Take a long vacation some time. Even if you do have a family, save up enough money and go travel for a while. Take some decent time off work (4+ weeks). Let them fire you if they want. That's (one of my) my goal(s) over the next 2 years: take an extended vacation (I haven't taken more than a week off since I graduated college).
http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...
It is also a solid testimony to the fact that for every HR policy there is an exception. If you are valued and make your case in the right way, you can get a lot! (think double-promotions, out of cycle raises, better gear, etc.) HR advises, Managers decide (if your manager doesn't know this, shop for a new one)
Your savings can last even longer if you get a $10/hr job such as waiting tables part-time.
Work daily on developing marketable skills. Work daily on communicating how your work impacts the business you're in. Imagine your boss asks you tomorrow, "Why shouldn't I fire you right now?". What would you say?
Always have a resume prepared.
Once you have done this you can go up to your boss and tell her you are taking two months off and you won't care what she says in reply.
My biggest life regret was not realizing this at the time. I jumped into the workforce and pursued my career at 95 mph.
I should have spent a year travelling.
You also get more diverse experience and contacts that increase your desirability if you want to return to 9-5 land AND if you're adventurous, you can go live in a developing nation with a low cost of living, which has the same effect as a big income boost, plus you get to spend your time somewhere that isn't yuppie land (and presumably has nice weather).
And it looks like somebody below has saved me the trouble of pointing you to it.
One of the perks I would probably want in my contract when I start working is the ability to take up to 4 weeks of unpaid leave and being able to take all my vacation out in one go.
Also I've been told that in the US you have a limited number of sick days and that they sometimes come as part of your vacation. That's not the case in Norway. In fact, if you get sick for a week while on holiday, then you have the right to another week of holiday.
In Norway we can take up to 3 consecutive days off due to illness 4 times during 12 months. If you work in an extra exposed environment (kindergarten, old people's home) you have more days. If you need more than that, you have to see a doctor. The doctor can give you up to 12 months of leave. During this period the state refunds your employer for your wages (after 14 days or so). Under no circumstances can you be fired due to your illness, and if you can not return to your position your employer will need to provide a new position. This of course can be very bad for small companies and start-ups. So they tend to use temporary employment to circumvent these issues, though there is a limit as to how long you can employ someone temporarily.
You have to keep your expenses low (both at home and abroad) but at least you're not at work.
I did some work for a start-up while doing my own before taking a month off to travel the world (literally from America > Asia > Europe). They offered to pay me to stay but I thought, "I'd rather have the amazing experience of visiting friends and understanding foreign cultures than remaining comfortable.").
I have employees that take a lower salary than others, but have up to 7 weeks holiday a year. I'm happy with that. One employee that has 7 weeks holiday has only had 1 day sick in the 6 years I've employed him.
-- Sharpen the Saw --
Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter ask for a job in a timber merchant, and he got it. The paid was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees "Congratulations," the boss said. "Go on that way!" Very motivated for the boss’ words, the woodcutter try harder the next day, but he only could bring 15 trees. The third day he try even harder, but he only could bring 10 trees.
Day after day he was bringing less and less trees. "I must be losing my strength", the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on. "When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" the boss asked. "Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees..."
Be that training, a vacation, or the literal "sharpening of the axe."
Many employers also lump in sick time with vacation time, as if that's a replacement since you didn't come into work. That would probably be okay, if you had an option to take unpaid vacation time when the time comes. Instead, you're often forced to take a shorter vacation, which doesn't do the job.
And forcing you to work while on vacation is unforgiveable. It shows that the company doesn't understand why vacation time is necessary. (I haven't had anyone do this to me, thankfully. It wouldn't have gone well.)
If taking unpaid vacations was an option, I would probably end up taking about 4 weeks worth of vacations, instead of 2.
Force.
As in, my employer is forcing me to take shorter vacations. My employer is forcing me to work my vacations around their schedule.
That's not what he's doing. He's coercing you. It's different. He's implying that if you take the vacation you want, there might not be a job waiting when you get back. The answer to that is "fine".
If you truly don't care whether there's a job waiting on the other side, he loses all leverage. If you know for a fact that you could pick up another dev job inside of a week with a Facebook status update, he loses all leverage.
In other words, the only reason you think your boss can "force" you to do anything is because you've given him that ability. Quit thinking in those terms and you'll live a much happier life.
I agree in principle, but it's not always so simple. When you're young, have no kids, no mortgage, no car loan, etc, it's pretty easy to just say "fuck off, see ya" when your employer acts abusively.
When you have all of the above, that becomes more difficult. Relocating is more often than not the norm in this industry, and you don't exactly want to sell your house, or move your kids around, etc etc.
Disclaimer: I don't have kids, or a mortgage, and I'm very mobile right now, but I also understand this probably won't last forever.
It's a warning for living beyond your means anyways - I've noticed many people that I work with have huge mortgages out, to the point where the continuous stream of income becomes paramount - even a few months of interruption could possibly mean ruin for them. This strikes me as an idiotic fiscal policy.
