Hacker News Reader

Comment by yardie | Hacker News Reader

Moving back to the US after living abroad I was used to month long holidays. I applied to a few companies and tried to negotiate 5 weeks PTO. They wouldn't budge. Then 4 weeks. Still no. I offered to drop my salary in exchange for vacation. Still no. I asked HR why everything else was negotiable except PTO and they told me I would have more time off then people who've been there for 7+ years.

This was my first clue that there was a lot of momentum to keep you dependent on your employer and it doesn't stop with a paycheck. 10-12 days per year really restricts your mobility. Instead of backpacking through SE Asia for a month I basically used that time for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.

BTW, having 3 days off means you can sprinkle on additional vacation time throughout the year. I'm not surprised Gen-Z would negotiate less vacation time if they could use it more effectively.

View on HN

I'm Australian but have lived in Europe for a long time. When I begin to consider moving back, one of the things that puts me off is that 4 weeks is pretty much universal in Australia, plus in Australia I think it's pretty standard to have a fixed number of days you're allowed to be sick. I'm too used to having 6 weeks holidays and essentially unlimited sick leave (as long as it's legitimately required).

It's a more grown-up arrangement where businesses realise that regular time off (and as much time as you need if ill) increases happiness and therefore productivity.

I still miss the food at home, though.

> It's a more grown-up arrangement where businesses realise that regular time off (and as much time as you need if ill) increases happiness and therefore productivity.

Is there a metric of some sort that I can share with other people that demonstrates 4 weeks PTO does work and has led to increased productivity in Australia?

I personally believe in shorter work weeks, but my experience is anecdotal, so was wondering if there was a study or some kind of economic metric that reflects that statement for increased productivity in AU.

As an Australian, the only metric that matters for me is >80% of all semi-competent developers, designers, and founders I knew (including myself) left AU because they hit a career ceiling normalized by that culture.

Zero local innovation, and the relatively healthy economy is mostly due to exporting stuff to Asia (education, tourism, and resources).

Australia innovates plenty, it's just the innovation mostly happens in fields Australia does well, like mining.

And, boomerang tossing.

I’m confused. It kinda sounds you are asking what metric needs to have a bias for it in a study. If you otherwise have information that you believe would demonstrate the point, just share that.

I'm asking for any material that supports this statement: "businesses realise that regular time off (and as much time as you need if ill) increases happiness and therefore productivity."

Productivity can be measured and if that productivity was increased then those statistics should be more visible!

I would love to have a 4-day work week.

I work for an Australian company in Australia and they'll give me paid sick leave beyond the standard allowance if I need it. But I agree that it'd be better if that was a right.

as far as worker rights go, i think australian workers have it better than in most countries. in places in eu like austria you even have "sicky police" that go to check up on you when you are sick. lol i dont think something like this would fly in 'straya. to be clear im not talking about full on compo and insurance companies hiring private investigators. im talking about calling your boss and telling him/her that you have high temperature

still, weirdly enough, i think that overall work life balance and quality of life is much better in europe than in places like sydney. i think that this is actually because australia has turned into a nanny state in almost every other segment of life. europe in this regard treats its inhabitants as adults much moreso than australia

> still miss the food at home

in europe? im actually the opposite. i miss the great variety of great restaurants in sydney and melbourne

> in europe? im actually the opposite. i miss the great variety of great restaurants in sydney and melbourne

Yeah that's what I mean - harder to get good east Asian and Middle Eastern in Europe - although there's more African food here (Europe) than straya.

yep i miss viet pho and leb chicken. thai food is a train wreck in europe. there are some really good chinese restaurants but they are far and few between. best one is in lisbon. however there are some really good places for good food and just general good vibes. if one likes these sort of things i recommend visiting belgrade

Just a side question but, is the term "straya" a regional shortening of Australia? I've always heard it from friends as "Oz" or "Aus".

its aussie bogan slang. if you are new to australia, rock up to work barefoot with a VB or a Tooheys in your hand and tell the next new guy "wellcome to straya mate"

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGYbn24C1Fs

>in places in eu like austria you even have "sicky police" that go to check up on you when you are sick. lol i dont think something like this would fly in 'straya.

Pretty much yeah. Austria (the Mozart one, not the kangaroo one) has in general pretty terrible workers' rights and benefits compared to most other wealthy EU countries, unless you work for some government institution or some big and wealthy Metall unionized company.

Sure, it looks good on paper from the outside, but in practice it's not that great, it's just good PR.

