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Comment by qbleep | Hacker News Reader

I would much prefer a generous but explicit vacation allowance. I feel that with the "take some!" vacation policy social pressure would prevent some from taking as much as they really want to. It's going to boil down to everyone implicitly deciding what's a fair amount and that will become the unwritten rule. I'd rather everyone just decide what's a fair amount and write it down.

That being said, a fair amount is definitely not two weeks (10 work days)! I'll never work for a company that's that cheap again!

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It's one of the things that's always stunned me about the US - the 10 days vacation a year being a relatively common thing.

European law states a minimum of 20 days (which can include public holidays though often / usually won't). In the UK where I work 20 - 25 days plus 8 or 9 days public holiday is the norm, and 28 - 30 days plus public holidays not unheard of.

I seriously don't understand how people don't just go mad on so little.

I think the answer is that most people do go a little mad.

I know I do.

For those that work, they do go mad. Haven't you noticed that Americans are obese drug addicts with little knowledge of world culture, don't speak any other languages at all, and love to declare war or otherwise bully anyone they can while shouting rah rah patriot freedom? That is part of what happens from never being able to take a month of vacation, which means no long trips to europe or south america or africa or anywhere really other than across the state line to the indian casino for a few days of gambling and buffet eats.

All right, perhaps not every one would go mad. There's quite a few jobs especially in bureaucracies like government and banks where work is a social club where they chat and drink coffee all day. These people probably don't need a vacation, but they are the ones where there is no problem for them to take it since they weren't contributing much in the first place.

It's the productive people that get backtalk from managements about vacation: "You can't go, we are in a crunch."; "This is a crisis, where is the team spirit."; "I can't believe you are considering taking 5 days off this year when things are the way they have been lately."

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