I don't consider losing my job to be traumatic in any way. It's nearly impossible to find good developers, so if you have a bit of skill you don't ever need to worry about the consequences of being unemployed.
We have zeroed down to what prevents people from taking risks or being happy or being content. Its about slowly walking in debt traps which never go away all your life.
As a kid you are fearless, because somebody else takes care of your finances, you feel no pressure, stay happy and do what you want. Once you grow up, in your teens you take inputs from things around you and try to be like the richest. What you don't realize is that such a life 'loaned' not 'owned'. The day you go to work, you spend your salary like no spend thrift did before.
You change your iPhone every year, because everybody else is doing so. You buy everything from credit from clothes to toilet paper to car. Sometime later a colleague purchases a home and due to peer pressure you just trap yourself into a 20-25 year load on back breaking interest. You pay taxes on property and everything you own.
By the time you are done with all this you are too old to even enjoy what you have. Meanwhile you spend away your whole thinking of clearing the loans, trapping your self in never ending fear 'What will happen if I don't' clear the loan/ or if I loose the job.
This greatly reduces your ability to flexible and agile in terms of taking risks. This also kills your pursuit of happiness, because all the while you are worried of doing something out of compulsion regardless whether you like it or not.
The thing important here is to fix a upper limit and have some attitude for gratitude. A heck lot of people work a day of manual labor and go home with happiness filled in their hearts. While we worry about not having some X gadget which some colleague has. We complain about vacations et al.
Not tying happiness with money can help you get a lot of things in life with little stress.
Even if you have all those responsibilities and you're leveraged up to your eyeballs you can still quit your job. You just need to line up another one first. I've been doing technical work for almost 25. In that time I've quit two jobs because they weren't treating me the way I expect to be treated, but I've never been without a job.
Even if you can afford it you're really hurting yourself by screaming "fuck off, see ya" at your boss and stomping out to look for another job. It's a lot easier to find a job when you already have one, and your negotiating position for salary and benefits is much stronger.
xnerdr 2 hours ago | link | parent [dead] | on: Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?
and this is why i'm amazed programmers have not yet formed a union.
I request four weeks of vacation in my contract, but am afraid to use them. That's America.
I think I'll be asking for more vacation time in future contracts, too. I managed to secure extra in the first year of my current contract because I had a need (planned trip) but in the future, I'm just going to require more.
Of course, benefits and pay are interchangeable, so I might just request the ability to take unpaid vacation as needed, up to a certain amount.
It seems like something you should be able to take up with your employer, because you requested vacation and they're counting holidays (something different) against them. That sees like a bit of a rip off.
Of course, I know that even two weeks of vacation is considered a lot in this country and my mom works in a job where she doesn't get _any_ paid vacation, so . . .
That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales. While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money.
For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spent my 20s bouncing around the world visiting more than 30 countries on 5 continents, with zero gaps in my employment.
Now that I'm an employer, I still see it as a great trade: employees are a lot cheaper here, and seem to be happier. But again, while most American software developers would love to have more vacation, I've heard them also repeat ludicrous things about how they can "barely survive on $60k/year".
* Comfortable retirement - 401k contributions. Yes America has social security but it's not a ton of money compared to other national pensions and if you're young you worry about it not being around at all by the time you need it.
* Unemployment - You should probably have ~6 months living expenses saved up, if not a year, in case you get laid off. U.S. unemployment benefits are fairly marginal (~700 per month cap when I used them in 2002, which you owe tax on), especially compared to Germany/France.
* Life insurance - If you have kids and/or a non working spouse you need to make sure they will be OK if you die, since we have such a weak social safety net.
* Education for your kids - 529 and educational IRA plans allow people to save for our increasingly expensive higher education even before the child is born (I-Bonds can be used this way). Cuts to public colleges have been harsh this year so don't think those will save you.
Yes many Americans blow their salaries on dumb consumerist crap, and tend to overinvest in things like real estate. But even the prudent ones will be trying to jack up their salaries because there are SO many things you are supposed to save for to be considered a responsible American adult.
* Healthcare - Health insurance is often a luxury in America. The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens.
* Public transportation - Many US cities don't have adequate bus service. Just anyone who lives outside NYC or a college town will need a car.
In Germany and many European countries, you pay for healthcare and it costs a lot -- you simply don't have the option of not having healthcare and the cost is proportional to your income rather than your health condition. Also note that the employee caries the full cost of health insurance as opposed to the employer usually covering it in skilled professions in the US.
The social security model is also somewhat similar: you pay (high) social security taxes and get money back based your contributions.
Unemployment, also like in the US, is pretty sane if you're a full-time employee and are fired. You don't get it for several months if you quit on your own and if you haven't payed unemployment taxes, you get put on unemployment that's just at the edge of livable (housing costs + about $500/month).
And note, those taxes come after the lower salary. A pretty common take-home salary for a European software developer would be $3000-4000/month.
And really, how many 20-somethings that complain about the cost of living are doing it because they're stashing away too much in their retirement fund?
