[ArteEtMarte]

Agree. It's unbelievable from a European perspective.

Here in the UK, I get 28 days PTO per year. I can carry forward up to 5 days into the next year. But once you've done that once, you're pretty much committed to taking at least 28 days off the next year, because it's not really acceptable (from a company perspective) to lose PTO. We're strongly encouraged to spread the time off over the year, and to use up our allowance. Anybody here that only took 10 days per year would be having a chat with HR about healthy work/life balance.

I genuinely struggle to understand how it's possible to have anything like an enjoyable existence with only 10 days off per year. I mean, that's all your PTO gone for only a single 2 week vacation. Not even a single spare day for a duvet day.

[Zircom]

More like a one week vacation, if you're lucky. You're forgetting that most of us don't have separate sick leave so PTO has to get used for sick days, dr appointments, etc. My first company I worked for wouldn't let you take any time off unpaid until you were out of PTO, so if you got the flu and were out for a week, there goes half your yearly vacation.

[stevekemp]

I often feel the same - the thing that surprises me the most about American time off is people who say they're allowed XX days of sickness a year.

Sure if you're sick you shouldn't work, and on average most people are probably healthy enough that they lose 1-3 days a year, maybe a few people lose a week or two, but it just seems wrong that somebody could be fired for being too sick, or be forced to work because they've used their allowance.

In the UK I've been off sick for several months at one point in my career, and while I started to lose money pretty quickly at least I knew that I'd not get fired, and would/could return happily.

(Where I live now I'm allowed around 11 days, paid, to stay home to take care of a sick child. That's a pretty nice bonus, though I remember last year I was trying to count the days up to see how close we were .. covid must have used a week, twice, and then the standard child-sickness that go in waves at daycare/preschool/school.)

[Symbiote]

You'd probably find HR require taking the legal minimum, 20 days, but the rest could be ignored if the employee refuses to take the time off.

They can be stricter (forcing all time to be taken) in finance.