while it was -20C at home in Norway. I usually end up working during my normal vacations though, so last summer I had 2 weeks off.

One of the perks I would probably want in my contract when I start working is the ability to take up to 4 weeks of unpaid leave and being able to take all my vacation out in one go.

Also I've been told that in the US you have a limited number of sick days and that they sometimes come as part of your vacation. That's not the case in Norway. In fact, if you get sick for a week while on holiday, then you have the right to another week of holiday.

The sick days part varies by employer. At a previous employer it was 10 sick days in addition to your vacation days, and unused sick days accumulated from one year to the next. When my son was born 8 week early with my wife in the hospital 2.5 weeks before that, I had accumulated enough sick time that I could take 11 weeks off to spend at the hospital (Caleb spent 25 days in neonatal intensive care) and at home after he was released.

What about if you were sick and your doctor said you had to stay home?

In Norway we can take up to 3 consecutive days off due to illness 4 times during 12 months. If you work in an extra exposed environment (kindergarten, old people's home) you have more days. If you need more than that, you have to see a doctor. The doctor can give you up to 12 months of leave. During this period the state refunds your employer for your wages (after 14 days or so). Under no circumstances can you be fired due to your illness, and if you can not return to your position your employer will need to provide a new position. This of course can be very bad for small companies and start-ups. So they tend to use temporary employment to circumvent these issues, though there is a limit as to how long you can employ someone temporarily.

In that instance I pay for long term disability insurance. If I have to be off for medical reasons for more time than my sick days, I get paid by LTD instead of employer.

Past the first 12 months the state (Norway) will start paying you equivalently to your pension. So as a student I too have private long term disability insurance, mostly to cover my student loans, in case I for instance get my fingers cut off and can't do much with a computer anymore.

My wife has freelanced for over 15 years (before I knew her) precisely because of this. She saved up a big stash of cash, set automatic bill pays for her rent and utilities and took a two-month trip to Paris.

You have to keep your expenses low (both at home and abroad) but at least you're not at work.

If you're a dev/designer, the good thing is you can work remotely, thus paying for parts of your vacation. I did the same with a two week foray in Paris: work one and half days for American companies, and then enjoyed the rest of the time there.

Wow, somebody remembers something that I wrote four years ago. Cool!

And it looks like somebody below has saved me the trouble of pointing you to it.

Now leftnode has somebody to blame if the plan backfires.;-)

I actually did that as a freelance designer.

I did some work for a start-up while doing my own before taking a month off to travel the world (literally from America > Asia > Europe). They offered to pay me to stay but I thought, "I'd rather have the amazing experience of visiting friends and understanding foreign cultures than remaining comfortable.").

I think this old story is vey relevant here.

I have employees that take a lower salary than others, but have up to 7 weeks holiday a year. I'm happy with that. One employee that has 7 weeks holiday has only had 1 day sick in the 6 years I've employed him.

-- Sharpen the Saw --

Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter ask for a job in a timber merchant, and he got it. The paid was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.

The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees "Congratulations," the boss said. "Go on that way!" Very motivated for the boss’ words, the woodcutter try harder the next day, but he only could bring 15 trees. The third day he try even harder, but he only could bring 10 trees.

Day after day he was bringing less and less trees. "I must be losing my strength", the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on. "When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" the boss asked. "Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees..."

Do you currently have any open positions? ;)

That kind of sounds like a metaphor for more training rather than vacation?

I understand it to mean you should take time out in order to improve the overall quality of your work.

Be that training, a vacation, or the literal "sharpening of the axe."

When I complained to an employer that it was too hard to request my vacation time (it's in my contract, they made it very hard to pick dates by always having an emergency deadline, etc) they replied "It's like that everywhere", as if it was a legit answer.

Many employers also lump in sick time with vacation time, as if that's a replacement since you didn't come into work. That would probably be okay, if you had an option to take unpaid vacation time when the time comes. Instead, you're often forced to take a shorter vacation, which doesn't do the job.

And forcing you to work while on vacation is unforgiveable. It shows that the company doesn't understand why vacation time is necessary. (I haven't had anyone do this to me, thankfully. It wouldn't have gone well.)

If taking unpaid vacations was an option, I would probably end up taking about 4 weeks worth of vacations, instead of 2.

What really grinds my gears is when federal holidays count towards my "vacation time". Those alone eat up seven days!

I request four weeks of vacation in my contract, but am afraid to use them. That's America.

Oh wow, that's the first I've ever heard of that. That would not be acceptable for me.

I think I'll be asking for more vacation time in future contracts, too. I managed to secure extra in the first year of my current contract because I had a need (planned trip) but in the future, I'm just going to require more.

Of course, benefits and pay are interchangeable, so I might just request the ability to take unpaid vacation as needed, up to a certain amount.

I've started making vacation time a major part of the negotiation when taking a new position and in all instances I've brought it up during the interview process the interviewer acted alarmed. Even with my current position with a really cool small web shop they ended up interviewing me a 2nd time before offering the position. The key topic of conversation during the 2nd interview was basically the CEO trying to figure out if I planned on taking time off in some unspecified but inconvenient fashion that would leave the company in a bind.

It's easy to keep salary info private, not so with vacation time.

Now there's a piece of subtlety that wouldn't have occurred to me without having it pointed out by another. I guess I've got a bit of a blind spot since I don't care much about what other people in the company are getting compensation-wise.

Sort of. The difference is that some benefits are linked to length-of-service or continuity-of-service, so an unpaid vacation in the USA can scuttle your health insurance, equity vest, 401(k) match, etc.

Please cite that. That could be very important, but I've never heard of such a thing before.

Bridge-of-service. I've seen someone leave a company (on good terms) come back two years later and the company gave the bridge-of-service with regards to 401(k), vacation, etc. He was really good though and the company really wanted him back.

I don't have holidays count but we have a 'holiday shutdown' for 5 days between Christmas and New Years, mandatory you can't work, but you burn your own vacation time. And I only get 2 weeks! Other options include taking the week unpaid, or working during the the other weeks in the year when you hvae a holiday and 'floating' it to the holiday shutdown. So next week I have memorial day off, but I'll make sure to work >40 hours in the remaining 4 days. Is 1 extra week of vacation really going to change the productivity of the place?

I started a new job last year with 10 days of vacation. It wasn't until December that I learned that five of those days were mandatory for the week between Christmas and New Year's. If you had no vacation days left, it was unpaid time off.

Since this is HN, there's a pretty good chance you're an Engineer of some kind. Where are you (or what do you do?) that companies can get away with this?

This is the norm in the UK, companies close over the holidays and there are mandatory holidays that go with that.

Being clear about this with new (and especially young) employees is a good idea as to people straight out of college, it's not obvious.

But there's certainly nothing dodgy about it.

Is it really? My company runs over the holidays and our problem is actually finding people who can work during that time. Surely lots of tech companies have to keep running over Christmas?

Mandatory closing are one thing. Hell, I'd like to have the holidays off anyway.

But it's 50% of his total time off. Is that "the norm"?

Considering the UK minimum holiday entitlement is 4 weeks and there are 2 public holidays there (Christmas Day and Boxing Day), employees only need to take 3 days annual leave (15% their yearly total) and the company can close for one calendar week.

Not at any UK company I've worked at (1 corporation, 1 retailer, 1 startup).

Every uk company I worked at was like this, from a major university, an us IT company, tons financial services company.

In Scotland closing on January the 1st and 2nd is practically a medical requirement.

I'm in the US. I work remotely for a large healthcare company. The benefits are terrible, the pay is mediocre, and there are no opportunities for advancement, but it allows me to work from home with limited oversight.

"Working from home with limited oversight" couldn't you turn that into "work remotely from the Caribbean"?

Sure, I can work from anywhere. By 'limited oversight', I mean that I mostly make my own project schedules, but that I'm expected to be available during normal business hours should the need arise. I did a working vacation several years ago (different company). The downside to trying to work from a vacation destination is that you pay an extraordinary amount for travel and lodging, and then lose most of your day to work.

On the bright side, if you take a five day vacation and bookend it with two weekends, that's a nine day trip.

Sounds like a perfect way to game the system and get three weeks off each year. Just take a full two weeks off during the year and then you magically get an extra week each Christmas ;-) If you know you're doing it ahead of time then you can easily factor in the reduction in salary.

If you are on a contract (which from context I am guessing is full-time per week, short-term), you can take vacation before or after the term, right?

Whoa, I've never heard of that before. In my experience, there are company holidays and vacation days and "sick days". All are at the discretion of the employer as to what are observed and given, but I've never heard of them overlapping (ie, if your company observes ten holidays and you have ten vacation days, you get 20 days off that year).

It seems like something you should be able to take up with your employer, because you requested vacation and they're counting holidays (something different) against them. That sees like a bit of a rip off.

Of course, I know that even two weeks of vacation is considered a lot in this country and my mom works in a job where she doesn't get _any_ paid vacation, so . . .

Why don't you require this unpaid vacations before signing the contract? Probably you will have a lower salary, but more time for rest.

Think about your choice of words up there, and you might just come up with your solution.

Force.

As in, my employer is forcing me to take shorter vacations. My employer is forcing me to work my vacations around their schedule.

That's not what he's doing. He's coercing you. It's different. He's implying that if you take the vacation you want, there might not be a job waiting when you get back. The answer to that is "fine".

If you truly don't care whether there's a job waiting on the other side, he loses all leverage. If you know for a fact that you could pick up another dev job inside of a week with a Facebook status update, he loses all leverage.

In other words, the only reason you think your boss can "force" you to do anything is because you've given him that ability. Quit thinking in those terms and you'll live a much happier life.

or, if the employer knows that if she finds a replacement for you, she will have to find replacements for all her employees, then she won't bother coercing you at all.

xnerdr: all of your comments are being automatically deaded. you account has been quitely blacklisted or something..

xnerdr 2 hours ago | link | parent [dead] | on: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

and this is why i'm amazed programmers have not yet formed a union.

> "Quit thinking in those terms and you'll live a much happier life."

I agree in principle, but it's not always so simple. When you're young, have no kids, no mortgage, no car loan, etc, it's pretty easy to just say "fuck off, see ya" when your employer acts abusively.

When you have all of the above, that becomes more difficult. Relocating is more often than not the norm in this industry, and you don't exactly want to sell your house, or move your kids around, etc etc.

Disclaimer: I don't have kids, or a mortgage, and I'm very mobile right now, but I also understand this probably won't last forever.

It's a warning for living beyond your means anyways - I've noticed many people that I work with have huge mortgages out, to the point where the continuous stream of income becomes paramount - even a few months of interruption could possibly mean ruin for them. This strikes me as an idiotic fiscal policy.

For what it's worth, I'm pushing 40 and have a house and kid, and I wrote the comment you're replying to.

I don't consider losing my job to be traumatic in any way. It's nearly impossible to find good developers, so if you have a bit of skill you don't ever need to worry about the consequences of being unemployed.

>I agree in principle, but it's not always so simple. When you're young, have no kids, no mortgage, no car loan, etc, it's pretty easy to just say "fuck off, see ya" when your employer acts abusively.

Even if you have all those responsibilities and you're leveraged up to your eyeballs you can still quit your job. You just need to line up another one first. I've been doing technical work for almost 25. In that time I've quit two jobs because they weren't treating me the way I expect to be treated, but I've never been without a job.

Even if you can afford it you're really hurting yourself by screaming "fuck off, see ya" at your boss and stomping out to look for another job. It's a lot easier to find a job when you already have one, and your negotiating position for salary and benefits is much stronger.

Now we are talking!

We have zeroed down to what prevents people from taking risks or being happy or being content. Its about slowly walking in debt traps which never go away all your life.

As a kid you are fearless, because somebody else takes care of your finances, you feel no pressure, stay happy and do what you want. Once you grow up, in your teens you take inputs from things around you and try to be like the richest. What you don't realize is that such a life 'loaned' not 'owned'. The day you go to work, you spend your salary like no spend thrift did before.

You change your iPhone every year, because everybody else is doing so. You buy everything from credit from clothes to toilet paper to car. Sometime later a colleague purchases a home and due to peer pressure you just trap yourself into a 20-25 year load on back breaking interest. You pay taxes on property and everything you own.

By the time you are done with all this you are too old to even enjoy what you have. Meanwhile you spend away your whole thinking of clearing the loans, trapping your self in never ending fear 'What will happen if I don't' clear the loan/ or if I loose the job.

This greatly reduces your ability to flexible and agile in terms of taking risks. This also kills your pursuit of happiness, because all the while you are worried of doing something out of compulsion regardless whether you like it or not.

The thing important here is to fix a upper limit and have some attitude for gratitude. A heck lot of people work a day of manual labor and go home with happiness filled in their hearts. While we worry about not having some X gadget which some colleague has. We complain about vacations et al.

Not tying happiness with money can help you get a lot of things in life with little stress.

