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Comment by tjr225 | Hacker News Reader

I’m back at a more traditional company after being at a startup for two years and the unlimited PTO was amazing.

It wasn’t passive aggressive at all and now I sit here one my hands waiting to accumulate enough pto to take an extended break.

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It wasn't unlimited though. If startups will let you take 4 weeks, or 8 weeks, or 12 weeks, or whatever - they should simply publish that up front.

I am fairly certain that they would have had an issue with you taking 52 weeks of paid vacation time off per year. The actual policy number is somewhere between 2 and 52.

I agree that 2 weeks of PTO for an employee per year is too little, but I think we are talking about different things.

When employer says “unlimited” they actually mean “take as many as you like as long as your manager is happy with your work” so I doubt you can formalize that in the offer. It’s good deal tho for people who can deliver the goods

If you do really good can you take a year off? If not, then it’s still not unlimited. I’d like my salary and benefits be quantified in my contract rather than “manager discretion” which can go south in a hurry if you have a terrible manager.

If you want to be real pedantic I can counter with the fact that at least in the US and with the “at-will” contract just because they promised you 25 days of vacation doesn’t mean you can take it whenever you please or at all.

If you get fired befoee the PTO do you get the money they stocked for you?

Fired might be different, but if you leave some places won't pay out vacation or only 50%. Some places have learned not paying out banked leave leads to poor outcomes but others still get away with it. Not paying out vacation is a good way to get someone to take all their vacation right before they leave so you get no time to offload work.

Also depends on the state (for example, in New York State employers are mandated to pay out accrued vacation time unless it's a stated, formalized policy not to).

In reality I saw employee #1 switch to a different project and take 3 months off. Seems reasonable.

I was happy taking a Friday off here and there when I needed and taking weeks off when I moved. This was in addition to my regular vacations prior to the pandemic.

Everyone anti-unlimited PTO seems to be completely missing the forest for the trees. It’s nice to be respected and trusted to do your work. It’s also nice to fuck off whenever you want.

The argument here is that of course you can’t take a year off and reasonably do your job. Well; we all knew that already.

Genuine Unlimited time off creates an environment of respect between the employee and the employer. If I do my job; I can take some time off. You can’t really do your job if you’re never there, so I don’t get your point.

If you can’t do your job because it’s unreasonable and or the organization is dysfunctional it’s still nice to have time off to depend on.

> If I do my job; I can take some time off.

What does it mean to "do your job"?

At every place I've worked there was an infinite amount of job to be done. If I were to take 4 months off I would do less of it than if I've taken 1 month.

So that just shifts the conversation from "how much vacation you have" to "what amount of work is considered enough". Which doesn't seem all that different to me, or at least it would not have been at any place I've worked at.

to be fair, "what amount of work is considered enough" is still an issue with the traditional PTO setup. following the HR manual to a T is not sufficient to keep a job if you never finish anything. I do prefer the traditional accrual system as I feel it makes expectations more clear, and it slightly reduces the impact of the "did I get a reasonable manager" die roll.

also some people (like me) just don't take a ton of PTO. I look forward to cashing out the max accrual at my final salary whenever I end up switching jobs. unlimited PTO essentially penalizes people like this.

I think a fair few of us have been burned by companies where this level of respect absolutely did not and could not exist and engineers were treated equivalent to you, an amateur, calling a plumber to your house and then hovering over them telling them everything they're doing wrong. Informal PTO would have just made the situation even worse.

If you give people defined vacation time, you have to pay it out when they leave in CA. If it's undefined it's worthless, which is good for the employer.

Yeah I think it creates an insane inversion where the people there the longest can effectively have unlimited PTO and the people that are new are fucked. I was just talking about this with my wife.

This is exactly the issue. I left my last job with almost two months of vacation time. No startup wants to pay that out if they can help it.

I’m back to a traditional place after unlimited. It’s annoying waiting to accumulate time, but I prefer the lines being clearer. The way my old company did unlimited felt like a cheat to not have to pay a vacation accumulation out if you didn’t use it, but you also felt like you were put on the naughty list for taking too much vacation. If you took beyond a certain amount of leave, someone from higher and higher up the chain had to approve it. Well, you can’t the time of day from the upper echelons of management, so getting your only exposure with them to get approved felt like getting a spotlight put on you for the wrong reasons.

I take about 3-5 weeks of vacation a year + our 14 company holidays.

I typically do one big road trip for ~2 weeks and then a week randomly through the year plus random days fishing, doings tuff with kids or just taking a break from work.

I could never do that having to accrue

You could if you lived in Europe, where you must get at least four weeks minimum vacation per year (plus public holidays).

I wouldn't mind living in Europe... But i feel like i missed that boat. I'm in my mid 40s.. not sure what options there are.

I wasn’t on a naughty list at my place place. I was encouraged to take time off and would regularly do so, even on short notice.

Maybe somewhat of a hate the player situation. It can be done right and I’ve seen it- and I miss it.

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