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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

I’m currently a manager at an org with unlimited PTO. I take at least five weeks a year, and I enforce a minimum four weeks a year with my directs. No Slack, no email, it all gets turned off in Azure AD until they return. There are few hills I’ll die on, but this is one of them. Life is short and most work is inconsequential on a long life arc.

I don’t believe in the concept of unlimited PTO (usually disadvantages the worker), but I’m fine playing along when it’s their dime and they’re calling the tune.

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>No Slack, no email, it all gets turned off in Azure AD until they return.

I won't really categorically disagree. But, if I'm hanging in my hotel room and surfing or whatever, if I can point someone in a direction or answer a quick question, I'm not sure that's wrong. I assure you I'll go back to my book-reading or movie-watching right after.

I appreciate that idea, I did so myself during my last vacation (I stay on slack and email as I report to c suite). But it is my job to defend the quality of life of my direct reports, and we can spend some more cycles as an org if needed versus bothering people OOO/PTO/Vaca. If we are so reliant on that person that we need that ability, we’ve failed (processes, documentation, cross training, etc).

We’re not saving lives, we’re just moving bits.

Edit @ghaff: Love the CEO anecdote in your reply, I’d work for that person! Priorities set properly.

I'm mostly pretty disciplined. I'm on vacation but if I can spend 5 minutes unblocking something, hey, they pay me well enough.

Though to your C-suite comment, an engineering director at a fairly high profile SV company was telling me that they hired a senior comms person who just couldn't deal with the fact that the CEO would take vacations where they literally unplugged--and ended up quitting.

Yes, this is a hidden benefit of having people take real time off. No org should be dependent for daily/weekly functioning on one person. If the cracks start showing in a single week of vacation, you’ve got some knowledge/skill sharing to do.

I don't think I'm really giving anything away by saying this was Netflix.

Here's something you may find entertaining https://www.fdic.gov/news/financial-institution-letters/1995...

> The FDIC endorses the concept of a vacation policy that allows active officers and employees to be absent from their duties for an uninterrupted period of no less than two weeks. During this time, their duties and responsibilities should be assumed by other employees. This basic control has proven to be an effective internal safeguard in preventing fraud. In addition, such a policy is viewed as a benefit to the well-being of the employees and can be a valuable aid to the institution's overall training program.

Same. It’s not required, but if I’m just sitting there I’ll give a pointer if I can.

It’s called psychology. Even though you’re on vacation you’re still working and engaged.

Look at it from a different perspective - you're sending a message "I'm on vacation, but I've found few minutes and I'm checking in to help". Other team members now may feel obliged to do the same, because, well, we are social animals and try to blend in to a group by behaving similarly. Give it a year or two and suddenly the line between vacation and work is not so clear to anyone anymore. If you don't have anything to do, is it really that work is the only thing you can occupy yourself with while you're on vacation?

Good for you. You are a unicorn.

Discovered the hard way. Paying it forward. Being decent is mostly free. Appreciate the kind words.

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