I'm 32 with 3 kids and a wife, and I literally walked out of a fortune 500 company that is looked at as one of the best places to work. I have no problem telling someone to "fuck off, see ya" if I feel like I am getting mistreated.

so none of your advice applies to the inevitable majority of replaceable workers

This was one of the major draws for me for moving to Europe in my early 20s (from the US). After working one year in the US and having one week of vacation, it was bordering on surreal to have 6.

That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales. While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money.

For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spent my 20s bouncing around the world visiting more than 30 countries on 5 continents, with zero gaps in my employment.

Now that I'm an employer, I still see it as a great trade: employees are a lot cheaper here, and seem to be happier. But again, while most American software developers would love to have more vacation, I've heard them also repeat ludicrous things about how they can "barely survive on $60k/year".

That's what's so surreal about this entire discussion. "I have 7 weeks paid vacation!" as if employers were paying them for 52 weeks' work and then were shocked every year to discover that they only get 45 weeks of work.

That's not true. Europe is very regional in its pay structures. You can make very little in Berlin, move to Frankfurt or Brussels and make a fortune. The same is true in the States: what you make in Palo Alto is multiples more than Cleveland. I don't see that pay rates have anything to do with vacation allowances.

The reason American workers say they can barely survive on $60k a year is that they pay out of pocket for things German workers can take for granted:

* Comfortable retirement - 401k contributions. Yes America has social security but it's not a ton of money compared to other national pensions and if you're young you worry about it not being around at all by the time you need it.

* Unemployment - You should probably have ~6 months living expenses saved up, if not a year, in case you get laid off. U.S. unemployment benefits are fairly marginal (~700 per month cap when I used them in 2002, which you owe tax on), especially compared to Germany/France.

* Life insurance - If you have kids and/or a non working spouse you need to make sure they will be OK if you die, since we have such a weak social safety net.

* Education for your kids - 529 and educational IRA plans allow people to save for our increasingly expensive higher education even before the child is born (I-Bonds can be used this way). Cuts to public colleges have been harsh this year so don't think those will save you.

Yes many Americans blow their salaries on dumb consumerist crap, and tend to overinvest in things like real estate. But even the prudent ones will be trying to jack up their salaries because there are SO many things you are supposed to save for to be considered a responsible American adult.

And not to mention:

* Healthcare - Health insurance is often a luxury in America. The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens.

* Public transportation - Many US cities don't have adequate bus service. Just anyone who lives outside NYC or a college town will need a car.

Medicaid provides a health insurance safety net for tens of millions of working and poor Americans...in fact there are more Americans in a federal health program (Medicaid, SCHIP, Medicare) than the entire population Germany.

I've heard that Medicare + Medicaid actually cost a bigger part of your national budget than in Europe, yet it ends up creating a weaker coverage health service coverage for only part of your people, compared to covering everyone in most of the European countries. There's differences between countries here obviously, but US healthcare seems to be less efficient than the European systems.

Medical in the US cost more but there is "more" available. If I were at my doctors office right now (3:13 Central time) and he felt I needed a MRI, I could have one before 5:00. I've often heard that in a non-emergency situation there can be weeks of waiting to get an MRI in some European countries. I have also seen a comment from a guy in the UK who had to have his arm re-broken for a cast to be put on because it had already started to heal crooked while waiting several days. A few years ago I spent some time digging through official government reports on healthcare in several (well limited to English speaking) countries and found things like >8 hour wait times for emergency services, >30 day waits (in some places) for some non-emergency services, etc. Yes, we pay more, but the flip side of that is faster access even in non-critical situations. In my case in February, I was at the doctor at 11:00AM on a Friday, MRI at about 1:30PM, and by 4:00PM I was scheduling surgery for Monday for gallbladder removal. I could have probably waited, my discomfort was relatively mild at that point, but I didn't have to.

So you have some anecdotes about bad service. In reality, we have studies that conclusively show that US care is both more expensive and less effective.

You guys are doing it again -- idealizing the other side of the fence as if everything was all rainbows and unicorns in Europe.

In Germany and many European countries, you pay for healthcare and it costs a lot -- you simply don't have the option of not having healthcare and the cost is proportional to your income rather than your health condition. Also note that the employee caries the full cost of health insurance as opposed to the employer usually covering it in skilled professions in the US.

The social security model is also somewhat similar: you pay (high) social security taxes and get money back based your contributions.

Unemployment, also like in the US, is pretty sane if you're a full-time employee and are fired. You don't get it for several months if you quit on your own and if you haven't payed unemployment taxes, you get put on unemployment that's just at the edge of livable (housing costs + about $500/month).

And note, those taxes come after the lower salary. A pretty common take-home salary for a European software developer would be $3000-4000/month.

And really, how many 20-somethings that complain about the cost of living are doing it because they're stashing away too much in their retirement fund?

Public transit is a valid one, but then, the two highest paid areas for software developers in the US, New York and San Francisco, also have quite good public transit. (Not to mention that a one-month pass costs $100-200/month depending on the area.)

The truth is that I've heard people say that while they eat out every day, have a new car every couple years, live in swanky places and spend money on a constant stream of new gadgets. Americans also have a weird fetish that you don't find other places about buying homes in their 20s. While there are some valid reasons that make the total cost of living in Europe comparatively lower, I'm really not convinced that's the core of the difference. It's just that people quickly grow into their incomes and start seeing things as essential that aren't.

You guys are doing it again -- idealizing the other side of the fence as if everything was all rainbows and unicorns in Europe.

I used to live in Britain. After having gone to doctor a few times there, I'd rather have the customer-pays model of America. I was just pointing-out that it's (obviously) expensive over here.

If that doctor had told you you had cancer, your preference might be different.

You can have the 'customer pays' model in Britain too if you want it - just roll up to a BUPA (or some other private) hospital and whip out your wallet.

And my entire accident prone family has had fantastically good services from the NHS on numerous occasions...

So our anecdotes cancel out :-)

I was just talking to an elderly person who had a heart attack 2 months ago. Before insurance cost was around $200'000 and if she went with the more invasive option, it could of been $500'000. For one bloody heart attack.

The US and UK are both bad examples. Here in Aus we have universal healthcare and private - if you want to jump waiting lines or have carpet on the waiting room floor, pull out your wallet and go private.

There are a few problems, but there is no perfect health system as there is always more demand than supply.

Interestingly, on the European continent, carpet is considered a bit shit.

Your ideas intrigue me ... seriously, I'd like to know more about this. Which nationalities are you speaking for, and in which contexts? For example, I believe Americans think Brits are very odd for having fitted carpets in bathrooms.

Mostly, I know that Italians think carpet is illogical and disgusting. It dropped heavily in fashion in the mid-nineties in Ireland, and now parquet and tile are close to God. Now I think of it, the last couple of German hotels I stayed in had some type of carpet; very industrial looking.

We Irish have for a long time tended to avoid carpet in bathrooms, but maybe we just don't piss as straight.

Um. The UK has universal healthcare (the NHS) and a parallel private system. I'm not sure why that make it a bad example in this context.

(Admittedly, the NHS is not the best health care system in the world, but then we spend less on it than other countries do as a proportion of GDP.)

I really appreciate your reply and the global perspective!

That said, I'm not sure about Germany being approximately as rough as the U.S..

* Retirement - Our benefit is well under half of yours. The _minimum_ German pension, the floor, after reform will be 67 percent of national average wage (cites below). In the U.S., the average social security benefit is $1,153, annualized to $13,863 or about 34 percent of the average national income of $40,711.

So our _average_ govt. retirement benefit (34%) is about half of your _minimum_ retirement benefit (67%). In fact, the maximum U.S. benefit of $2,346 is just 69 percent of national income, i.e. the current German minimum (!) (it will go down to 67 percent under the current reform).

[German data: http://www.economist.com/node/618334 ] [U.S. social security benefit data: http://www.aarp.org/work/social-security/info-07-2010/maximu... ][U.S. wage data: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html ]

* Unemployment - (-edited thrice-) The average is 47 percent of wages in U.S. vs 60 or 67 percent in Germany depending on if you have kids. Germany is still more generous. [German data http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/54/29730499.PDF http://www.justlanded.com/english/Germany/Germany-Guide/Jobs... ] [U.S. data http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3394 ]

If you are right about "housings costs + 500 per month" this is, indeed, be about in line with U.S. benefits which average $300 per week (~1300 per month); our housing payments average $684. Not sure how to reconcile that with the 60 percent figure from OECD and elsewhere.

What I meant on the German and US systems is that they're both pay-in-get-something out. Germans pay about double for social security, so it's not a huge surprise that the benefits are higher. My point was not that Germans do not get more benefits, but that's it's not a large factor in contrasting wages. (i.e. if American professionals put the money into a 401k that would go into the required German pension funding, then the benefits would probably work out to being roughly comparable).

For unemployment the housing costs that are reimbursed are "reasonable" costs, not "whatever your costs are", i.e. they're capped per region. The 60% you're seeing there is for those who have paid for "Arbeitslosengeld I", which is only available to those who have been full-time employed and are terminated (though if you quit on your own, you're eligible after 3 months). Freelancers, recent grads, business owners, etc. are not eligible for "ALG I". There's also a time limit on how long you can receive it.

That time limit is two years. After that you get "Hartz IV" unless you still have enough money to live by. Sure if that happens you may have to drastically change your lifestyle but if you are well educated getting a job in under two years should be achievable.

The timelimit is actually one year or less for most people. You only get 2 years when you're older than 58.

For anyone else it depends on how long you've been employed before applying for unemployment support. Been employed for longer than 24mo? You get 12mo support. Been employed for only 12mo? Then you get only 6mo of support.

That retirement you mention is only partly true (unless there is a misunderstanding). It all depends how many years you have paid into the fund. For a women with lots of breaks due to kids or for self employed people who have not opted in paying into the fund, this is getting lower and lower.

We're not idealizing: European take home less pay and pay more in taxes -- but get huge social benefits. If you're honestly trying to argue an equivalence in US and Europe in terms of such benefits, you're crazy. Europe is a big word as each country varies. That said...

In Germany and many European countries, you pay for healthcare and it costs a lot

But, from the studies I've seen, Europeans on average spend about half in terms of healthcare.

New York and San Francisco, also have quite good public transit

No, they simply have public transit -- it's not great by any means. You often have to supplement with taxi in both places. (The rates are high there because costs of living are very high in both places.)

Unemployment compensation in most European countries is vastly better. Free university systems? That's nice. My point is that we know it's not all rainbows and unicorns in Europe but you can't argue that you don't get a whole lot for those taxes.

"No, they simply have public transit -- it's not great by any means. You often have to supplement with taxi in both places."

Citation needed. 99.9% of the time I was lived in NY, I used public transit instead of taxis. London and France? Underground stops running close to one and so anytime I tried staying out late I needed to walk, take a night bus, or hail a cab (which is near impossible on a Friday night).

I think you should more carefully choose your battles: It's really no contest.

Bart closes at midnight and has four stops in the heart of SF. NY has an OK metro but if you want to go cross-town, better just walk. I've spent time in NYC and lived in SF, Zurich, Berlin, Prague and London. Europe destroys on this topic. A huge percentage of people in Europe, like myself, don't own cars simply because we don't have to.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Saying it's no contest is a huge exaggeration. I won't argue that BART/MUNI is better than other transit systems, but I still get around without a car.

That said, the fact that transit closes in London and Paris while New York doesn't is a major advantage. It's actually precisely the reason why I have been able to not take a taxi or have to walk home in the early morning. And in NYC, a lot of people don't own cars because they don't have to either.

BART and Muni beat most other transit systems in the US, but pale in comparison even to London, let alone Berlin or Frankfurt. If you're heading anywhere west of downtown SF, expect long waits for connecting buses...which often simply fail to appear, NextBus's predictions notwithstanding. As an earlier commenter mentioned, it's not uncommon for SF commuters to finish the last leg of their commute with a cab.

And a lot of people in NYC don't have cars simply because they can't afford to park them, not because available mass transit makes them unnecessary.

If you're getting by in NYC without a car, then the car is unnecessary, whether you can afford to park it or not.

Can confirm that for Prague. I'm using bike mostly, sometimes combinded with metro, but whenever I fallback to public transport I feel grateful for how well it works. It's easy to get anywhere at any time, even at night. Last week it took me 40 mins at 4am to get from my home near the centre to the airport outside of city using bus lines that cross the city in 30mins intervals and meet together at hub stations. On contrary, the bus lines in country were privatized and many useful (but probably not so profitable) lines were cut, and while it got better balanced in time, it's still suboptimal on many places/times and is a living example of where free market actually diverges from being a good public service.

I love BART, but it's a fairly unreliable system with very few stops in San Francisco. MUNI is actually several connected systems, but the majority of them are unreliable, expensive, and not implemented well.

I would not say the Bay Area has great public transit. It just has some public transit, which is more than you can say for a lot of California.

I lived in NYC and SF. Public Transit is far from ideal. When's the last caltrain on sunday? 8pm?? In NYC, I live in midtown east and take a lot of cabs .. mainly for cross town events. Yes .. I tried the bus but I realized my dignity was worth more than 10 bucks.

