Is there an unspoken rule/etiquette to take no more than 2 consecutive weeks of vacation?
How far out did you discuss this with your employer? Were they aware of it when you joined? There's a pretty big difference if this is 6 months or two weeks away. Setting expectations go a long way here on both sides.
What is the size of the business? People are more critical the smaller the business is. The stakes are very different for a business with 10 vs 100 vs 1,000 employees.
Is the business cashflow positive—or near it? You said startup, so that makes me think they aren't cash flow positive. Three consecutive weeks is a lot to ask for a small business that isn't making money.
Essentially, the more stable the business is the less of an issue I'd expect it to be—given expectations were set in advance.
Your employees accrue PTO. If you can't handle them using their PTO, maybe you shouldn't have employees.
If three consecutive weeks is a lot to ask, what would you do when that same employee gets hit by a bus and is dead for even longer?
Oh right, you'd just replace them and the business would move on.
OP, this is the real answer to your question. The business doesn't care about you or your well being.
If you are one of 100 CSRs, then it wouldn't be business-destroying obviously.
Business owners can take this risk but using "don't take more than 2 weeks of PTO" as a risk mitigation strategy is disingenuous and disrespectful to their employees.
Haven't you ever joked about the "bus factor"? All the startups I've worked at would have likely failed if any one of the core people had to depart, for any reason.
"Unbelievable nonsense" is a pretty harsh response. If they are working for a 10-person business burning cash, that is very different than a profitable 1,000-person one.
The poster asked about etiquette. Personally, I'd be offended as a founder or employee at a 10-person company if someone asked for 3 weeks off at the last minute.
Absolute nonsense.
I set up a shared team calendar and asked people to mark when they're off so others can be aware and try to minimise overlap (not that it's banned, just be aware and if you're like "well were going either this week or this" and someone else is already off one of those weeks strongly consider it a point in favor of the other).
Asserting your rights can have social consequences, of course, but if you need to assert your rights... the real benefit of the law is setting the norms of how people behave.
Most Norwegians take about 4 weeks of vacation during July.
[0]: https://www.arbeidstilsynet.no/en/working-conditions/holiday...
It typically hasn't been a problem if there is lots of notice, but "I'd like to take 3 weeks off next month" is likely to end up with a bunch of back and forth at best.
My current place has a number of international hires, and has been pretty flexible about allowing large blocks of time to go "home" and visit, some mix of vacation time, unpaid leave, and remote work for 4+ weeks. But these have typically been planned many months in advance.
The absolute worst position to be in is on a critical but non-visible infrastructure piece, where nobody outside the immediate team notices your impact, until it falls over and takes the entire business with it while it's offline. You end up without flashy deliveries to leverage as political capital to advocate for yourself, yet still with the downsides of having difficulty justifying time away due to business risk.
I've been able to take blocks as long a 3 weeks off at an employer with an unlimited PTO policy, because I worked hard when I was there and my manager and I were on the same page. I told them when I was going and how long for, and they said nice, have fun.
Etiquette was to give at least 2x as much notice as the duration of the PTO. If you're going to take 3 weeks off give at least 6 weeks notice.
They don't have to, they choose to.
We track days of PTO where I work and there's no approval process. You take the days you want to take and that's that.
It's the ideal way to do it IMO.
What I meant was that the employer has a policy where your manager or some other authority has to approve the PTO.
To your point this is a choice.
But, to make lemonade, I make sure to take 4-5 weeks of PTO per year, EVERY year. That way, it's actually a perk/advantageous over traditional PTO packages.
These experiences blow my mind - I have managed to take 4-5 weeks of PTO, total, over the course of a decade in my career at "unlimited PTO" startups due to pretty much always being mission critical, and even those took some real pushing.
If you say you're going to take 5 weeks of PTO every year, and that was negotiated during the offer phase, well they can't then say you can't take it. Particularly if you want to take December off, say to wind down and go on some ski vacations.
What companies with "unlimited PTO" really mean, is that it's negotiable -- primarily in their favor.
It is a part of my compensation package/job offer. Therefore I am entitled to it as much as I am entitled to my pay check.
But it’s not exactly unexpected that you may need to negotiate something with your specific employer. It sucks tho.
Earlier this year I took five weeks of unpaid leave to redress the work/life balance. Not a problem either.
The alternative is that either I get burned out or I leave for an employer who is willing to let me take holidays if applied for in a timely manner. I can assure you that option one is one that costs employers a lot more than just accepting that employees are not always available.
Sick days don't count as holidays. If you get sick on holiday you get those vacation days back.
In the private sector, I think I took one two-week vacation. It was not a problem, but it had to be approved.
One company I worked with had a mandatory 8 week sabbatical after 10 years, and every 5 years thereafter. It had to be taken as a single block of time off.
I make a point out of taking the last two weeks of the year off, but I could stretch it to three, because my manager takes this much, so it's not like he would be waiting for me with something anyway.
I'm also planning on taking a whole month off should I become a father of a second child. I took two weeks for the first one and in hindsight it was not enough. A (male) friend of mine took six and the only thing holding me back from doing the same are finances, since as a contractor I have a daily rate.
Give me a fixed amount of leave, which everyone is forced to take, so I know where we're at and don't have to play your guessing games.
The US is an outlier with very little paid vacation. It seems that some people get no paid vacation weeks at all.
How much banked vacation do you have?
How many weeks do you get per year?
How much notice are you giving?
Are there any major resourcing demands in the target time?
Are there serious conflicts with other co-workers?
How does your TC compare to the rest of your team and the industry at large?
Assuming favorable answers to the above, I've never been at a company which would reject PTO. Admittedly, I work at companies that actually understand that work-life balance is in everyone's best long-term interest, but Id say 75% of requests get approved without need for modifications. Probably depends a lot on industry.
No, as long as you give your manager the heads up with enough notice, so they can find someone to cover for you, you can use all your vacation in one shot.
Note, at least with me, this means no more vacation bridge days, and more consideration needing to head out early, etc.
Also, if we are at an unlimited vacation org, this means you only have 1-2 weeks of vacation left over.
That being said, the company is really chill and every seems to be taking a good amount of vacation (and I told my manager I am targeting 5 weeks off per year and he said that is reasonable).
The US has no minimum vacation time. Most folks go their whole career without ever seeing 5 weeks off in a single year. It's common for workers to start at 5-10 days. At the bottom end of the economic ladder, there's no paid time off at all, and if you try to take off a whole week off you might be told "no" with the alternative of "quit".
And this is not counting any public holidays that might or might not fall on weekdays, which also depend on per country.
Not to forget that sick days are well sick days. So it could be if you get sick on vacation you don't lose that vacation time...
I can't take more than 2 weeks consecutive myself, it makes it incredibly hard to go back to work in general.
I've only taken greater-than-two-week intervals off /between/ jobs.
The HR lady practically begged me to take the vacation.
This is in Eastern Europe.
Your manager is a bad manager.
Sincerely, A Former Manager
EDIT for context: Spanish consulting company
what does your contract say?
it's that simple
(and if they don't respect the terms of their own contract then get out now)
But she is lying when she says that it's convention to not take longer than 2 weeks off consecutively.