Public transit is a valid one, but then, the two highest paid areas for software developers in the US, New York and San Francisco, also have quite good public transit. (Not to mention that a one-month pass costs $100-200/month depending on the area.)
The truth is that I've heard people say that while they eat out every day, have a new car every couple years, live in swanky places and spend money on a constant stream of new gadgets. Americans also have a weird fetish that you don't find other places about buying homes in their 20s. While there are some valid reasons that make the total cost of living in Europe comparatively lower, I'm really not convinced that's the core of the difference. It's just that people quickly grow into their incomes and start seeing things as essential that aren't.
Actually, there is, it's called medicaid.
What? You make too much to be eligible for medicaid? That tells us that you don't need the safety net that it provides.
And, even without medicaid, it's possible to get free health care for fundamentals in the US. No, "free" doesn't cover everything, but no healthcare system does.
I get a little tired of hearing this. Study after study after study indicates that diet and lifestyle play a major role in all major deadly diseases. I was an American military wife for a couple of decades. Even after my divorce, I was entitled to free medical care at tax-payer expense. I did nothing to try to preserve that entitlement* because I was too busy making the dietary and lifestyle changes I needed to make in order to get well when I was told by some specialist that I would never get well. Eat right, exercise, don't smoke, don't drink to excess and all that other boring advice no one wants to hear and you greatly reduce the odds that you will need expensive medical care.
* And I'm saving the American public quite a lot of money because my medical condition is one of the more expensive chronic incurable conditions out there. It annoys me that it's all coming out of my pocket to get well but other folks would happily pay through the nose to help me stay sick and keep me a lifelong legal drug addict. /Rant
For exemple here in France, on the salary my employer pays, it's divided pretty much like this: 40% employer's taxes, 20% employee's taxes, 40% final amount of money you put in the bank when all is said and done.
BUT my negociated salary, the one I signed on, never included employer's taxes, so for a 100€ salary I never discussed 100€ or even thought of it at any point, my contract has always been about 60€ (and then I pay about 20€ in taxes).
For me what that really changes is that:
- if employer's taxes increses, I have no idea about it, and my pay check doesn't change at all (neither if it decreases)
- our perceived salary seems to be a lot lower than some other countries.
So what I'm asking is, when you guys speak about that kind of salary being way too low, is it a "complete" salary or is it after employer's taxes ? I live with less that those 60k$/42k€ and I can afford a nice middle class life in the middle of Paris plus vacations every year ...
PS: actually if you look at french job offers, you will see "brut" and/or "net" salaries, brut is pre employee's taxes, net is post.
Separately, the company must pay a few other taxes on that $60k (nowhere near 40%, though)
At the top of your paycheck you would see your 'advertised' earnings for that period and then at the bottom you have your take home net pay. Depending on your location, you loose around 20% of your 'advertised' pay to taxes and other mandatory things. If you contribute to a 401K you loose even more.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you, it is the way to go. You just need the constant stream of work, which is easier said then done.
Actually being a contractor in a country with good social safety net is even better... as you're employment isn't responsible for healthcare benefits* , your options are much better.
* France has a public/private deal where you (or your employer) can pay extra for better service, but the baseline social safety net is quite ample.
When I talk to people for the first time they're always asking me if I'll be moving back to the US. My response is maybe someday, but for now I'd be crazy to give all that up!
That plus nice cars, eating out, and buying iPads.
From an business uptime perspective, forced "downtime" of employees through vacation is actually a good way to force the creation of backup systems for business process.
I also recall hearing at some point in time that a lot of financial institutions forced certain people to take time off,as a means to detect embezzling. I'm not sure if that's true or not.
Not only is that practiced, it's the law.
This makes the whole inustial and coorporate sector grind to a halt. A lot of factories literally shut down for a few weeks.
Fortunately, it is rather well coordinated.
What does everyone think?
Thus why many employers don't do training other than the bare minimum - why train someone who might use the training to go elsewhere. This is the "keep them dumb and stupid" approach to employee retention.
Seems kind of silly to me. If your better employees regularly leave your company, than you probably have more deeply-rooted organizational problems that need fixing.
Or, when combined with a minimal vacation time bucket, forced vacation makes sure your employees will be there when you want them to be.
I know an auditor at a Big 4 accounting firm. The employees in her office are forced to take some vacation time during the slow time of the year. That way it burns down vacation time that they could otherwise be using during crunch time and causing short-staffing.
Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.
In addition, unused holidays don't really expire. So if you or your employeer terminates the contract, you have the right to be paid for _all_ unused holidays that accumulated during the period of the contract. That's the reason why most employees force you to really take all of your 5 weeks each year.
Edit: Seems that I was wrong and that unused holidays expire after a few years. Still, each employer I've worked for so far "forced" its employees to really take their 5 weeks of vacation.
I don't know that this is the case in many European countries, including Eastern Europe (at least the part of it that is in the EU). First of all, in most (all?) EU countries all workers get 4 weeks paid vacation minimum. If you do not use up all of it, your employer can offer you to "carry over" the vacation to the next year. If they do not offer you that option then they are obliged to "force" you to go on vacation after it becomes clear that you will not use up all of your vacation days. Some employers will offer to instead compensate you extra for the vacation days you did not use up - this is legal in some EU countries only.