In London, the night bus route I tend to use (to Walthamstow from central London) runs at a slightly lower frequency overnight - just once every ten minutes. It's about as fast as the tube because of the more limited traffic.

And you use the same old Oyster card as during the day. I assume it's just as cheap - 80p or a pound per ride? Cheap enough that I don't even keep track.

I agree with the GP - the overnight services outside of limited routes in NYC aren't flash, and most of the rest of the US metro areas are appalling.

"Americans also have a weird fetish that you don't find other places about buying homes in their 20s."

This is fueled by the social taboo of living at home with your parents/family and the availability of mortgages.

And the fact that at the end of 20 years of paying a mortgage I own a piece of property while at the end of 20 years of paying rent I own nothing.

and now you own a place with one bedroom, that can be sold for 2/3 (if you are lucky) of the price you paid in full for the mortage.

if you spent the same in rent, you would have lived in a 2-3 bedroom for 20 years, moving every time you changed jobs

20yrs is a LOT of time to be living in the same place you can afford downpayment when you are 20yr old. and a LOT of time to work/study on the same area

Well, it's a three bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a two car garage. I've been in it since '93 Just after I turned 27. I'm the first owner. Original as built price ~$85,000. I'm not on the either coast and property prices were, and still are, a lot lower here. Last appraised value ~$122,000 (appraised 5 years ago), and similar sized homes in the same neighborhood are currently going for ~$135,000+. I'm in a nice neighborhood with relativly low crime compared to other parts of the city. In the intervening 18 years I have changed jobs once and stayed in the same city, and the new job is closer to home. I did refinance once to shave 2% off my interest rate so it will be another 7 years till it's paid off. Yes, mortgage interest does add up, but when you are renting an apartment you are basically paying the landlords mortgage interest anyway. If I did need to sell to move for a job I'd be able to roll the proceeds into the new home and have a much smaller, shorter mortgage to begin with. If I had rented for the same time period I would not have any built up equity. It would hurt to sell though, this house has seen me get married and gain two children. There are a lot of memories here.

I'm not sure that really proves your point. You've made about 2.8% annually over 13 years, not including your borrowing cost, agent fees, etc.

On the other hand, the S&P 500 returned 8.25% annually between 1993-2006. Say you put 10% down ($8500) and spend $800/year total on taxes, repairs, etc. (probably low). If you'd invested in an index fund, you'd have made $42,000.

If you'd invested in an index fund, you'd have made $42,000.

And also likely have moved several times at an average cost of around $2000 per move, seen rent increases above what his current mortgage is and so on. The odds are poor that all other things would have remained equal. I owned a house at one time. I benefited by about $2000/year over the time I owned it. When I refinanced, I got my escrow back and had no mortgage payment for a month. Then my payments after that were lower. No landlord in the world is going to drop by your apartment and leave you with a nice hefty check, say "Don't bother to pay me rent this month and, oh, next month your rent is going down. Cheerio!"

Great, then it worked out for you. I'm not saying there are no advantages to owning a house, but it's not a magical investment vehicle. Many people seem to just compare the purchase price to the sale price and think, "Wow, what a gain!" without considering all the other costs, or as what they could have made with another investment over the same period.

I never said it was an superior investment vehicle vis-a-vis investing in the market. Compared to renting is a different story.

At the end of that twenty years, you can keep renting for another twenty years. Or you can spend the remaining thirty or forty years of your life in the home you own clear and free without paying rent or mortgage any more. I sure as hell don't want to still be making out a monthly check for a place to live when I'm 50, 60, or even 70 (not that I seriously think I'm going to live to any of those ages).

Are you terminally ill or just have a really appalling lifestyle? To not make even 50 these days is pretty rare.

And at the end of that 20 years you own a piece of property. Or you could take that down payment and invest it. Will that property appreciate more than the return you can get for your money? Don't forget about property taxes too.

Renting gives you greater mobility too, which can be used to maximize income.

Also don't forget the home mortgage deduction on the income tax, which once you are itemizing opens the door to a whole host of other deductions. My effective federal tax rate this year was 4.6%, back when I was renting I could not have accomplished that.

True, but buying a house now is betting that that tax deduction is going to exist for the next 20 years. The financial situation of the US is insane. The next 20 years aren't going to look anything like the last 40.

I said that twenty years ago as a justification for not bothering with paying into a retirement account. This turned out to be a bad bet.

Thanks for the perspective. It's easy to get caught up in events and not realize this has been believed for many years.

What did you do with the money you would have saved?

I spent it entirely on things I now do not have. Going out to eat, buying books and CDs, etc. There were times I genuinely could not have afforded to save five or ten percent of what I was making, but lots of times I could have.

You can spend 20 years renting a home, or you can spend 20 years renting money in order to pay for a home. Either way you're paying rent.

> You guys are doing it again

Comparing apples and oranges, or rather, the ecosystems that produce apple trees vs the right ecosystem for growing oranges?

These discussions just go around and around. I vote that we ban them in favor of people who want to know what it's like in Europe vs the US buying those of us who have spent significant (more than 2 years) on the other side a drink, while they listen to our anecdotes.

Cost of living in Europe is higher than in the US. Consider cost of gasoline and real estate.

It's just that Europeans have lower income, so they do not buy things that wealthier Americans do. Europeans on average are driving smaller and older cars, they drive less. Other things you mentioned - Europeans are buying less gadgets.

Who's making the right choice is hard to say. Does larger house worth more than long vacation? The answer depends on who you ask.

Generalizations like Europe is more expensive than the US make no sense. Where in Europe, where in the US ? There is quite a difference between cost of living in London, Paris and Munich already, and the cost of living in the Bay Area is not the same as Austin.

Even within a given country, the cost of living is very spread out (London and Paris are extremely expensive compared to the average of their respective country for example).

Nothing stops you from comparing Austin, TX to Munich, Germany and San Francisco vs London/Paris.

Indeed. The point being that comparing cities is much more relevant than countries. It has also the nice property to avoid too much country-bias.

Funny, I (as an Austrian) am used to hearing that Munich is one of the most expensive cities in Germany.

The employee caries the cost of insurance, tax, etc... in every country: that's the tax incidence concept (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence).

The fact that from an administrative POV, some part is split between the employee and employer is just that: an administrative convention, but don't be fooled by it.

I don't know where people are getting the idea that Europe pays software developers $3000-$4000 per month. Maybe in eastern Europe, but in Switzerland, you can expect double that amount.. after tax.

Well, from European software developers actually :) .

I guess it depends on your definition of software developer, but my sister's Austrian boyfriend (a software engineer) makes less than U$ 4.000, and so do some of my Magic:the Gathering acquaintances.

Granted, they're in their 20s and will probably command higher wages later on (I hope :) ), but I do know of a guy in his 40s making less than that in Vienna as well (working for IBM)

Healthcare - Health insurance is often a luxury in America. The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens.

I get a little tired of hearing this. Study after study after study indicates that diet and lifestyle play a major role in all major deadly diseases. I was an American military wife for a couple of decades. Even after my divorce, I was entitled to free medical care at tax-payer expense. I did nothing to try to preserve that entitlement* because I was too busy making the dietary and lifestyle changes I needed to make in order to get well when I was told by some specialist that I would never get well. Eat right, exercise, don't smoke, don't drink to excess and all that other boring advice no one wants to hear and you greatly reduce the odds that you will need expensive medical care.

* And I'm saving the American public quite a lot of money because my medical condition is one of the more expensive chronic incurable conditions out there. It annoys me that it's all coming out of my pocket to get well but other folks would happily pay through the nose to help me stay sick and keep me a lifelong legal drug addict. /Rant

Why are you bringing up lifestyle? The discussion is insurance.

And my point is that, beyond the elderly, most citizens don't qualify for any of America's public insurance plans (I certainly don't):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_...

Why are you bringing up lifestyle? The discussion is insurance.

Insurance does nothing to really insure your health. It is intended to help protect your wallet. A better way to protect your health is to take care of yourself so you are healthy. The discussion in the US about "the healthcare crisis" always focuses on the financial piece of it. There are differences between Europe and the US that impact health having nothing to do with who pays the medical bills: Europe is generally more pedestrian-friendly, there is a different food culture and so on. All of those things impact health. I get tired of seeing "health insurance" held up as a) the only meaningful difference in health costs between the US and Europe and b) the only important part of "how to control medical costs" in the US debate on health care.

That's why I bring it up: Because to me the two things are related.

Insurance does nothing to really insure your health.

You are confusing "insure" and "ensure."

Thanks. Too late for me to edit though.

And if you get hit by a car?

And if you get cancer, despite your healthy lifestyle, which happens to millions?

Freak accidents like just getting hit by a car while minding your own business are uncommon. Most accidents that happen are basically "accidents waiting to happen". If you are hit by a car and seriously injured (as in quadraplegic), your medical insurance in the US will still fall far short of covering the costs. With or without insurance, you are far better off doing everything in your power to avoid ending up in such a situation: Don't drink and drive, don't get in the car with an unsafe driver, and so on.

If you are concerned about getting cancer, you can get a very affordable cancer policy for a lot less money than major medical coverage costs. As with the above situation, the expenses involved if you get cancer are likely to far exceed what insurance covers. And cancer is influenced by lifestyle. Most Americans aren't terribly healthy. For example, obesity is rampant in the US. So I would be interested in a citation for your assertion that "millions" of people with "healthy lifestyles" get cancer.

Thanks.

> The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens.

Actually, there is, it's called medicaid.

What? You make too much to be eligible for medicaid? That tells us that you don't need the safety net that it provides.

And, even without medicaid, it's possible to get free health care for fundamentals in the US. No, "free" doesn't cover everything, but no healthcare system does.

Medicaid doesn't cover you unless you are disabled or have children. It's not a very good safety net.

Seeing how caltrain is pretty much a once an hour service (23 service runs per weekday) made me realize unless you live in downtown SF or any other area of the US where car usage is extremely painful, you pretty much need a car if you want to get out of your neighborhood.

Once an hour is fine. What do you need to do that's so urgent that you can't plan ahead more than 45 minutes?

What happens if I told you your garage door will open for 30 seconds on the hour, every hour?

If you gave me an extra $500-1000 a month and significant extra life expectancy I'd take that deal in a heartbeat.

The freedom of being able to go wherever you want in a heartbeat in a car is highly overrated. Call a taxi for those times when it's actually urgent.

You miss my point - I don't have a car, nor do I want one, and I'm a complete proponent of urbanism and mass transit.

But once-an-hour does not a transit system make. There's a false dichotomy here - the choices aren't car vs. shitty transit. We can very well have good transit (i.e., arterial mass transit with frequency of every 10 minutes or better).

The problem with infrequent transit, particularly arterial routes, is that it completely wipes out the possibility of transfers. When your frequency is once an hour (with a high variance for on-time performance), people cannot rely on the transit method for making connections. Moreso, decreasing frequency increases total trip time for most people by a factor larger than the actual frequency drop (which is to say, a decrease in frequency of an arterial route results in a very large increase for most whole-trip times). A highly frequent (i.e. every 10 minutes or better) trunk line is the bed rock of any mass transit solution, and is absolutely non-optional.

When I was just starting out, I lived on one side of town and my work was on the other side of town. My home town has extremely well-regarded public transit. Still, it took about 2.5hrs to get to work. Another 2.5 to get back. That turned a 9 hour day into a 14 hour day. And if a bus or train was just a little early, it could screw things up even further.

We have this idea that Americans don't use public transit, because they're infatuated with their cars. To a degree, we are. However, we also hate the work commute. The reason more don't use public transit is that it is not feasible for the average person to spend so much time sitting on a bus or train and making two or three transfers every day twice a day . . . on top of work. Especially if they have a family.

The idea of tighter communities where people work near their home is fantastic. Too bad we've already built our cities and roads and housing tracts, though. It's a thought for another bustling economy that is just starting to build out their infrastructure in the 21st century instead of the 19th and 20th century to do, though. We've already built our mess.

To give you a comparison, the sky-train system in Vancouver comes every 2 to 10 minutes during most waking hours (late evening it comes every twenty on the canada line)

I hope you weren't taking my statement to be that our situation couldn't be better. It certainly could. All I'm saying is once an hour is perfectly adequate to ditch a car-centric lifestyle.

If you depend on other systems to commute (VTA, BART, etc...), then 45 minutes makes a huge difference. A one-way trip from South Bay to East Bay can easily take 3 hours if you take VTA+Caltrain+BART+Muni, while by car it takes just 30-45 minutes.

It's the time wasted waiting for rarely appearing public transportation that is the problem.

It's really inconvenient compared to NYC's subway system, but I've lived in Mtn. View for a year without a car, and it's been fine.

Question to non-french here, does your advertised salary include the employer's tax ?

For exemple here in France, on the salary my employer pays, it's divided pretty much like this: 40% employer's taxes, 20% employee's taxes, 40% final amount of money you put in the bank when all is said and done.

