Comment by _b8r0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _b8r0 | Hacker News Reader

I think this post shows a remarkable difference between American and other work practices.

Here in the UK people get a minimum of 28 days per year off work (including bank holidays). At Mandalorian we do 30 days a year plus 1 extra day per year of service. Most people at Mandalorian don't use all the allowance (mainly because we're results oriented so people routinely check out during the day to drop kids off at school, pick them up etc.), but seem to be comfortable with the fact that they can take time off when they need/want to.

When people go on holiday, they generally disconnect here although some people will take phones etc. I've just come back from 8 days on a remote island in the sea of Marmara with a couple of days in Istanbul and my total contact with work (as the owner) was two text messages and one email on the way to the airport.

I have American friends who tell me that when they go on holiday they have to take their laptops and phones with them, and routinely take calls and do conference calls during their holiday, which sounds insane to me but each culture has it's own nuances.

If this is doing something good for American workers then I'm all for it, but I can't help but think that if I were in their shoes I'd say keep the $7,500 and double the holiday allowance.

EDIT: Thanks to willholley below for pointing out that the minimum entitlement includes bank holidays, as seen here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/employment/employees/timeoffandh...

Just for clarity, the minimum 28 days in the UK is inclusive of the 8 bank holidays.

Also worth mentioning that while that's the minimum, for most types of jobs the practice tends to be 25 days + the 8 bank holidays.

The change in the law to increase the minimum to 28 days inclusive of bank holidays was relatively non-controversial as it affected a relatively small proportion of businesses.

We do 30 plus bank holidays, hence my initial misconception. People have to reserve a certain number of days for christmas shutdown, but generally there's enough for people to get a couple of big holidays in and time off around christmas/new year.

There is no legal entitlement for employees to have leave on bank/public holidays. Whether they do depends on their contract of employment.

If an employee's contract says they don't work bank holidays then those days are considered part of that employee's 28 day statutory minimum. If they do work bank holidays, or their contract is silent on the subject, then the employee still has a 28 day allowance but it doesn't include the bank holidays.

Also, some parts of the UK have more than 8 public holidays per year.

Here in America, I had ... 31 days off work last year, and usually travel completely off grid. There exist employers with less generous policies in the US, and there exist workaholic employees, but neither is necessarily the norm.

Yes, this is my sense, too. I have 25+ days of vacation a year, and I take every one of them. My manager has more vacation time, and he takes every last day, generally to very isolated locations. Our CEO is known to go off the grid for weeks at a time.

If I travel for more than two weeks (my family road trips across the country each year), I do take my laptop, but only to work remotely between destinations. By "sneaking" in a few days of work here and there (like when stopping in to visit family), I can extend our trip.

My impression at other companies with less generous vacation policies is that many "rank and file" employees do disconnect during their shorter trips, but management generally doesn't leave the laptop/phone at home.

Less generous is most definitely the norm.

My CTO in BT had worked both in the UK and in SV and he commented that he got exactly the same amount of work out of people in both places.

He commented that in the USA hs staff spent far more time gossiping around the water cooler and taking unofficial long weekends to go skiing etc

And BT has more holiday than the average in the UK - from the civil service days.

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