> Two, you have to work over capacity to support yourself and your family.
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but this just doesn't make a lot of sense, since those mandatory 4 weeks of vacation are paid vacation - i.e. you get paid the same amount you would receive had you been working instead of being on vacation.
Just about the only reason why you could potentially make less money due to vacation is if you regularly do a lot of overtime (which you obviously cannot do while on vacation).
Yugoslavia Socialism -> 4-5 weeks at least, plus all religioous holidays and all communist free days. Capitalism -> 1-2 weeks maximum, religious on, communist off.
In Croatia the country shuts down during the summer.
Yes, there is always pressure about choosing the right time for the business or public service, but at the end of the day it's a right and if you don't exercise it you're entitled to a lot of extra money -- which is why employers are keen on people actually taking time off.
I asked for 4 consecutive weeks off to travel Europe once at a previous employer (I had worked there 5 years with no more then a week and a half off) and they denied the request. So I found another job and made sure I had a 4 week break between the two.
I was working for Sun Microsystems, which gave me two weeks of vacation time. Sun was doing a forced shutdown over the week of the 4th of July, which burned 4 days, and then there was the inevitable "shutdown" over christmas break, which burned another three days. This left me with 3 days of "elective" vacation time. A wedding took care of those.
I quit Sun, and deliberately took off 4 weeks before my next job started. Funny, when the 4 weeks were over, I was ready to go back to Sun. The job I had left was better than the one I was taking. I realized that I had just been terminally burned out. Maybe I should have called Sun back, we were still on good terms, but at the time, I didn't really realize this was an option... and this was the deep tech recession of the early 2000s (which accounts for the forced shut down in the summer), so they were trying to shed employees.
I wasn't a rock star, but I'm pretty sure I was valuable to the company. I'd spent almost three years writing code, learning the structure of sun's data warehouse, getting to know supply analysts, people in sales, people in manufacturing, and understanding the issues in logistics and how to write analytical apps to support these functions. Even if my hard skills could be replaced (they certainly could, by any Industrial Engineering major with intermediate programming ability), the new person would still take years to acquire all that domain and institutional knowledge.
This is why I do agree that it's nuts for companies to be so stingy with vacation time. An extra week or two a year would probably have kept me at Sun. I think the reason this inefficiency persists is that employers just don't see the connection. I didn't even see the connection, and I was the one who quit my job.
It could be that I'm more prone to burnout than most. Maybe so, but I don't think I'm an extreme outlier on this. I suspect lots of job-hopping and burnout does result from such low vacation allotments.
How common is this exactly? Because this sounds like a company that is really, really screwing it's employees.
Sun, like most companies, did give the option of taking the leave without pay and preserving your vacation time.
Maybe that's one option for US companies - pay for two weeks of vacation time, but culturally allow up to six without pay. Then we'd actually be somewhat more like European countries, but with an option - reduce your salary if you'd like more vacation, but keep working and make more money if that's more your style.
I doubt I'll see this happen - first, "leave without pay" is unusual in the US, typically done medical conditions where the employee wants to return to the job, but will be forced to leave for long periods of time (pregnancy leave is often handled this way). Another problem is that it may actually be inefficient - it would create a financial incentive to take minimum vacation time, and a lot of people believe, with some evidence, that workers are less productive this way.
[1] IANAAC: I am not an accountant ;)
At my company, the factory has 7,000 employees in one location. So many people took vacation between Christmas and New Years that the factory simply can not operate. The solution was either to only give that time off for a select group of people (pissing off most of the factory guys), or to make everyone take that time off (pissing off the few that used to come in that week and goof off).
Unfortunately they extended it from the guys in the factory up to the engineers. Which really makes no sense. I'm working on a project that won't hit the factory floor for another year. Why can't I work between Christmas and New Years? I would be amazingly produtive without all the meetings and distractions. Not only do we have to take the time off and use vacation (or not get paid and don't come in), but we are not allowed to come in even if we wanted to. I assume this is all negotiated with the unions, they never want the salaried guys to have perks that they don't have. So for I end up burning 3-5 out of 10 vacation days a year on a week I absolutely do NOT want to take off. But I still get paid for those days at least. And there are ways to get around it (floating holidays, i.e. work 40 hours in 4 days in a week with a holiday gives you the holiday back) which in effect allow you to have your full 2 weeks. If that was not the case I think the salaried engineers would have fought back against the practice more. Although I guess most people with kids like that week off anyway, I just view it as a waste, I like taking my vacation during the times those with kids can't take vacation. Everything is cheaper and less crowded.
A 'furlow' is an unpaid day that the company forces you to take. A lot of government employees have these now, you must take 1-5 days off a year and not get paid for those days. In effect it is a pay cut but in exchance you get more vacation days. The most interesting thing about the furlough is that very often you see people given a choice between everyone taking a few days furlough or a bunch of people getting fired. More often than not, everyone votes to have a few people fired.