BUT my negociated salary, the one I signed on, never included employer's taxes, so for a 100€ salary I never discussed 100€ or even thought of it at any point, my contract has always been about 60€ (and then I pay about 20€ in taxes).

For me what that really changes is that:

- if employer's taxes increses, I have no idea about it, and my pay check doesn't change at all (neither if it decreases)

- our perceived salary seems to be a lot lower than some other countries.

So what I'm asking is, when you guys speak about that kind of salary being way too low, is it a "complete" salary or is it after employer's taxes ? I live with less that those 60k$/42k€ and I can afford a nice middle class life in the middle of Paris plus vacations every year ...

PS: actually if you look at french job offers, you will see "brut" and/or "net" salaries, brut is pre employee's taxes, net is post.

In the US, yes. The various taxes that employers must pay are paid separately, not taken out of their salary. If someone is talking about $60k or whatever, their takehome is $60k-federal income tax - social security tax - medicare tax - state income tax (some states don't have this, but most do)- local income tax (rare). On top of that, you are also likely going to have deductions for health/dental/etc insurance, and then pre-tax payments to your retirement plan (401k).

Separately, the company must pay a few other taxes on that $60k (nowhere near 40%, though)

For FICA (SS/Medicare) the employer pays as much as the employee. The FICA rate is 15.3% of your base pay(there is an upper limit), you pay half and the employer pays half (except for 2011, stimulus package and all, the employee part of the SS part of FICA is reduced). Typically with most large employers the employer pays 70-80% of the medical insurance premiums, varies by company. Same for Dental, long term disability, etc. Typically the employers overall cost is 20-30% of your salary.

In the US advertised salaries don't include personal income tax (local and federal), insurance, social security, medicare, 401k, and any other fees you might incur.

At the top of your paycheck you would see your 'advertised' earnings for that period and then at the bottom you have your take home net pay. Depending on your location, you loose around 20% of your 'advertised' pay to taxes and other mandatory things. If you contribute to a 401K you loose even more.

Why would it include personal income tax? Your tax situation could be different than mine (single vs. married, deductions AKA children, etc.) it would be impossible for the employer to know what you personal income tax is going to be. Insurance? if your spouse has access to a better insurance policy you might opt not to participate in your employers plan so why would they "include" that? Social security and medicare AKA FICA? they pay half, you pay half and the rate is easy to find (7.65%, except this year) 401k? well you are paying yourself there, it's still your money.

yes, but read the question above.

In Europe some of those things are paid through taxes and some are not. To make a reasonable comparison you need to know what's included each system and how the fees are arranged.

You fill out a form when you begin employment that specifies how much to withhold: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf

Yes, but that is typically after you have accepted the job, not before.

I know that salaries in Canada are advertised in what you would make before taxes/CPP/EI, which usually come out to 17-26% less for most mere mortals.

I've managed to get the best of both worlds, working for a German company in America. 28 paid days off, plus 7 holidays.

housing costs are amazingly obscene in some cities. Based on my minimal looking around, the cost of living is going to account for a lot of those "barely survive" stories.

That plus nice cars, eating out, and buying iPads.

Or you could be a contract developer in the US, make 2x US employee salary and take vacation whenever you don't have an active project (months if you want).

With the only caveat being to get that next contract.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, it is the way to go. You just need the constant stream of work, which is easier said then done.

...and the other caveat of trying to obtain medical coverage.

depends on where you live. Here outside of dental it's all covered. And the local CoC offers full dental/prescription coverage for a decent amount per employee.

You can do similar in Europe as well. At least when I was there, many of my colleagues at Schneider Electric were contractors making decent money (even for US rates).

Actually being a contractor in a country with good social safety net is even better... as you're employment isn't responsible for healthcare benefits* , your options are much better.

* France has a public/private deal where you (or your employer) can pay extra for better service, but the baseline social safety net is quite ample.

Pay varies widely in Europe. I work in Norway, get 6 weeks vacation a year, and make a lot more than I would in the US. Even after accounting for higher taxes and living expenses (rent, food, etc), I can still set aside almost $1000 more per month than I would if I were in the US.

When I talk to people for the first time they're always asking me if I'll be moving back to the US. My response is maybe someday, but for now I'd be crazy to give all that up!

One result of this is that businesses chuck human redundancy out the window. Often there's only one person who can do a business critical task, and as they can't really be gone from work for that long, the business gets by.

From an business uptime perspective, forced "downtime" of employees through vacation is actually a good way to force the creation of backup systems for business process.

There are a lot of companies that do force people to take vacations for precisely this reason.

I also recall hearing at some point in time that a lot of financial institutions forced certain people to take time off,as a means to detect embezzling. I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Yes, that is true.

I also recall hearing at some point in time that a lot of financial institutions forced certain people to take time off,as a means to detect embezzling. I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Not only is that practiced, it's the law.

Here in Sweden, employees typically have 5 weeks paid vacation. Because of our climate, virtually everyone take their time off during July.

This makes the whole inustial and coorporate sector grind to a halt. A lot of factories literally shut down for a few weeks.

Fortunately, it is rather well coordinated.

That really makes me think though: If they chucked redundancy out the window, that makes you the only person who can do a business critical task. Shouldn't that give you enormous leverage to negotiate with your employer? It often takes a lot of time and effort to get someone new up to your level. If they can't afford another couple weeks of vacation for you (in exchange for you staying on board instead of having to bring in someone completely new), then they must be doing it wrong.

What does everyone think?

Replacement cost is often quite high for any employee, even someone working a basic job, as training is expensive.

Thus why many employers don't do training other than the bare minimum - why train someone who might use the training to go elsewhere. This is the "keep them dumb and stupid" approach to employee retention.

Meanwhile, the employer keeps a bunch of "dumb and stupid" employees that they refuse to make better. Those employees that are self-starters will make themselves better and, if they want to, will leave anyway.

Seems kind of silly to me. If your better employees regularly leave your company, than you probably have more deeply-rooted organizational problems that need fixing.

From an business uptime perspective, forced "downtime" of employees through vacation is actually a good way to force the creation of backup systems for business process.

Or, when combined with a minimal vacation time bucket, forced vacation makes sure your employees will be there when you want them to be.

I know an auditor at a Big 4 accounting firm. The employees in her office are forced to take some vacation time during the slow time of the year. That way it burns down vacation time that they could otherwise be using during crunch time and causing short-staffing.

It wasn't always like this in Europe. Extended vacation time was one of the many hard-fought rights won by the socialist/trade-unionist movements of the past century throughout the continent. Not even Thatcher dared attacking that right (she dropped a few national holidays here and there, instead).

Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.

That may be true but here, in Europe (esp. Eastern), many people go years without taking more than few days of vacation. One, you're discouraged to take time off -- you can lose your job if you're not "devoted". Two, you have to work over capacity to support yourself and your family.

I guess that depends on the country. Here in Austria it's the norm to take all 5 weeks of holidays you get each year. If you don't take all of them you can either roll them over to the next year or have your unused days "paid for" by the employeer.

In addition, unused holidays don't really expire. So if you or your employeer terminates the contract, you have the right to be paid for _all_ unused holidays that accumulated during the period of the contract. That's the reason why most employees force you to really take all of your 5 weeks each year.

Edit: Seems that I was wrong and that unused holidays expire after a few years. Still, each employer I've worked for so far "forced" its employees to really take their 5 weeks of vacation.

Well, in Britain the regime is usually fairly generous, with 24 days + 8 national holidays (guaranteed to be working days) being the norm for middle-class jobs and IT. We already know about France. Italy, last I checked, had an average of 20 days + 13 national holidays, with teachers being famous for their 3-months summer break (which in practice is little more than a month, but anyway).

Yes, there is always pressure about choosing the right time for the business or public service, but at the end of the day it's a right and if you don't exercise it you're entitled to a lot of extra money -- which is why employers are keen on people actually taking time off.

> One, you're discouraged to take time off -- you can lose your job if you're not "devoted".

I don't know that this is the case in many European countries, including Eastern Europe (at least the part of it that is in the EU). First of all, in most (all?) EU countries all workers get 4 weeks paid vacation minimum. If you do not use up all of it, your employer can offer you to "carry over" the vacation to the next year. If they do not offer you that option then they are obliged to "force" you to go on vacation after it becomes clear that you will not use up all of your vacation days. Some employers will offer to instead compensate you extra for the vacation days you did not use up - this is legal in some EU countries only.

> Two, you have to work over capacity to support yourself and your family.

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this just doesn't make a lot of sense, since those mandatory 4 weeks of vacation are paid vacation - i.e. you get paid the same amount you would receive had you been working instead of being on vacation.

Just about the only reason why you could potentially make less money due to vacation is if you regularly do a lot of overtime (which you obviously cannot do while on vacation).

Not strictly Eastern Europe (was never part of Warsaw pact, had hostile relations to Soviet Union) but the former Yugoslavian countries today are in this seat: Slovenia enjoys vacation time like during Yugoslavian times, which means 4-5 weeks at least plus holidays. Croatia took a more capitalist route and altough workers still enjoy socialist benefits such as 1 hour per day payed for their lunch, and holidays off, the vacation time has been decreased while working time increased (10-12 hours per day are common). Bosnia has large unemployment but the holidays+vacation are intact for the public offices, while for private employees get 1 or 2 weeks off per year. Serbia is in a similar position.

Yugoslavia Socialism -> 4-5 weeks at least, plus all religioous holidays and all communist free days. Capitalism -> 1-2 weeks maximum, religious on, communist off.

IIRC both Croatia and Slovenia provide 20 days minimum and the rest negotiated wuth employers. If in a union that mostly means 3 or 4 weeks.

In Croatia the country shuts down during the summer.

To be fair to Thatcher, Arthur Scargil gave his workers lots of extra days off...

Usually the only time Americans can take long vacations is between jobs. I wonder how many actually change jobs just for this reason.

I asked for 4 consecutive weeks off to travel Europe once at a previous employer (I had worked there 5 years with no more then a week and a half off) and they denied the request. So I found another job and made sure I had a 4 week break between the two.

I love my employer. I recently just returned from a five week road trip with my family. I worked remotely for roughly a week (to save PTO for another trip), and they had no problem with it.

It's interesting however--some folks take advantage of the flexibility, while others do not. Just about everyone in the R&D group travels frequently, and the CEO will often go dark for a month at a time, but others in the company don't take more than a week or two of their PTO each year.

You should have asked the new employeer for more time off aswell

I've done this, though I didn't realize what I was doing at the time.

I was working for Sun Microsystems, which gave me two weeks of vacation time. Sun was doing a forced shutdown over the week of the 4th of July, which burned 4 days, and then there was the inevitable "shutdown" over christmas break, which burned another three days. This left me with 3 days of "elective" vacation time. A wedding took care of those.

I quit Sun, and deliberately took off 4 weeks before my next job started. Funny, when the 4 weeks were over, I was ready to go back to Sun. The job I had left was better than the one I was taking. I realized that I had just been terminally burned out. Maybe I should have called Sun back, we were still on good terms, but at the time, I didn't really realize this was an option... and this was the deep tech recession of the early 2000s (which accounts for the forced shut down in the summer), so they were trying to shed employees.

I wasn't a rock star, but I'm pretty sure I was valuable to the company. I'd spent almost three years writing code, learning the structure of sun's data warehouse, getting to know supply analysts, people in sales, people in manufacturing, and understanding the issues in logistics and how to write analytical apps to support these functions. Even if my hard skills could be replaced (they certainly could, by any Industrial Engineering major with intermediate programming ability), the new person would still take years to acquire all that domain and institutional knowledge.

This is why I do agree that it's nuts for companies to be so stingy with vacation time. An extra week or two a year would probably have kept me at Sun. I think the reason this inefficiency persists is that employers just don't see the connection. I didn't even see the connection, and I was the one who quit my job.

It could be that I'm more prone to burnout than most. Maybe so, but I don't think I'm an extreme outlier on this. I suspect lots of job-hopping and burnout does result from such low vacation allotments.

I think this is why Germany, Sweden and other northern European contries are able to compete: americans work many hours, but are semi-burned out, so the total amount of work are the same, vacation or no vacation.

Until today I have never heard of a US company forcing employee's to use "forced shutdown" days - which I'm interpreting to mean the company telling people they have off on a certain day - as vacation days, and this is the second time (at least) it's been mentioned in this thread.

How common is this exactly? Because this sounds like a company that is really, really screwing it's employees.

I think its common during recession period when companies are looking to save costs (better than firing people right) and also reduce inventory

It's pretty common, actually. They do it for the reasons awa pointed out, as well as to reduce the debt burden for the compan. IANAC [1], but I believe this has something to do with unused vacation leave being charged as outstanding debt. It's also a way of saving money by shutting down operations at a time when less gets done anyway.

Sun, like most companies, did give the option of taking the leave without pay and preserving your vacation time.

