There is a good article from another software developer around here who told his boss he was taking a 3 month vacation. He made the point the business needed him more than he needed it; he was a competent developer and could easily get work, didn't have any living/large financial dependencies. At first I thought it was absurd, but the more I thought about it, he was absolutely correct.
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).
As a student I took time off from class and enjoyed 2 weeks skiing is switzerland, then another 2 weeks in the sun in Uruguay. All while it was -20C at home in Norway. I usually end up working during my normal vacations though, so last summer I had 2 weeks off.
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.
My wife has freelanced for over 15 years (before I knew her) precisely because of this. She saved up a big stash of cash, set automatic bill pays for her rent and utilities and took a two-month trip to Paris.
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..."
When I complained to an employer that it was too hard to request my vacation time (it's in my contract, they made it very hard to pick dates by always having an emergency deadline, etc) they replied "It's like that everywhere", as if it was a legit answer.
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.
Think about your choice of words up there, and you might just come up with your solution.
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.
This was one of the major draws for me for moving to Europe in my early 20s (from the US). After working one year in the US and having one week of vacation, it was bordering on surreal to have 6.
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".
One result of this is that businesses chuck human redundancy out the window. Often there's only one person who can do a business critical task, and as they can't really be gone from work for that long, the business gets by.
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.
There are a lot of companies that do force people to take vacations for precisely this reason.
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.
That really makes me think though: If they chucked redundancy out the window, that makes you the only person who can do a business critical task. Shouldn't that give you enormous leverage to negotiate with your employer? It often takes a lot of time and effort to get someone new up to your level. If they can't afford another couple weeks of vacation for you (in exchange for you staying on board instead of having to bring in someone completely new), then they must be doing it wrong.
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.
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.
It wasn't always like this in Europe. Extended vacation time was one of the many hard-fought rights won by the socialist/trade-unionist movements of the past century throughout the continent. Not even Thatcher dared attacking that right (she dropped a few national holidays here and there, instead).
Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.
Usually the only time Americans can take long vacations is between jobs. I wonder how many actually change jobs just for this reason.
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.
The thing I find most interesting about this discussion is that we have not yet seen anyone from the US proudly claiming that by working harder they are more productive than the rest of us. I have seen similar conversations several times on various on-line forums in the past, and there was always a defensive/proud mindset from a significant group, even as those of us outside the US wondered if they realised how much their employers were abusing them.
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.
This is crazy from our (Western European) perspective.
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.
I'm a Swedish developer. This year I have 7 weeks of vacation, and I plan to use it all. I normally get the 5 weeks required by law. Last year, I only used 4 of those 5 weeks, so one spilled over to this year. I also got a bonus week of vacation for working a lot of overtime last summer. So that makes 7 weeks.
I've found this is something that really surprises Europeans. But, once, when I was comparing notes with some travelers in a hostel in New Zealand, we asked a South Korean among us for his perspective. He said that he and everyone he knows gets maybe 2 days paid vacation a year. They work most weekends and get maybe 1 holiday. He said if you want to travel, you have to quit your job to do it, with no guarantee you will get another when you get back.
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.
America doesn't do vacation because of a mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word "productivity".
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.
Relative to cost-of-living, are wages the same, lower, or higher in countries with mandatory paid vacations? One wonders whether there's a delusive "free lunch" notion underpinning Euro vacation policy, whether governments really can force companies to pay everyone more for the same level of output, or whether Euro economies have discovered an effective way to engineer a more efficient labor force by attempting to outlaw burnout.
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.
No vacation really sucks. I took 2 months between jobs once, but I've always been able to take a week or two weeks at a time. Now, we have the same policy as netflix. Basically you take time off when you want it, and you take as much as you want. It's all paid. Our only designer is gone for 3 weeks to get married. We'll struggle a little bit for those 3 weeks, but I'm grateful that when it's my time to take a week or two off, I don't feel guilty or have to beg for it.
The funny thing is, the Netflix policy is tied to a corporate culture that's reputed to be very high stress, performance-focused, and quick to terminate. In such an insecure environment, I would be very surprised if Netflix employees took more vacation than the average industry employee.
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.
We have the Netflix policy, well almost. We get the time off when you want it, but never more than 5 working days together (Thats a week). Did I mention that a large number of the employees travel abroad to visit family?
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.
I have a feeling that there is a bit more to it than that.
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.
This topic is covered on a somewhat regular basis in The Economist - usnder different guises. One memorable comparison between Europe and the USA was that Americans work more so they can spend the occasional weekend on their expensive boat while Europeans are happier taking longer vacations on canoe trips.
Nitpick: you're referring to at-will employment, not right-to-work. Right-to-work laws mean that you can't be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. At-will employment means that you can (theoretically) be fired or quit at any time for no reason.
The worst part of it IMO is that even if you could pay for insurance without your workplace plan huge numbers of Americans can't get it at all due to pre existing conditions. So this is a serious impediment to workers leaving stable jobs that they don't like to do things like found small startups or even just move to a new job that may not be as stable.
I'm wondering how much of it is because people neglect to negotiate their vacation time when changing jobs.
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 asked for, and received 3 weeks vacation after a recent job switch. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The relative value of an extra week of vacation time is far greater than if my salary were bumped by the additional ~2% that I'd get by being there.
Of course, that depends entirely on the company/industry. I don't even know that "most" American workplaces start you out with any vacation. In professional fields, they mostly do, I'm sure. My mom has worked at the same place for around twenty years and she has zero vacation. The only way I would be able to get her to come for a visit where I am is if I subsidized the time (ie, paid the money she would otherwise be missing out on, on top of the expense of the travel) -- because either way, she still has bills to pay.
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've got a co-worker who negotiated extra time of when he started here (3 weeks instead of the normal 2). Normally, we get an extra week of vacation after 5 years of employment. Unfortunately, they screwed him out of it because he already had 3 weeks, which is the normal amount for someone with 5 years of tenure. :-(
Or do you just accept that you're new and don't want to push things by asking for more at the onset?
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.
When my old company was going under and a lot of us were looking for new jobs this was a tactic we all used. Go for pay and vacation time increases on offers. Some of us took more pay, some took more vacation. One guy got 6 weeks vacation.
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.
[+] [-] leftnode|15 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] joss82|15 years ago|reply
http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vaca...
[+] [-] jasonkester|15 years ago|reply
And it looks like somebody below has saved me the trouble of pointing you to it.
[+] [-] hmottestad|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] officemonkey|15 years ago|reply
You have to keep your expenses low (both at home and abroad) but at least you're not at work.
[+] [-] thomasgerbe|15 years ago|reply
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.").
[+] [-] AndyJPartridge|15 years ago|reply
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..."
[+] [-] gst|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pstack|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wccrawford|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jasonkester|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jinushaun|15 years ago|reply
I request four weeks of vacation in my contract, but am afraid to use them. That's America.
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mike_esspe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wheels|15 years ago|reply
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".
[+] [-] zdw|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] larrywright|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] geon|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] orijing|15 years ago|reply
What does everyone think?
[+] [-] ben1040|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] toyg|15 years ago|reply
Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.
[+] [-] ry0ohki|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Silhouette|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wladimir|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gst|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sosuke|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nixy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] macrael|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Vivtek|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] bartonfink|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sudonim|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jemfinch|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ankimal|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antidaily|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrismealy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kgermino|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] steauengeglase|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] smackay|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] farrel|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Bobby_Tables|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baconner|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joezydeco|15 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] bartonfink|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pstack|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] theBobMcCormick|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyclif|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] adestefan|15 years ago|reply
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.