Some countries laws (eg Ireland) explicitly allow forced closure for Christmas, it is also in several contracts (that part of your holidays must be over a certain period). This is the closest it gets in Europe.
It's interesting however--some folks take advantage of the flexibility, while others do not. Just about everyone in the R&D group travels frequently, and the CEO will often go dark for a month at a time, but others in the company don't take more than a week or two of their PTO each year.
My guess is at the big corporations HR cannot just make up rules as they go. Also, they are all afraid to break any written rules. So a little push from an employee could bring desired results.
Since the financial mess of the past couple of years showed that US productivity figures that seemed too good to be true really were just an illusion, I'm hoping that the mindset of the average US worker has become a bit more realistic and a bit less willing to accept (by international standards) abusively long hours and short vacations. It will be good for the workers, and I expect for their employers as well in the long run, since working with better rested and happier employees is one of the surest ways to improve productivity known to man.
I myself value leisure highly, though. I have a job as a software engineer at a large bank in New York. Right out of college, the bank allows me (and all other first-year developers) four weeks of vacation per year, and I'm taking full advantage of it. I like to travel.
Demand for software engineering talent is so strong right now in the United States that I'm surprised so many Americans on Hacker News feel they can't take a decent vacation. I'm sure if they spoke to their bosses they could work something out. You shouldn't be afraid to ask for a reasonable vacation.
[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2576325 is the thread that was sparked by this comment.
Work harder / longer - shift to extreme right-wing politics - slowly lose status as the "greatest nation in the world" - grit your teeth and work even harder / longer...
It was one of my reasons for not taking a job in the USA that was offered me a few years ago. Yes, it paid somewhat more than here in Europe but I'd rather have the benefits such as more free time and better health care than more income.
I plan to move to SF in the following months, but this is one of the issues why I think that I won't stay there permanently, but will move back to Europe after a few years.
Also, banks, educational institutions, and government offices are more generous when it comes to vacation days. Tech companies and ad agencies are generally the stingiest.
It's pretty stupid, particularly since it's a fairly strong disincentive to relocate: precisely after you've moved away from friends and family, they give you less time to visit them. It was one of the biggest reasons I never moved to CA when I had the offer, H-1B, etc.
We went to an 'unlimited' policy about 16 months ago, and one of our devs spent almost an entire month overseas earlier this year without issue. He's not too much of an outlier within our company in terms of how much vacation time is taken, either.
In Sweden, we have five weeks of vacation by law. And, the right to take four of those weeks consecutively.
For this reason we have the "industrial vacation" in July when all heavy industry shuts down, since it's easier if everyone and the entire supply chain shut down at the same time.
google-translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=...
I cant imagine Swedish would be much of an issue if you work with software development. Even outside technology, most swedes speak english well enough for basic communication.
Still, if you get a work permit (easy), you get to attend free Swedish lessons.
It also happen to be a huge lack of IT people on the market at the moment..
The flip side, of course, is that you have to survive our winters. :P
This changed my perspective. The difference between that and the States' 10ish days off is much greater than the difference between us and Europe. It is hard for me to imagine. Can anyone else with knowledge of East Asia chime in? Was this guy's experience representative? If so, it is a bit silly to call America the "no vacation nation." We do get vacation.
While vacationing in Hawaii I read an article about the massive logistics it took to host about 10 million Amway sales reps from China. The visa and hotel backlog was insane so it took about 2 years from when they were promised to when they were actually delivered that company paid vacation.
That said, people are discouraged from taking holidays in many companies, especially large Chaebol-style companies. I know a few people who work 6 days a week, 10 hours a day with two holidays a year and one of them must be a Sunday. Competition, for everything, is far more intense here than it was in Australia or the US.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922052.html
I'm actually kind of surprised at how good the Canadian number is compared to the US (I'm in Canada). But now that I think about it, I do get 3 weeks plus stat holidays (about 1 week) and a December company shutdown (another 4 days or so). I haven't been shy about asking for unpaid days off either.
As long as you have management consultants who specialize in the single metric of productivity (i.e. number of dollars of profit vs. number of dollars spent on people making the profit), you will have miserable people.
To those without a good understanding of statistics, numbers and graphs are a mystical, magical way to easily improve just about anything.
Because, at the end of the day, the company is buying completed-and-sold widgets for their salary dollar. All things being equal (including widget output), if the company pays you $50k a year and gives you 4 more "paid" vacation weeks, they gave you a raise. You can mandate 2, 4, or 8 weeks of vacation, but --- at least in middle class jobs --- you can't really mandate a salary floor.
I would never want to work for a Netflix-model company. When I take vacation, I want to feel entitled to it (because I am!), and when I forgo vacation, I want to be paid out for that sacrifice when I leave the company.
I think the Netflix model exists more to improve the company ledger by reducing liabilities than to help the employee or promote a healthy work environment. Maybe it's different where you work, but that's my perspective, from my comfortable 12 company holidays, 15 days PTO perspective.