Maybe that's one option for US companies - pay for two weeks of vacation time, but culturally allow up to six without pay. Then we'd actually be somewhat more like European countries, but with an option - reduce your salary if you'd like more vacation, but keep working and make more money if that's more your style.

I doubt I'll see this happen - first, "leave without pay" is unusual in the US, typically done medical conditions where the employee wants to return to the job, but will be forced to leave for long periods of time (pregnancy leave is often handled this way). Another problem is that it may actually be inefficient - it would create a financial incentive to take minimum vacation time, and a lot of people believe, with some evidence, that workers are less productive this way.

[1] IANAAC: I am not an accountant ;)

I've been at a company where even normal holidays (Christmas) were considered vacation (forced for non-scheduled personal - i.e. most IT). They were also one of those companies that combined sick leave and vacation. They really didn't give enough days to compensate (starting people really only had about a week and a half of vacation if they didn't get sick / stuck in hospital).

These furloughs have become absolutely routine for municipal governments. In the (likely) event of a budget shortfall, they just shutdown for one friday a month (or some variation) and take either vacation days or a day of pay away.

There are two types. The 'shutdown', or technically in my companies case the 'plant shutdown', and the 'furlough' day.

At my company, the factory has 7,000 employees in one location. So many people took vacation between Christmas and New Years that the factory simply can not operate. The solution was either to only give that time off for a select group of people (pissing off most of the factory guys), or to make everyone take that time off (pissing off the few that used to come in that week and goof off).

Unfortunately they extended it from the guys in the factory up to the engineers. Which really makes no sense. I'm working on a project that won't hit the factory floor for another year. Why can't I work between Christmas and New Years? I would be amazingly produtive without all the meetings and distractions. Not only do we have to take the time off and use vacation (or not get paid and don't come in), but we are not allowed to come in even if we wanted to. I assume this is all negotiated with the unions, they never want the salaried guys to have perks that they don't have. So for I end up burning 3-5 out of 10 vacation days a year on a week I absolutely do NOT want to take off. But I still get paid for those days at least. And there are ways to get around it (floating holidays, i.e. work 40 hours in 4 days in a week with a holiday gives you the holiday back) which in effect allow you to have your full 2 weeks. If that was not the case I think the salaried engineers would have fought back against the practice more. Although I guess most people with kids like that week off anyway, I just view it as a waste, I like taking my vacation during the times those with kids can't take vacation. Everything is cheaper and less crowded.

A 'furlow' is an unpaid day that the company forces you to take. A lot of government employees have these now, you must take 1-5 days off a year and not get paid for those days. In effect it is a pay cut but in exchance you get more vacation days. The most interesting thing about the furlough is that very often you see people given a choice between everyone taking a few days furlough or a bunch of people getting fired. More often than not, everyone votes to have a few people fired.

I was very bummed that Sun forced me to take off the week of 4th of july for the same reason. I wanted to take a week in San Diego at the beach. That's crowded any time in the summer, but after labor day, when school resumes, the weather is actually nicer in early fall (they call it "june gloom" in san diego, coastal fog is still common in early-mid summer), rentals are way easier to get, and hotel prices drop dramatically. Instead, Sun was forcing me to take my beach week at the most expensive and slightly less desirable time of year. And when you only get two weeks at all, that's pretty crappy.

The amazing thing to me is that that simple little policy - which probably makes a lot of sense to executives with kids at these large companies that take the week off anyway - is enough to drive me away to another company. It is definitely more cost effective to just give people more vacation than to be replacing an engineer.

I think this kind of thing would almost certainly be illegal in the EU. If the company closes it's doors and you're willing to work, then they cannot take that out of your annual leave.

Some countries laws (eg Ireland) explicitly allow forced closure for Christmas, it is also in several contracts (that part of your holidays must be over a certain period). This is the closest it gets in Europe.

No.

It used to be pretty common here in Sweden that factories shut off for three weeks in the middle of the summer and everyone had vacation.

The practice is getting increasingly uncommon nowadays though since factory jobs is a smaller part of the total employment force.

Unfortunately, some of use take negative vacations between jobs, cashing out unused vacation on Friday, and starting a new job on Monday. It's only a month or two later that we realize our mistake.

I work for a big financial co. When I asked about five consecutive weeks off they did not like it at first. But HR could not find anything against it in "Employee Handbook" (or whatever it's called). At the end they had to give it to me.

My guess is at the big corporations HR cannot just make up rules as they go. Also, they are all afraid to break any written rules. So a little push from an employee could bring desired results.

The thing I find most interesting about this discussion is that we have not yet seen anyone from the US proudly claiming that by working harder they are more productive than the rest of us. I have seen similar conversations several times on various on-line forums in the past, and there was always a defensive/proud mindset from a significant group, even as those of us outside the US wondered if they realised how much their employers were abusing them.

Since the financial mess of the past couple of years showed that US productivity figures that seemed too good to be true really were just an illusion, I'm hoping that the mindset of the average US worker has become a bit more realistic and a bit less willing to accept (by international standards) abusively long hours and short vacations. It will be good for the workers, and I expect for their employers as well in the long run, since working with better rested and happier employees is one of the surest ways to improve productivity known to man.

It's a death spiral.

Work harder / longer - shift to extreme right-wing politics - slowly lose status as the "greatest nation in the world" - grit your teeth and work even harder / longer...

Left wing/right wing is a ridiculous argument. How much vacation do they get in North Korean factories?

The financial mess has created the exact opposite effect. Now, in the name of cost cutting and efficiency, employers are making people work more hours with less vacation time. No one complains and just go with the idea that, "at least I have a job".

The United States has one of the very highest GDP (PPP) per hour worked in the world. Been that way for a long time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... . It makes sense, given our massive capital stock. So working longer hours here would mean a lot more productivity.

I myself value leisure highly, though. I have a job as a software engineer at a large bank in New York. Right out of college, the bank allows me (and all other first-year developers) four weeks of vacation per year, and I'm taking full advantage of it. I like to travel.

Demand for software engineering talent is so strong right now in the United States that I'm surprised so many Americans on Hacker News feel they can't take a decent vacation. I'm sure if they spoke to their bosses they could work something out. You shouldn't be afraid to ask for a reasonable vacation.

I'm right there with you. I work for a small VoIP company as a support engineer and even we get decent vacation. Plus we work remotely 60% of the time. I've got it setup right now that ever 12 days of work I have 7 days off. Plus I have sick days and personal days. Which I don't need to use as I can just work from home (unless I'm so sick i can't work).

Someone did actually make (roughly) that point[1], but it was since deleted.

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2576325 is the thread that was sparked by this comment.

I don't necessarily think that lack of vacation makes you more productive (though I am still not convinced that taking ten days away from the office somehow makes you more productive for the other 255). I do, however, think that most employers will notice when you're gone. Especially for long periods of time. They may not necessarily notice that you're the guy who never is out of the office, but sometimes it's better not to be noticed at all than to be noticed as the guy who always triggers "OUT OF THE OFFICE UNTIL" autoreplies.

This is crazy from our (Western European) perspective.

It was one of my reasons for not taking a job in the USA that was offered me a few years ago. Yes, it paid somewhat more than here in Europe but I'd rather have the benefits such as more free time and better health care than more income.

I can only agree.

I plan to move to SF in the following months, but this is one of the issues why I think that I won't stay there permanently, but will move back to Europe after a few years.

In my experience, big companies in the U.S. are often willing to negotiate on the number of vacation days issued. I negotiated 4 weeks of vacation/sick time + 6 holiday days at my last job. I took a a couple thousand dollars less than my target salary, but I was definitely happier.

Also, banks, educational institutions, and government offices are more generous when it comes to vacation days. Tech companies and ad agencies are generally the stingiest.

I can't speak for the health care, but I imagine that you could have negotiated for better vacation time.

It strongly depends on the company. Many companies use vacation time as a perk strictly for seniority, and are inflexible about changing it; or if you do get a break, you forego further increases until your seniority has "caught up".

It's pretty stupid, particularly since it's a fairly strong disincentive to relocate: precisely after you've moved away from friends and family, they give you less time to visit them. It was one of the biggest reasons I never moved to CA when I had the offer, H-1B, etc.

My employeer recently went unlimited vacation! Which in practice really means no vacation unless you bully your way into it which is very stressful.

That is definitely the perk that isn't. Imagine a startup offering employees unlimited pay -- "Whoa whoa whoa, you drew $3,000 this month? $3,000!? You're a single guy, what do you need $3,000 for? Don't we give you enough soda?"

My employer has the same policy, and I've enjoyed a ton of vacation time (in exchange for getting a lot done when I'm not on vacation). Unlimited vacation is an awesome perk in the hands of the right employer.

It really is dependent upon your work environment, and the people you work for. When I started at my current job, we had two weeks vacation after 6 months, plus half a dozen holidays. We were a very young company, and I got the impression that policy was created somewhat arbitrarily when we only had a couple of full time employees.

We went to an 'unlimited' policy about 16 months ago, and one of our devs spent almost an entire month overseas earlier this year without issue. He's not too much of an outlier within our company in terms of how much vacation time is taken, either.

I'm a Swedish developer. This year I have 7 weeks of vacation, and I plan to use it all. I normally get the 5 weeks required by law. Last year, I only used 4 of those 5 weeks, so one spilled over to this year. I also got a bonus week of vacation for working a lot of overtime last summer. So that makes 7 weeks.

Also please note that this is paid vacation we're talking about.

In Sweden, we have five weeks of vacation by law. And, the right to take four of those weeks consecutively.

Indeed. It's not only paid, but I get 112% of my normal salary during vacation because your living expenses increase when you're on holiday.

Quite simply wow. As somebody with 24 holidays a year, ( sick leave included, which you tend to be a lot in India) all I can say is wow.

The latter is pretty nice - even in Germany, you only have a right to 2 consecutive weeks.

It's a function of the climate, if you excercise your right to four consecutive weeks, your employer has the right to pick the dates, as long as they are sometime between June and August, since that's when our summer is.

For this reason we have the "industrial vacation" in July when all heavy industry shuts down, since it's easier if everyone and the entire supply chain shut down at the same time.

In the UK these are often called "trade holidays" and used to be set on a city by city basis - this seems to have died out now that we have relatively little heavy industry left.

Hur kan man hitta ett jobb i Sverige? ;) Måste man talar svenska?

Hehe no, most often not. If you're a webguy, contact me (nixy at bede dot se). We're hiring in Stockholm! (The e-mail domain has nothing to do with the company, it is my private e-mail.)

Most jobs are advertised at the government-run (but great) Platsbanken

google-translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=...

I cant imagine Swedish would be much of an issue if you work with software development. Even outside technology, most swedes speak english well enough for basic communication.

Still, if you get a work permit (easy), you get to attend free Swedish lessons.

Nej. At least, I'd bet. But it might make it easier.

No. IT people tend to know more than enough english for english speakers to get along.

It also happen to be a huge lack of IT people on the market at the moment..

The flip side, of course, is that you have to survive our winters. :P

I've found this is something that really surprises Europeans. But, once, when I was comparing notes with some travelers in a hostel in New Zealand, we asked a South Korean among us for his perspective. He said that he and everyone he knows gets maybe 2 days paid vacation a year. They work most weekends and get maybe 1 holiday. He said if you want to travel, you have to quit your job to do it, with no guarantee you will get another when you get back.

This changed my perspective. The difference between that and the States' 10ish days off is much greater than the difference between us and Europe. It is hard for me to imagine. Can anyone else with knowledge of East Asia chime in? Was this guy's experience representative? If so, it is a bit silly to call America the "no vacation nation." We do get vacation.

I'm not sure how common this is but "vacation" for the few Japanese and Chinese tourists I've met is usually done as a work retreat. For example, your division has met or exceeded its objectives for the year? Congratulations! you're all going to Hawaii for a week. I assume this is how compensation is done there.

While vacationing in Hawaii I read an article about the massive logistics it took to host about 10 million Amway sales reps from China. The visa and hotel backlog was insane so it took about 2 years from when they were promised to when they were actually delivered that company paid vacation.

According to this source, the average number of paid vacation days in Korea (presumably South Korea) is 25 days:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922052.html

I'm actually kind of surprised at how good the Canadian number is compared to the US (I'm in Canada). But now that I think about it, I do get 3 weeks plus stat holidays (about 1 week) and a December company shutdown (another 4 days or so). I haven't been shy about asking for unpaid days off either.

This is pretty common. A lot of places in Chinatown in Toronto are open on holidays. My parents (who are Asian) also don't take vacation unless it's a federal holiday.

I work in South Korea as a software developer for an RnD startup. The legal requirement for paid holidays in (most) contracts is 10 paid days plus public holidays. Public holidays are not really considered holidays by many as there is a very strong compulsion to spend it with your extended family instead of "going anywhere". They don't carry over unused days from what I can grasp from the laws (in Korean).

That said, people are discouraged from taking holidays in many companies, especially large Chaebol-style companies. I know a few people who work 6 days a week, 10 hours a day with two holidays a year and one of them must be a Sunday. Competition, for everything, is far more intense here than it was in Australia or the US.