> Moving back to the US after living abroad I was used to month long holidays. I applied to a few companies and tried to negotiate 5 weeks PTO. They wouldn't budge. Then 4 weeks. Still no. I offered to drop my salary in exchange for vacation. Still no. I asked HR why everything else was negotiable except PTO and they told me I would have more time off then people who've been there for 7+ years.

One of the reasons I work in the education sector is the generous (compared to startups / most tech companies, anyway) PTO.

We get all of the big holidays off (I think 12) and we have 2-4 weeks of vacation (depending on length of employment) and we have two weeks of paid medical leave (which accumulates, so after the first couple of years you have massive amounts banked) and paid maternity/paternity.

Mine isn't the only employer like this, there are plenty of others, it's not hard to find one. The key to look for is "work life balance." Government jobs, non-profits, education, these sorts of areas - they know they can't compete with tech company salaries but can make up for it in other ways. PTO is only a part of that.

It's not quite the 4 day a week dream job, but there are options available if you look. And as a bonus, you might find yourself more aligned with the mission of the organization than you would at a for-profit tech company.

In my experience, it's really hard to deal with 4 day weeks in education, but maybe just because I was trying to schedule week-long courses. I was at a job that observed 4 day weekends for every single federal holiday which, in practice, meant that you had 2 4-day weeks and 2 5-day weeks each month. It felt very hard to get stuff done generally, but that may have been a characteristic of the native speed of the bureaucracy in that particular org (4 day weekends were relatively new) or the fact that face-to-face work was prioritized due to nearly-nonfunctioning computers.

I don't know about the US but in the Bay Area PTO hasn't been negotiable for about seven years. It's all "unlimited" now and so there are no official numbers to compare anymore.

The good news is that in large publicly traded companies people routinely fly back to India for a month so 4-week vacations are a thing if you are good at leetcode.

> They wouldn't budge.

I don't know if this is a problem specific to PTO. In general, after 20+ years of working, I've found US employers to be pretty inflexible on all terms/aspects of your working life besides compensation. They may (or often may not) be willing to negotiate pay, but will almost never budge when it comes to:

- Vacation / PTO

- Unpaid leave

- Health benefits

- Financial benefits like 401(k) or life insurance

- IP ownership

- Moonlighting or second jobs

- Schedule flexibility

- Paid training

- Company equipment

These things tend to be "take it or leave it--we won't accept changes to our boilerplate agreement!"

Not to defend them one bit but it’s very likely because a lot of that stuff is hard to keep track of. If you only have one policy that everyone is subject to, it can be easily tracked/updated/cost calculated/etc. The bigger the company, the less likely they will craft a custom policy for you.

Any half competent HR system can keep track of it. I know because part of my job was managing those systems. Setting PTO was simply advancing a digit in a field in a giant HR database. Not exactly rocket science.

BTW, senior executives had far more flexibility when it came to PTO, leave, pensions, bonuses, IP, etc. And it was managed in the same system that frontline employees were managed from.

It's not about complexity, it's about control.

This is interesting.

In the US, I have found that what HR will tell you is different than what your hiring manager will enforce.

My hiring managers were often much more permissive and allowed 4 day work weeks and “unlimited” time off provided it was not detrimental to the team. This also meant that when there was a legitimate emergency; they expected you to assist.

I have heard many horror stories but have been luck not to experience most of them at this point in my career.

Unofficial requests are exactly that. We don't like planning long, expensive trips based on what the manager is feeling that week or quarter.

I've circled the sun long enough (and dealt with enough military recruiters, LOL) to know that you get it all in writing. Any implied or verbal agreements aren't really worth much.

This is the one thing I really hate about American work culture. It really is pervasive throughout the economy, capitalism here optimizes for money over happiness and there just aren’t many companies that are willing to release their grip on you. My employer is now trying to transition to three days a week in the office and the reasoning is totally capitalistic even though it will most likely reduce overall happiness, they also will not approve a month off PTO even though it’s apparently unlimited, the reasoning was basically “we don’t work that way”.

So many things are wrong with American work culture and there’s nothing most people can do about it.

Asking for more pay with their standard PTO and as-needed UTO (Unpaid Time Off) might have been more successful.

I could do that. I'd rather have it officially on the books rather than hack something together that could be used against me later, ie "This guys seems to be out of office more than usual."

What makes you think having and fully using "official" PTO wouldn't get used against you for the same reason? People don't say stuff like that because they like seeing your face.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com