I live in Chicago, no one around here would accuse the unions of being weak, but vacation time here is no different than in the south.
Unless you mean on a national level (unions pushing for federal reform and what-not) than yes the unions here are weaker, but the U.S. Also tends to be more opposed to national regulations than Europe as well.
In America it is fairly common for employers tack on a little more vacation time every year for both salary and hourly employees. It isn't too terribly odd to have 1 to 1.5 months off a year after working for someone for 5 to 10 years, but Americans seldom stay at the same job for very long. Either you go off for greener pastures, quit out of frustration, get laid off or simply resign because they fear that prospective employers won't hire you because you stayed at one place for too long.
Deep down, I think we have a serious fear of being considered lazy by our peers.
I would actually say that that's very odd, except in very specialized fields.
How many Americans live in right-to-work states and can be dismissed without a reason?
Add that together and you have a lot of fear.
Most American workplaces start you out with 2 weeks and then usually add a week or so after so many years of seniority. When you change jobs, how many of you ask for that same amount of vacation time at the new company? Or do you just accept that you're new and don't want to push things by asking for more at the onset? Or is it just forgotten until it's too late to ask?
I find that I take a lot of what I have in my daily business life for granted and am often surprised when I'm struck by the reality of how few benefits positions in other places in this country give people.
I cannot see how you consider that he got a bad deal.
You raise an important point. There can be a bit of that. For example, negotiating additional vacation time when you start a new job can hurt you a year later when you take that vacation and things aren't going well for the company. It can be viewed negatively by management and it might bleed into other considerations, like raises or promotions. Screwed up, I know, but it happens.
My new company is 3 weeks vacation and 5 days sick/personal for everyone. Instead I just took more money with the understanding that I could get approved for leave without pay as needed.
Also, I find that being single and having friends that (on the majority), make less than I do, makes it difficult to plan trips to places you'd have to fly/rent a hotel for. Trips consist of ten friends carpooling, getting a group rate at a ski resort, and renting out a condo for next to nothing for a weekend.
I have a lot of vacation days through work (6 weeks this year), but have pretty much no desire to go on vacations. I end up using my vacation days to go to Security conferences.
I've found, at least with my favorite conferences (CanSecWest, Shmoocon), that they refill my "info-sec excitement meter" for a good four months before I start considering quitting and going to work in a comic book store.
Yes, usually HR can make exceptions. But you need a good reason, like "at my current job I have 3 weeks of leave accrued, I want to not lose that if I come work for you".
But having an engineer who accrues vacation at a different rate than other employees hired under the same circumstances would be quite exceptional. It would stand out in their records and they might not have a good way to justify their decision if they were questioned about it "why is troles taking so many vacations?".
During the hiring process, it's probably not a good idea to act exceptional in the amount of vacation you plan on taking! It would be easier to negotiate on salary.
That said, if employers are serious about attracting talent, perhaps it wasn't a bad idea to offer more time off for everybody. I know that coming from a country where 6 weeks time off is the minimum, it would be a serious disincentive for me to want to work in the states.
I still think that the major problem is that the US is one of the three only nations in the world that does not have paid maternity leave. Absurd.
For me that is no brainier, but unfortunately, very few hi-tech companies actually understand that. So you have high-rate of "burn outs" which cause all kind problems (bugs, bad design decisions, etc.). The management mantra is still: The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Also, I was surprised how it is very hard to find a hi-tech company offering something like unpaid sabbatical leave or fulltime sabbatical replacement position (i.e., programmer working in sales for one or two months). Some banks and hedge funds do that.
Years back when I was working for an American employer, filing a leave seemed like taboo. I didn't understand it back then but when my wife got hospitalized, I filed for an emergency leave of course, my boss sent flowers with a note that goes something like this: "Hope your wife gets better yada yada...can you work while you're at the hospital?"
I quit a month later and found another company that gave me 6 weeks vacation (starting). And much better pay to boot.
Why is it you guys pay your government again?
But that's all I can think of. And you missed "slow broadband".
Just be aware that while it might be a good place to live, Norwegians find lots to complain about anyway. Also, it's definitely not the most exciting place to live. You'll earn enough to buy a place to live, have kids and spend your five weeks of paid vacation somewhere warmer.
FWIW, I've met Americans who have moved here because of our socialist values (yes, socialist... it's not a curse word where I come from ;)), and are pretty happy about it.
Part 1: http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0 Part 2: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... Part 3: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar... Part 4: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPar...
However, they are in fact some of the most important pieces of film I have ever watched, and Adam Curtis is one of the greatest documentary makers ever.
I encourage you to watch all these, then go and watch all his other works, starting with the Power of Nightmares.
now a joke story as it is told in Russia.
at one company people worked their asses off very hard, came earlier, left later, sometimes worked until 9 or 10 to meet goals in the plan. and suddenly one man started to appear at 9, leave an 6 and didn't appear on Saturday and Sunday when the deadline was near. colleagues started to look at him with blame, and finally told him, who the fuck you think you are? why you so relaxed when we are tearing our asses? - oh, sorry guys, its a real shame, - he replied, - but i am on a vacation
I think the low number of vacation days is just a side effect of Americans not having such a strict compartmentalization between "work" and "life". I worked on both sides of the Atlantic and although I settled in Europe now I actually like the US work ethic, the low number of vacation days notwithstanding.