America doesn't do vacation because of a mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word "productivity".

As long as you have management consultants who specialize in the single metric of productivity (i.e. number of dollars of profit vs. number of dollars spent on people making the profit), you will have miserable people.

American corporate culture seems to live by the motto "Don't think - measure!"

Well, in general, I'm in favor of measuring - "thinking" is often a buzzword that means jumping on whichever fad bandwagon you just saw in the airline magazine. It's picking what to measure where some thought is required.

There is also the problem that with an emphasis on "measurement" there comes an associated emphasis on values that are easy to measure. The current example is the difficulty of measuring programmer productivity, especially the weaknesses of LOC as a metric. The classic example of this is the rule of the management dweebs in the Defense Department during the Vietnam war and the near collapse of small unit cohesion and esprit de corps during that time.

I've witnessed this. Counterintuitively, I think it's a side-effect of not understanding math.

To those without a good understanding of statistics, numbers and graphs are a mystical, magical way to easily improve just about anything.

It's also a way to avoid personal responsibility and human judgment.

Relative to cost-of-living, are wages the same, lower, or higher in countries with mandatory paid vacations? One wonders whether there's a delusive "free lunch" notion underpinning Euro vacation policy, whether governments really can force companies to pay everyone more for the same level of output, or whether Euro economies have discovered an effective way to engineer a more efficient labor force by attempting to outlaw burnout.

Because, at the end of the day, the company is buying completed-and-sold widgets for their salary dollar. All things being equal (including widget output), if the company pays you $50k a year and gives you 4 more "paid" vacation weeks, they gave you a raise. You can mandate 2, 4, or 8 weeks of vacation, but --- at least in middle class jobs --- you can't really mandate a salary floor.

No vacation really sucks. I took 2 months between jobs once, but I've always been able to take a week or two weeks at a time. Now, we have the same policy as netflix. Basically you take time off when you want it, and you take as much as you want. It's all paid. Our only designer is gone for 3 weeks to get married. We'll struggle a little bit for those 3 weeks, but I'm grateful that when it's my time to take a week or two off, I don't feel guilty or have to beg for it.

The funny thing is, the Netflix policy is tied to a corporate culture that's reputed to be very high stress, performance-focused, and quick to terminate. In such an insecure environment, I would be very surprised if Netflix employees took more vacation than the average industry employee.

I would never want to work for a Netflix-model company. When I take vacation, I want to feel entitled to it (because I am!), and when I forgo vacation, I want to be paid out for that sacrifice when I leave the company.

I think the Netflix model exists more to improve the company ledger by reducing liabilities than to help the employee or promote a healthy work environment. Maybe it's different where you work, but that's my perspective, from my comfortable 12 company holidays, 15 days PTO perspective.

We have the Netflix policy, well almost. We get the time off when you want it, but never more than 5 working days together (Thats a week). Did I mention that a large number of the employees travel abroad to visit family?

I find it hard to believe that the employer really gains much by offering less than 3 weeks. No one is fully productive 52 weeks a year (or even 50).

Nobody has mentioned the obvious: weak unions.

I'm not sure how much that has to do with it.

I live in Chicago, no one around here would accuse the unions of being weak, but vacation time here is no different than in the south.

Unless you mean on a national level (unions pushing for federal reform and what-not) than yes the unions here are weaker, but the U.S. Also tends to be more opposed to national regulations than Europe as well.

Here in Sweden the government mostly only legislated what the unions and the employer organizations already had agreed to. That went on throughout the 40's to the 70's. At that point the state legislated some things that had no prior agreement and then progress basically stopped.

Considering most vacation law is set at the national level, yes, weak union power at the national level results in the situation we have here.

I have a feeling that there is a bit more to it than that.

In America it is fairly common for employers tack on a little more vacation time every year for both salary and hourly employees. It isn't too terribly odd to have 1 to 1.5 months off a year after working for someone for 5 to 10 years, but Americans seldom stay at the same job for very long. Either you go off for greener pastures, quit out of frustration, get laid off or simply resign because they fear that prospective employers won't hire you because you stayed at one place for too long.

Deep down, I think we have a serious fear of being considered lazy by our peers.

It isn't too terribly odd to have 1 to 1.5 months off a year after working for someone for 5 to 10 years

I would actually say that that's very odd, except in very specialized fields.

The stepped-by-seniority approach is how my current employer has it. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

This topic is covered on a somewhat regular basis in The Economist - usnder different guises. One memorable comparison between Europe and the USA was that Americans work more so they can spend the occasional weekend on their expensive boat while Europeans are happier taking longer vacations on canoe trips.

How many Americans can only afford health coverage via their workplace plan?

How many Americans live in right-to-work states and can be dismissed without a reason?

Add that together and you have a lot of fear.

Nitpick: you're referring to at-will employment, not right-to-work. Right-to-work laws mean that you can't be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. At-will employment means that you can (theoretically) be fired or quit at any time for no reason.

You are correct sir.

Though the two are related in that almost all of the employees that cannot be terminated at the employer's will are unionized. Even in the right-to-work states, almost all of the employees of governments and universities cannot be fired at will.

The worst part of it IMO is that even if you could pay for insurance without your workplace plan huge numbers of Americans can't get it at all due to pre existing conditions. So this is a serious impediment to workers leaving stable jobs that they don't like to do things like found small startups or even just move to a new job that may not be as stable.

I'm wondering how much of it is because people neglect to negotiate their vacation time when changing jobs.

Most American workplaces start you out with 2 weeks and then usually add a week or so after so many years of seniority. When you change jobs, how many of you ask for that same amount of vacation time at the new company? Or do you just accept that you're new and don't want to push things by asking for more at the onset? Or is it just forgotten until it's too late to ask?

I asked for, and received 3 weeks vacation after a recent job switch. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The relative value of an extra week of vacation time is far greater than if my salary were bumped by the additional ~2% that I'd get by being there.

I've got a co-worker who negotiated extra time of when he started here (3 weeks instead of the normal 2). Normally, we get an extra week of vacation after 5 years of employment. Unfortunately, they screwed him out of it because he already had 3 weeks, which is the normal amount for someone with 5 years of tenure. :-(

It's kind of interesting that "negotiated five extra weeks of vacation" turns into "failed to get an extra week vacation for every year, indefinitely". I guess it didn't occur to him (or either side, possibly) to specify the difference?

So if he worked there for 10 years he would have gotten 10 x 3 = 30 weeks holiday, however had he not negotiated he would have gotten 5 x 2 + 5 x 3 = 25 weeks.

I cannot see how you consider that he got a bad deal.

It's a bad deal because he negotiated less starting salary in return for more starting vacation.

Or do you just accept that you're new and don't want to push things by asking for more at the onset?

You raise an important point. There can be a bit of that. For example, negotiating additional vacation time when you start a new job can hurt you a year later when you take that vacation and things aren't going well for the company. It can be viewed negatively by management and it might bleed into other considerations, like raises or promotions. Screwed up, I know, but it happens.

When my old company was going under and a lot of us were looking for new jobs this was a tactic we all used. Go for pay and vacation time increases on offers. Some of us took more pay, some took more vacation. One guy got 6 weeks vacation.

My new company is 3 weeks vacation and 5 days sick/personal for everyone. Instead I just took more money with the understanding that I could get approved for leave without pay as needed.

Of course, that depends entirely on the company/industry. I don't even know that "most" American workplaces start you out with any vacation. In professional fields, they mostly do, I'm sure. My mom has worked at the same place for around twenty years and she has zero vacation. The only way I would be able to get her to come for a visit where I am is if I subsidized the time (ie, paid the money she would otherwise be missing out on, on top of the expense of the travel) -- because either way, she still has bills to pay.

I find that I take a lot of what I have in my daily business life for granted and am often surprised when I'm struck by the reality of how few benefits positions in other places in this country give people.

How many of you treat conferences as mini-vacations? I find that in my field, going to a couple conferences throughout the year makes up for a couple days of vacation, as long as I don't have any work on my plate.

Also, I find that being single and having friends that (on the majority), make less than I do, makes it difficult to plan trips to places you'd have to fly/rent a hotel for. Trips consist of ten friends carpooling, getting a group rate at a ski resort, and renting out a condo for next to nothing for a weekend.

I definitely do that.

I have a lot of vacation days through work (6 weeks this year), but have pretty much no desire to go on vacations. I end up using my vacation days to go to Security conferences.

I've found, at least with my favorite conferences (CanSecWest, Shmoocon), that they refill my "info-sec excitement meter" for a good four months before I start considering quitting and going to work in a comic book store.

I think about quitting and working a lower paying job all the time. That just inspires me to sock away more of my excess income for that day when it eventually comes.

So, in the field of software engineering where competition for employees is tough, is it really still common to give only 2 or 3 weeks vacation? Would it be considered outrageous to ask for 5 or 6 weeks of vacation when interviewing for a position, in Silicon Valley?

I don't know about SV in particular, but I've worked a several tech companies over the years.

Yes, usually HR can make exceptions. But you need a good reason, like "at my current job I have 3 weeks of leave accrued, I want to not lose that if I come work for you".

But having an engineer who accrues vacation at a different rate than other employees hired under the same circumstances would be quite exceptional. It would stand out in their records and they might not have a good way to justify their decision if they were questioned about it "why is troles taking so many vacations?".

During the hiring process, it's probably not a good idea to act exceptional in the amount of vacation you plan on taking! It would be easier to negotiate on salary.

On the contrary, there is no better time to negotiate than post offer, pre acceptance.

I didn't mean to imply he shouldn't negotiate or that it wasn't a good time for it, only that some things are easier to negotiate than others.

Yes, I can see how an employer would have trouble justifying go give one employee more time off. It's a lot easier to hide differences in salary.

That said, if employers are serious about attracting talent, perhaps it wasn't a bad idea to offer more time off for everybody. I know that coming from a country where 6 weeks time off is the minimum, it would be a serious disincentive for me to want to work in the states.

That's really crazy, but it gives employers the chance to hire and retain the best talents not only with salary wars.

I still think that the major problem is that the US is one of the three only nations in the world that does not have paid maternity leave. Absurd.

Actually there are numerous companies in the U.S. that do have maternity leave. I used to work for an agency in NY that generally had less pay but more benefits.

For software companies (and probably to all other industries which hire 'knowledge workers'), it should be very important to give enough of vacation time to their employees (developers).

For me that is no brainier, but unfortunately, very few hi-tech companies actually understand that. So you have high-rate of "burn outs" which cause all kind problems (bugs, bad design decisions, etc.). The management mantra is still: The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Also, I was surprised how it is very hard to find a hi-tech company offering something like unpaid sabbatical leave or fulltime sabbatical replacement position (i.e., programmer working in sales for one or two months). Some banks and hedge funds do that.

Sad but true.

Years back when I was working for an American employer, filing a leave seemed like taboo. I didn't understand it back then but when my wife got hospitalized, I filed for an emergency leave of course, my boss sent flowers with a note that goes something like this: "Hope your wife gets better yada yada...can you work while you're at the hospital?"

I had a boss like that. He texted me Christmas Eve, asking about progress on my latest project.

I quit a month later and found another company that gave me 6 weeks vacation (starting). And much better pay to boot.

No heathcare, no vacation, can get fired with no notice, crap public transport, astronomical crime rate, dubious legal freedoms.

Why is it you guys pay your government again?

Liberation/spreading democracy :)

Yes... I forgot to mention education. How much did my 24 years of education cost me? Squat.

High salaries; cheap consumer goods; teenagers on the street are polite, and shop assistants can count and spell.

But that's all I can think of. And you missed "slow broadband".

Okay - 1 and 2 make sense; teenagers: are they really polite? my sarcasm detector is off - if comparing it to the scumbag quotient of the British Isles then I totally see where you are coming from; can shop assistants count and spell better?

I am indeed thinking of the British Isles (glad you spotted that: I suspected I needed to qualify that claim somehow). I'm convinced that Americans spell their own language better than the British (or the French), who can misspell any handmade sign however simple. I probably don't have enough anecdotal evidence to make the counting claim compelling, but I've never managed to confuse an American cashier by overpaying in some complicated way in order to get fewer coins in change.

Hmmm, yes, damn do we specialise in that untended-to social minority of scumbags.

I must try that next time I am over. Perhaps they are better at mental arithmetic because they are always adding the tax back on?

>but I've never managed to confuse an American cashier by overpaying in some complicated way in order to get fewer coins in change.

You have better luck than me. I have an issue nearly every time I do this in the states. I always just smile and say "type it into the machine and you'll see".

I don't find the salaries that high in practice (depends heavily on where you live), teenagers on the street are anything but polite and I don't know what you mean about counting and spelling. I do know that every time I've been in a store that lost power I wasn't able to check out because no one in the store knew how to assess the taxes.

