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Comment by fancyfish | Hacker News Reader

In most companies in the USA, 2 consecutive weeks off is longer than normal. Not unusual to have a total of 2-4 weeks vacation to use each year.

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Sounds great to me, as a Swede I hate being forced to take 4 weeks consecutive vacation. Would love to instead have 2-4 weeks spread out through the year. It's a stressful burden for me as a single person who's life naturally revolves mostly around their job, to suddenly invent a new life for myself for 5 weeks. I just end up bored and restless, wasting time, even if I travel 4 weeks is just too long. 1 week at a time is perfect really

Edit: And you have to take those weeks in the summer as well, you can't take 4 consecutive weeks in fall, winter or spring. So it's really inflexible. If you want to go hunting in fall, and skiing in March, tough luck, in Sweden everyone "needs" to take all their vacation in the summer for some unknown reason.

It’s the same in Finland. I’d hazard a guess that the reason behind it is that without it being forced people would be subtly pressed not to have the vacation.

It really depends on the place you work, I don't need to take my vacation during the summer for instance.

Yes but like the comment says, it's the norm so you'd be lucky if you don't have to do it and most likely it will not be possible.

It's like you have to retire every year and go through that difficult transition to a jobless person. Many people just end up drinking too much.

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