For many Europeans work is something they do to have bread on the table and the "real" life is that part you're not working. For many Americans their work is their life and the free time they have gets intermingled with work (they take the kids to the company barbecue! never heard of that happening in Europe).
But if most of your waking moments are spent doing something which is not your primary objective than you could say the Europeans are the sad ones.
(Side note: I am now in the happy position that I enjoy running my own company, I might feel different if I had a lousy job)
Like some others however, I have dreamt about travelling long term so have handed my notice in, managed to secure some small freelance gigs and leave next wednesday for Bangkok, my holiday entitlement just wasn't enough ;)
The years of service are calculated for full-time positions so if you worked at a company part-time for five years and then became full-time only then does the clock start to tick towards more vacation time.
In my job the summer is a busy time and vacations are blacked out from July to August the best times to go in a snowy country. The rest of the year the quiet time is used for projects which also mean no vacation.
Over six years each year I managed to get a week or two in, barely, but I've got 210 hours of vacation and 200+ hours of sick time (maxed out) that I can't use because I can never get time off. And I'm not allowed to take two weeks in a row either. Time to move on!
Anyone you ask wouldn't get any more than two weeks and self-employed seasonal workers such as farmers and fishermen may not get any vacation.
However, the biggest problem I have is actually taking the time off! I feel like I will miss too much work if I take a long vacation so I just take off a day or two here and there to "relax." And just like the article says I am always available via email on my cell phone and although I don't want to admit it, I am usually available on my computer as well.
Seriously, what's the worst that could happen if you're not there for a week or two?
Except, it doesn't work like that, right? In our profession, you don't have a steady workload, sometime you need to do more, sometimes you need to do less. You have colleagues that can cover for you when you are not at work.
There's this weird-ass mentality in the US that you shouldn't be paid when you're not at work, but that's just the wrong way of thinking about it. If I have five weeks of paid vacation and a week of holidays, then the company pays me my yearly salary for 46 weeks of labour.
If the company expects me to do more than 46 weeks of labour in a year, it's doing something wrong. That is not the deal, and if there's more work that needs to be done, then they either have to convince me to work overtime, or hire more employees.
Anyone with dev skills can go independent or strike out with a group of like-minded souls to take control of their schedule. Sure there are downsides to working on your own, and it isn't all skittles and beer, but overall I find it well worth it.
A software developer I know worked tirelessly for 4 years at a large corporation before burning out. He may have taken a week off here & there, but was always answering his emails.
He finally requested a sabbatical. Those are rare and very tough to get, but his manager fought for him and off he went. He returned refreshed, though he left the job shortly thereafter (which is a major reason why that company made it tough to request a sabbatical).
I'm just curious if the same kind of phenomenon occurs in Europe.
Though we have a guy at work that have managed to convince our employer to give hime an extra day off every week (without pay though, but he doesn't need the cash)
To get work share you need to have worked at least 10 years of which at least 13 months to your current employer. You can work share for a minimum of 90 days and maximum of 359 days. Compensation is 70-80% of what your unemployment benefit (25.74€ base per day + 45% of your normal day's earnings) would be.
I don't live to work. I work to live.
Because you probably do not get a charge out of getting something for nothing -- but many do.
But I want to create win-win situations with my business relationships. If I am working for a company, they are getting my product, I am getting money (possibly benefits). If I am not working, e.g., I am dorking around in Mexico for a month on vacation, the company is not netting value out of me, and if they are paying me, that's a drain on their resources. I want my employer to be awesome, because as a member of that company, the awesomeness trickles down. :-)
Do you guys in the US get time in lieu? My job is 40 hours a week, and if you work longer than that, you can take the time off later. So working fifteen minutes longer every day lets you have another week off (paid) every year, in addition to the four weeks paid holiday you get.
And since holiday time accumulates, you are encouraged to take most of it every year.
While in NY, the company I worked at encouraged people to take comp days sooner rather than later.
I usually just accumulated a bunch of hours and took extended periods of time off.
everything is negotiable.
i negotiated a little more in vacation then the other co-workers. Some other teams in the company can take time off based on the overtime they put in that month. My team doesn't have that. but if we work on some long issue, the manager usually gives an informal day off later.
I guess if I was digging ditches for a living, I'd want all the paid vacations I could possibly have. However, I work with computers and technology for a living and I love computers and technology. So . . you know . . . why would I want to take time off from doing something I enjoy?
Not to mention, after I die, nobody is going to remember me fondly for the vacations I took, so I could sit in the sun and cook my skin next to a chlorinated pool in another country. They're going to remember me for any work ethic, personality, and accomplishments I had.
If that's all you think vacations are, no wonder you don't take them.