Move to Norway - the best place to live according to the UN: http://goo.gl/012ea

Just be aware that while it might be a good place to live, Norwegians find lots to complain about anyway. Also, it's definitely not the most exciting place to live. You'll earn enough to buy a place to live, have kids and spend your five weeks of paid vacation somewhere warmer.

FWIW, I've met Americans who have moved here because of our socialist values (yes, socialist... it's not a curse word where I come from ;)), and are pretty happy about it.

Very simply, this country was founded by people with the Protestant Work Ethic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic and it has become a part of our national identity.

I live in the more protestant part of Germany, Hamburg. People here get the same vacation (the company I work for has 28 days paid vacation for its employees). The only difference is that we have a few days less public holidays than in the catholic regions.

It really isn't so much the religious aspect of Protestantism but the work ethic associated with early American settlers and the lack of fun they believed in. There is a really wonderful book by Harriet Beecher Stowe which outlines the lives of these people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Town_Folks

The 'protestantischer Arbeitsethos' (protestant work ethic) is originally a concept developed in Germany (propagated to neighbor countries and then to the USA) and still very influential here.

I do not think it is that, since the parts europe that is protestantic have more vacation than the catholic parts, in average.

"Protestant work ethic" is the term we use for a specific group of people who happened to also be protestant. And it very much is the case. You hear it in nearly every person you talk to.

"Century of the Self" is a great documentary on how the American population has been socially engineered by corporations.

You can (legitimately) download "Century of the Self" here:

Part 1: http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0 Part 2: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... Part 3: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... Part 4: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar...

I can second this. It is one of those documentaries that you need to see at least once before you die. Very informative.

This description makes these docs sound like they come from the conspiratorial wing of filmmaking. (no insult implied mcantelon.)

However, they are in fact some of the most important pieces of film I have ever watched, and Adam Curtis is one of the greatest documentary makers ever.

I encourage you to watch all these, then go and watch all his other works, starting with the Power of Nightmares.

in Russia we have approx. 4 weeks of paid vacations which don't expire if you dont use them, people work from 9 to 6 with 45 mins for lunch, and from 9 to 4:45 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (40 hrs work week). If national holidays fall onto workdays, there's an extra day off. Mostly this is observed now, administration tend to force people go on vacation to make accounting simpler. For several years we had Christmas vacations from 1 to 10th of January.

now a joke story as it is told in Russia.

at one company people worked their asses off very hard, came earlier, left later, sometimes worked until 9 or 10 to meet goals in the plan. and suddenly one man started to appear at 9, leave an 6 and didn't appear on Saturday and Sunday when the deadline was near. colleagues started to look at him with blame, and finally told him, who the fuck you think you are? why you so relaxed when we are tearing our asses? - oh, sorry guys, its a real shame, - he replied, - but i am on a vacation

I know a fair few people who work one month on, one month off (pro rata, of course). Even in London or Hong Kong (not Tokyo) a competent developer can earn enough in 6 months to live on for 12.

Allow me to air a dissenting opinion, since everyone here seems to make fun of those poor US workaholics.

I think the low number of vacation days is just a side effect of Americans not having such a strict compartmentalization between "work" and "life". I worked on both sides of the Atlantic and although I settled in Europe now I actually like the US work ethic, the low number of vacation days notwithstanding.

For many Europeans work is something they do to have bread on the table and the "real" life is that part you're not working. For many Americans their work is their life and the free time they have gets intermingled with work (they take the kids to the company barbecue! never heard of that happening in Europe).

But if most of your waking moments are spent doing something which is not your primary objective than you could say the Europeans are the sad ones.

(Side note: I am now in the happy position that I enjoy running my own company, I might feel different if I had a lousy job)

Thank you. I am my work and I live to work and I'm tired of people treating me like some sort of pariah, because of it. The only thing I will spend more time doing in my life besides working is sleeping and that thing I do and how well I do it greatly defines me. I am not just the man who exists between the few hours after work and before bed and if others are, then I'm sorry for them. (I understand that isn't everyone - many people do love what they do and care about the work they make with their lives, but still enjoy the lengthy break now and then).

I get 23 days holiday entitlement plus UK bank holidays which this year thanks to Prince William adds on another 9 days.

Like some others however, I have dreamt about travelling long term so have handed my notice in, managed to secure some small freelance gigs and leave next wednesday for Bangkok, my holiday entitlement just wasn't enough ;)

It's no better in Canada the usual vacation time is two weeks with that increasing to three after maybe five years then after ten years it may go to four weeks but that's it it's extremely rare to see more than five weeks.

The years of service are calculated for full-time positions so if you worked at a company part-time for five years and then became full-time only then does the clock start to tick towards more vacation time.

In my job the summer is a busy time and vacations are blacked out from July to August the best times to go in a snowy country. The rest of the year the quiet time is used for projects which also mean no vacation.

Over six years each year I managed to get a week or two in, barely, but I've got 210 hours of vacation and 200+ hours of sick time (maxed out) that I can't use because I can never get time off. And I'm not allowed to take two weeks in a row either. Time to move on!

Actually several sources show Canada is better than the US, although how much better depends on the source. This one below paints the rosiest picture I've seen for Canada, I've seen others show as few as 19 (for average) while show 14 for the US (same as below):

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922052.html

That seems bizarre, any job I've ever had or anyone I know get two weeks vacation.

Anyone you ask wouldn't get any more than two weeks and self-employed seasonal workers such as farmers and fishermen may not get any vacation.

In my experience in the infrastructure/defense/aerospace fields, you get 2 weeks to start, but 3 weeks after 2 years, plus 1 week company shutdown in December. Plus stat holidays of course (about one week's worth).

My employer gives the usual 2 weeks vacation for the first year of employment. Then, every year after that, you get an extra week up to 4 weeks paid vacation per year. Also, my employer is very vacation friendly in terms of requesting time off.

However, the biggest problem I have is actually taking the time off! I feel like I will miss too much work if I take a long vacation so I just take off a day or two here and there to "relax." And just like the article says I am always available via email on my cell phone and although I don't want to admit it, I am usually available on my computer as well.

What do you mean "miss too much work" ?

Seriously, what's the worst that could happen if you're not there for a week or two?

His comment seems fairly self explanatory, to me. If you have five things to do every day and you do five things every day, you keep up. If you have five things to do every day and you don't do them for ten days, you have 55 things to do on the eleventh day.

But most americans seem to have two weeks of vacation each year, if your reasoning is correct, then every american would get two weeks behind each year.

Except, it doesn't work like that, right? In our profession, you don't have a steady workload, sometime you need to do more, sometimes you need to do less. You have colleagues that can cover for you when you are not at work.

There's this weird-ass mentality in the US that you shouldn't be paid when you're not at work, but that's just the wrong way of thinking about it. If I have five weeks of paid vacation and a week of holidays, then the company pays me my yearly salary for 46 weeks of labour.

If the company expects me to do more than 46 weeks of labour in a year, it's doing something wrong. That is not the deal, and if there's more work that needs to be done, then they either have to convince me to work overtime, or hire more employees.

Taking control of my own schedule is in the top 5 list of reasons I quit being an employee 4 years ago (constant reorganization was number 1). Now I take all of August off, spend time volunteering in my daughters' classrooms during the day, get all of my errands done while the streets and shops are empty, and generally love life a lot more.

Anyone with dev skills can go independent or strike out with a group of like-minded souls to take control of their schedule. Sure there are downsides to working on your own, and it isn't all skittles and beer, but overall I find it well worth it.

They might as well call this article Why is America the 'no-union nation'?

Out of curiosity, anyone know if sabbaticals common in Europe?

A software developer I know worked tirelessly for 4 years at a large corporation before burning out. He may have taken a week off here & there, but was always answering his emails.

He finally requested a sabbatical. Those are rare and very tough to get, but his manager fought for him and off he went. He returned refreshed, though he left the job shortly thereafter (which is a major reason why that company made it tough to request a sabbatical).

I'm just curious if the same kind of phenomenon occurs in Europe.

AFAIK sabbatical are quasi exclusive to US and Canada. I never knew anyone in Europe going for a sabbatical.

In Finland we have a practice called vuorotteluvapaa (work sharing). It is commonplace for people nearing middle age. For example my mother used vuorotteluvapaa to do deaconess studies to complement her nursing degree. Work sharing requires that your employer hires someone who is registered as unemployed to fill in "your shoes".

To get work share you need to have worked at least 10 years of which at least 13 months to your current employer. You can work share for a minimum of 90 days and maximum of 359 days. Compensation is 70-80% of what your unemployment benefit (25.74€ base per day + 45% of your normal day's earnings) would be.

Here in Sweden we are allowed to do it, but it generally isn't done.

Though we have a guy at work that have managed to convince our employer to give hime an extra day off every week (without pay though, but he doesn't need the cash)

I work at a (bootstrapped) European startup. In june, one of the founders takes a month of vacation. In july, the other does the same. As an employee, I'm entitled to 5 weeks off. Sick leave does not subtract from that. Every American reader probably thinks we will never make it. European readers would consider insane if we did without that time off. That's how ingrained this vacation business is. And if you ask me, we are happier and more productive than we would be without those vacations.

I would not mind a split between paid and unpaid vacation. I see no reason (unless contractually specified) why a company should pay me for not working.

I don't live to work. I work to live.

>I see no reason (unless contractually specified) why a company should pay me for not working.

Because you probably do not get a charge out of getting something for nothing -- but many do.

Well, if someone wants to give me something for nothing, I'll take it. :D Please don't get me wrong. Donations are definitely accepted!

But I want to create win-win situations with my business relationships. If I am working for a company, they are getting my product, I am getting money (possibly benefits). If I am not working, e.g., I am dorking around in Mexico for a month on vacation, the company is not netting value out of me, and if they are paying me, that's a drain on their resources. I want my employer to be awesome, because as a member of that company, the awesomeness trickles down. :-)

Wow, that really is incredible... I really can't imagine not being able to take a week of vacation for fear of losing my job...

Do you guys in the US get time in lieu? My job is 40 hours a week, and if you work longer than that, you can take the time off later. So working fifteen minutes longer every day lets you have another week off (paid) every year, in addition to the four weeks paid holiday you get.

And since holiday time accumulates, you are encouraged to take most of it every year.

Generally no. Most engineering jobs fall in the "salaried professional" category, which means that no over time is paid and that you're expected to work for 40 hours a week. I've seen a lot of nice managers allow employees to take some downtime after a stressful or overworked period, but there's not a standard policy at most jobs. Jobs where "punching the clock," usually hourly paid positions, can get a little closer to that, but usually only within a pay period. Example: if my friend puts in a little bit extra each day, he might leave early on Friday, but can't accrue that outside of the two week paycheck to paycheck period.

Yes.

While in NY, the company I worked at encouraged people to take comp days sooner rather than later.

I usually just accumulated a bunch of hours and took extended periods of time off.

There's no answer to that. there's no labor law in the US except from some payment and safety issues.

everything is negotiable.

i negotiated a little more in vacation then the other co-workers. Some other teams in the company can take time off based on the overtime they put in that month. My team doesn't have that. but if we work on some long issue, the manager usually gives an informal day off later.

After seven years with my company, I was finally earning the highest amount of vacation hours per pay check, up to 15 days per year. In my fifteen year career, as an adult, I've never taken a vacation and I don't really have any interest in doing so. I currently have about 300 hours of vacation banked. I'm at the limit, so unless I use some of that time, I won't earn any more. That's okay, because . . . I don't have any use for a vacation. I don't use sick days, either (I know a lot of people use their three or five allotted sick days from their company as personal time).

I guess if I was digging ditches for a living, I'd want all the paid vacations I could possibly have. However, I work with computers and technology for a living and I love computers and technology. So . . you know . . . why would I want to take time off from doing something I enjoy?

Not to mention, after I die, nobody is going to remember me fondly for the vacations I took, so I could sit in the sun and cook my skin next to a chlorinated pool in another country. They're going to remember me for any work ethic, personality, and accomplishments I had.

If that's all you think vacations are, no wonder you don't take them.

My housemate is in Africa for 10 days with her mother at the moment. Another friend is going to Vietnam for two weeks shortly. Both of these ventures open the travelers up to new experiences and broaden not only their horizons, but mine by proxy. I can guarantee you that I will remember their trips to foreign lands more than I remember them spending another week in their jobs.

I actually find it a little sad that you seem to think that broadening your perspective is worthless (ie: "here I am, why ever look elsewhere?")

I've actually traveled a great deal (in my youth, including two years in Zambia and Kenya) and while it's not something I enjoy overall (for all the usual travel hassles, plus I'd rather spend my time earning money rather than spending it), I understand that your friend does. I don't know that there is anything particularly "perspective broadening" about it in a world that has grown so close together through technology and communication, but I'm sure she'll have plenty of memories and experiences from it. Memories and experiences don't necessarily have inherent value. They have personal value.

I enjoy working. I enjoy that every week, I get to do technically creative and very detailed and complex things with people who are all over the planet. China, Japan, India, Australia, all over the UK, France, the Vatican, Israel, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Singapore and many others. Granted, taking time away from work makes you look bad, so not doing that is a point in my favor -- but I truly enjoy my work. I also enjoy that it allows me to own a home, have plans to buy my childhood home so it can stay in the family some day, put my siblings through college, help with financial support and technical guidance of my friends' businesses and projects, contribute to worthy causes, and someday potentially retire.

Then again, if I have to die "young", I want to be one of those Karōshi deaths where they go out slumped over a pile of spreadsheets and whitepapers on their desk. So . . . take my preferences with a grain of salt, if you like.

It sounds to me like no one is going to remember you at all. Are you working for your own company? If not it sounds like your whole life is nothing more than making some rich people even richer. If you are remembered at all, it will be for being the miserable person with no life who was literally at work every day. You'll make a great anti-role model.

All you folks must seriously consider moving to India. Its a vibrant country with a lot of energy. Software Engineers get above than average market salaries. With a decent salary one can afford a great life style here. It also servers as an excellent laboratory where you can test/prototype and implement your ideas.

We do not live to work, we work to live.

At least that is how I see it. I will work to keep me busy doing (hopefully) interesting things and to keep food on the table but in the end I work because I have to. We all do.

Wouldn't you rather work 6 months of the year and travel or do whatever you want the rest? I know I would.

I work for a company that doesn't have expiring vacation days. They are payed out at 100% at your current salary the day you quit, get fired, or retire. We have a large amount of employees that use this as an additional retirement account. I can't imagine banking all my vacation time!

That's a dangerous strategy to rely on. The company may not ultimately be able to afford such payouts.

Do you have that in writing? I wonder if they think they could simply discontinue that policy.

Actually, I worked a a place that allowed you to "sell back" your vacation time as actual hours worked. They could be made to count for time-and-a-half overtime.

If you did that on a week that also had a company holiday, you'd kind of get into this triple-bonus-category. It was great until some guy sort of abused it and sold back a few weeks while also working a bunch of overtime over a two-holiday pay period.

In many European countries if you don't take all your holidays, the company must pay you for them. So companies do not financially benefit if you work more, all they get are employees that are tired and overworked. This is why they would be keen for you to take all your holidays.

The flip side of this is that we have Summer vacation for schools (unlike the rest of the world) and have institutionalized Spring Break for college students. Sadly we see the idea of vacation as being for the very young or the very old who retire.

You have those holiday vacations for schools and students in Europe as well... Christmas, Easter, Summer and some places also have a short break in fall.

I'm not sure if I understand correctly, but in my country (in south america) schools and colleges have around 3 months off every year. As for employees, the usual is 2 weeks vacations + holidays (around 10 days) and sick time. You also have some time off when you become a parent and of course if you're a woman you have several months before giving birth.

I think you're wrong about Summer vacation in the rest of the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_vacation#By_country

Latvia chiming in here:

Mid-june till september off for schools. July and august off for college students. One week prior to christmas and one week some time around easter off for both. Four weeks paid yearly vacation for the 9-to-5ers. Two weeks additional paid vacation for working students finishing their graduation works. National holidays and sickness don't count towards your vacation time. If a national holiday happens to be in weekend, friday or monday is usually free.

Honestly, the more I read about US working conditions, the more I feel like people there are deliberately misinforming everyone else in attempt to reduce immigration and competition on job market.

Same in Lithuania actually. But.. 9-5ers? Do you really have 35 hour work week as opposed to 40 ( (17-9-1h lunch) * 5) or was it just digested for the American reader?

Digested. Was musing a long time - 'the workers'? 'the drones'? 'blue collars'? In the end, settled on the best non-offensive term my limited vocabulary could come up with :)

That can’t be true. Bavarian schools, for example, have a five-week summer vacation this year and additionally eight weeks of vacation spread over the whole year (one week in spring and autumn, two weeks for Easter, Pentecost and Christmas). There are also quite a few state and federal holidays but, as you can see, vacations are already clustered around those holidays. I think there are maybe two or three additional holidays outside of vacation times (May 1, German Unity Day, probably some weird religious holiday I’m forgetting).

That’s a shorter (but still quite long) summer vacation. Overall, however, vacation times are similar.

As for spring break, here is the situation at my German university: classes end at July 15 this year, exams end at August 20, the next semester starts at October 1. That’s one month and nearly two weeks when you can be absolutely sure that there is nothing to do for you (at least when you finish your papers in time and don’t have a thesis to write) and probably more depending on when your exams are.

We also get two weeks off for Christmas and there is obviously also a shorter break (about one week and up to one month depending on when your exams are) between winter semester and summer semester (but no other vacations, only federal and state holidays).

I don’t know much about US universities (Is there downtime for students between semesters?) but I do know that spring break certainly doesn’t compare. (One or two weeks? Seriously?)

As far as I remember, American school kids and students have most of the summer off (unless they go to summer school, ...)

Overall, vacation times are similar.

For reference: I'm in a Midwestern university and I have off from May 15 thru the end of August. IME that's about average at semester schools.

I'm pretty sure German universities suck in comparision to all Anglophone universities when it comes to free time, and I know it's true for Irish and British ones.

You get three months off for the summer (normally June, July and August), a month off over Christmas (though in some universities it may only be three weeks, and you may have to prepare for exams), and various other time off.

Also that summer time is free, no papers to write. It is goddamned awesome. http://www2.ul.ie/web/WWW/Services/Academic_Calendar/2012_-_...

Summer is free for me, too. No papers to write. It is, however, relatively easy to convince your Prof to extend the deadline into the summer break.

It's been a long time for me, but in the US I recall that it covers part of June, July and August — so that has to be at least over 8 weeks. Although maybe the idea that our kids get a longer Summer break is part of the the anti-vacation propaganda?

Yes, and? Are five weeks no vacation or what? This is what you said (just to remind you): “[We] have Summer vacation for schools (unlike the rest of the world).”

That’s blatantly untrue.

Strong words! Five weeks is a lot different than ten weeks, any way you look at it.

The original claim is blatantly untrue. Also: the sum of the vacation time is similar and five weeks are a long time.

In American schools, you have three months off over the summer and a week off over Christmas and a week of for Spring Break. Then you have all the little holidays here and there throughout the year.

Ireland here. Summer holidays for schools are everywhere. Secondary school children (12-18yrs) get 3 months in the summer. College/University students get 2 to 3 months (depending).

Likewise they usually 1 or 2 weeks off at Christmas time, and 1 or 2 at easter time (around your spring break).

I get 3 paid weeks of vacation per year. More would be nice, but unless I'm going to do something (spend a month in Europe for example) I get tired of being on vacation after a week or so. Also, when it comes to single days here and there my boss just tells me to take them. His way of hoping I pick up the phone on a Saturday when something breaks I guess :)

I recently travelled to to the UK and France for 16 days and was happy to return home. I had a great time on the trip, so maybe I'm weird for not wanting to be gone longer? If I actually lived in Europe more vacation might be nice because it's so easy/cheap to visit other countries.

The thing about vacation time is remember to have enough to use for things other than a long vacation. I'll use a week of time for the Friday after Thanksgiving and some time around Christmas/New Years.

Vacation in Sweden (I think it's like this in other European countries as well, but I don't know for sure) doesn't always mean that you go away somewhere, or at least not for the entire vacation. Say if you have four continuous weeks of vacation during the summer (June to August here in Sweden), which is very common, you might be gone for a week or two, but spend the rest of the time at home.

Since almost everyone have the large part of their vacation during the summer, there is a good chance that some of your friends and family will have vacation at the same time, so you just relax and enjoy life for the rest of the time.

(Or you can just spend the entire vacation repainting your house and be stressed about all the stuff you have to do now that you have the time...)

Like I said above, maybe I'm weird :)

I can only relax for a few days before I get stir crazy. I need problems to solve and things to think about. It probably helps that I don't hate my job and have a lot of free time already. A long time ago I realized that I didn't want to be that person who lives for the couple times a year they get a vacation (even if you have 4 weeks I don't want to hate the other 48). Instead try to live in places where I'm on vacation all the time. Right now I'm in the mountains and at the end of the summer I'm moving back to the beach.

I hear that people take substantially less vacation in East Asia.

I guess I'm in the "lucky" category when it comes to paid time off. I work for a small company though, and I receive 5 holidays, 5 floating holidays, 5 sick days, and 5 weeks vacation. I could find a job that pays 10k more per year but offers not nearly as much vacation time - but I prefer the time off over the additional money.

When I was working for an employer, all I wanted was more vacation time so I could travel. Now that I am self-employed, I just get antsy when I'm on vacation.

What I've found works better for me is to take extended vacations every couple of years (a year here, 3 months there). This recharges my batteries for years at a time.

This is one of the reasons I love my technology work at a non-profit. Sure I make lots less, but they are extremely generous with paid time off. Our institutional culture encourages people taking vacations, and while we have serious tight deadlines, people still support a healthy life-work balance.

If the US had the culture of taking off August, it would be far easier to take off 3 weeks since everyone in your company would be doing it. Logistically however I don't really understand how taking August off works in Europe. Where does everyone go? Doesn't it get super crowded?

Most of the French head south to the riviera, or north to brittany, basically any place with a beach nearby.

The roads are packed so you'll usually see a traffic report with them interviewing people taking a picnic on the side of the road, complete with wine and cheese of course. Also, its part of the draw. When there is a known crowd coming most of the hotels and restaurants pull out all the stops: foods, drinks, live entertainment. A lot of these seaside towns can be quite sleepy during the winter so its sort of a big deal.

And, quite a few of my colleagues have family that moved south for the warmer weather, some just head out to visit family.

That sounds like a large-scale version of what happens every summer weekend in New England as Boston and its suburbs head to the cape.

Yes, but instead of a summer weekend its the entire month of august and parts of July. From my experience, Paris gets completely evacuated except for the tourists and tourism related jobs.

Every year in Italy there are 16M people moving to the coasts on August (for 2-3 weeks), and then moving back to cities at the end of the month. This happens mostly on August, but the same happens for Christmas (for 1-2 weeks), Easter (for 3-4 days, sometimes 1 week) and Carnival (for 3-4 days - before Easter, usually in February). The number of days depends on "bridge days", if Easter falls on Wed, then usually people can relax from Mon to Thu ("bridge" because links the end of the previous week to the end of the fest).

These are the average numbers, for sure there's someone with less/more vacation.

Most people stay at home or in their summer residence for most of the time.

My employer is hiring and offers 5 weeks of vacation after the first year. Must be a US citizen. No remote work. http://woti.com/benefits.cfm http://woti.com/jobs.cfm

american - working for a company i love, but i find it hard to even write long articles on HN because of the fear of "slacking"..i would love to elaborate more and explain why im slowing starting my own web design co for my traveling laptop days i so dream about....

The corporate overlords don't have time for us to enjoy ourselves. Is there any other explanation?

This is very similar to an article that made it to the first page yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2573664

Still, the more awareness that this topic gets, the better!

Exactly. I'm bright and awesome, but this one thing puts me off moving to the USA.

Does anyone else here prefer to have shorter vacations and higher pay? I've taken a few vacations in my life and they've tended to be less fun than working (at least after the first 3 days. Before that it's awesome).

well..... as long as we are being truthful, after 10 days vacation with a wife and two kids getting back to work is a relief. I'm often more stressed by vacation than work, but one of my children has "special needs" and despite the fact that I love him with all my heart, the constant monitoring what he eats, what he is doing, if he has craped himself, etc. takes a lot out of a vacation. That said, next year in February I'm taking a 2 week trip to South America with just my daughter and meeting up with some cousins and other extended family from both the states and Ecuador and Panama. My south American cousins I haven't seen in thirty years. I'm very much looking forward to it. ( and on that note, I think I'll have to post a "ask HN" on language learning options to brush up on my 25 years forgotten high school Spanish (if one doesn't exist already).

Do US employers (especially startups) typically agree to agree to offer unpaid vacations? Or are those 0 to 10 or 15 days really a hard limit?

Why is this on HN? Please, bring back the no politics rule. If you want to talk politics on the internets, there are plenty of other sites out there.

Who linked this piece of crap and why is at the top? Utter nonsense! Whoever shared this, please consider opra winfrey websites or others of those sort.

good to see the new users raising the level of discourse here.

Well, that's just sad. You do know that the rest of the world is having problems at finding a job at all, or at least getting paid on regular basis? Cry me a river.

That isn't a constructive comment at all, not to mention untrue: here in Uruguay we have a record low unemployment, for example (and zero unemployment in IT).

Whether you'd be willing to work for my wage is another problem, but I do have 20 days' worth of paid vacations.

You're right, I wasn't being constructive, but neither is this article if you consider that this isn't US-only. I'm also certain that millionaires also have a lot of personal problems, and yet also find little empathy from other people. I admit, I have not checked the current situation of Uruguay, or many other countries for that matter, yet I'm pretty certain that "I'm afraid to go on a vacation, my boss is treating me bad" is a personal and not a IT issue at all.

Want constructive comments - give constructive topics.

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