My housemate is in Africa for 10 days with her mother at the moment. Another friend is going to Vietnam for two weeks shortly. Both of these ventures open the travelers up to new experiences and broaden not only their horizons, but mine by proxy. I can guarantee you that I will remember their trips to foreign lands more than I remember them spending another week in their jobs.
I actually find it a little sad that you seem to think that broadening your perspective is worthless (ie: "here I am, why ever look elsewhere?")
I enjoy working. I enjoy that every week, I get to do technically creative and very detailed and complex things with people who are all over the planet. China, Japan, India, Australia, all over the UK, France, the Vatican, Israel, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Singapore and many others. Granted, taking time away from work makes you look bad, so not doing that is a point in my favor -- but I truly enjoy my work. I also enjoy that it allows me to own a home, have plans to buy my childhood home so it can stay in the family some day, put my siblings through college, help with financial support and technical guidance of my friends' businesses and projects, contribute to worthy causes, and someday potentially retire.
Then again, if I have to die "young", I want to be one of those Karōshi deaths where they go out slumped over a pile of spreadsheets and whitepapers on their desk. So . . . take my preferences with a grain of salt, if you like.
At least that is how I see it. I will work to keep me busy doing (hopefully) interesting things and to keep food on the table but in the end I work because I have to. We all do.
Wouldn't you rather work 6 months of the year and travel or do whatever you want the rest? I know I would.
Actually, I worked a a place that allowed you to "sell back" your vacation time as actual hours worked. They could be made to count for time-and-a-half overtime.
If you did that on a week that also had a company holiday, you'd kind of get into this triple-bonus-category. It was great until some guy sort of abused it and sold back a few weeks while also working a bunch of overtime over a two-holiday pay period.
That’s a shorter (but still quite long) summer vacation. Overall, however, vacation times are similar.
As for spring break, here is the situation at my German university: classes end at July 15 this year, exams end at August 20, the next semester starts at October 1. That’s one month and nearly two weeks when you can be absolutely sure that there is nothing to do for you (at least when you finish your papers in time and don’t have a thesis to write) and probably more depending on when your exams are.
We also get two weeks off for Christmas and there is obviously also a shorter break (about one week and up to one month depending on when your exams are) between winter semester and summer semester (but no other vacations, only federal and state holidays).
I don’t know much about US universities (Is there downtime for students between semesters?) but I do know that spring break certainly doesn’t compare. (One or two weeks? Seriously?)
You get three months off for the summer (normally June, July and August), a month off over Christmas (though in some universities it may only be three weeks, and you may have to prepare for exams), and various other time off.
Also that summer time is free, no papers to write. It is goddamned awesome. http://www2.ul.ie/web/WWW/Services/Academic_Calendar/2012_-_...
That’s blatantly untrue.
Mid-june till september off for schools. July and august off for college students. One week prior to christmas and one week some time around easter off for both. Four weeks paid yearly vacation for the 9-to-5ers. Two weeks additional paid vacation for working students finishing their graduation works. National holidays and sickness don't count towards your vacation time. If a national holiday happens to be in weekend, friday or monday is usually free.
Honestly, the more I read about US working conditions, the more I feel like people there are deliberately misinforming everyone else in attempt to reduce immigration and competition on job market.
Likewise they usually 1 or 2 weeks off at Christmas time, and 1 or 2 at easter time (around your spring break).
I recently travelled to to the UK and France for 16 days and was happy to return home. I had a great time on the trip, so maybe I'm weird for not wanting to be gone longer? If I actually lived in Europe more vacation might be nice because it's so easy/cheap to visit other countries.
Since almost everyone have the large part of their vacation during the summer, there is a good chance that some of your friends and family will have vacation at the same time, so you just relax and enjoy life for the rest of the time.
(Or you can just spend the entire vacation repainting your house and be stressed about all the stuff you have to do now that you have the time...)
I can only relax for a few days before I get stir crazy. I need problems to solve and things to think about. It probably helps that I don't hate my job and have a lot of free time already. A long time ago I realized that I didn't want to be that person who lives for the couple times a year they get a vacation (even if you have 4 weeks I don't want to hate the other 48). Instead try to live in places where I'm on vacation all the time. Right now I'm in the mountains and at the end of the summer I'm moving back to the beach.
What I've found works better for me is to take extended vacations every couple of years (a year here, 3 months there). This recharges my batteries for years at a time.
The roads are packed so you'll usually see a traffic report with them interviewing people taking a picnic on the side of the road, complete with wine and cheese of course. Also, its part of the draw. When there is a known crowd coming most of the hotels and restaurants pull out all the stops: foods, drinks, live entertainment. A lot of these seaside towns can be quite sleepy during the winter so its sort of a big deal.
And, quite a few of my colleagues have family that moved south for the warmer weather, some just head out to visit family.
These are the average numbers, for sure there's someone with less/more vacation.
Still, the more awareness that this topic gets, the better!
Whether you'd be willing to work for my wage is another problem, but I do have 20 days' worth of paid vacations.
Want constructive comments - give constructive topics.
