At the last company I was at, it felt like the overwhelming majority of vacation time for everyone but the people who had been at the company since the beginning was the result of people getting hired with pre-planned vacations. It was actually something that legitimately caused tension, a person would be hired and already have plans for 3 weeks off in the middle of the summer, tickets/ hotel purchased, etc. and because of the unlimited vacation policy it was paid and accepted. No one in the company would have ever been allowed to do that and keep their job regularly.

Stuff like that caused a lot of issues and eventually they went from an "unlimited vacation policy" to a "minimum vacation policy" which means everyone takes their 2 weeks like normal non-modern tech companies.

Wait...what?! Was that 2 weeks of paid vacation per year total?

Yep. They instituted that everyone had to take a minimum of 2 weeks, which basically became both the minimum and maximum for a lot of people. Like anything, I am sure there are some people that still take more time, but when the policy was "unlimited" it very much in practice meant "limited".

Sounds like you've got a bunch of managers that can't say no. Would be interesting to know if they are putting in limits but not doing the account required for it.

indeed, there is something both 1984 doublespeak-ish and brave new worldish about the implications of the "unlimited" vacation policy. nowhere is it literally true, and the underlying, passive-aggressively coercing expectation is that you are supposed to love work so much that the standard 2-3 weeks is all you would ever want to take. the old corporate model is effectively the same but more honest.

Settle down, it's just accounting shenanigans.

Count me in on the unlimited vacation policy hate. I'm making enough money that I would happily trade salary for more vacation.

We have an unlimited vacation policy now but I made it clear up front that I would be taking 6-7 weeks (includes government holidays) a year.

I have no kids, live fairly cheap. I'd love to be able to take 2-3 months a year to go travel, and just not get paid for most of it. No way my company would allow that of course. The contractors have it much better in that regard.

You crazy American workaholics. Standard 5-6 weeks here in every field, sick leave on top. /Politarding, was just legit surprised at 2 weeks.

I was told today that I can't work for 15-17h straight as planned (running a hackathon for high school students). ****ing socialist country. They literally told me it is for my own protection. I asked them if I could waive that. Obviously no.
Nice to get that call @16:30 the day before the event.

Lol@other people knowing better how much I can/should work than me.

I'm fine with telling people to go home and stop working in certain situations, but just lol at that one.

We'd probably be more productive taking a month off every year like Europeans. But of course the people who would benefit most from that will never vote for it, on the off chance that someone lower than them on the totem pole might benefit more. CAN'T HAVE THAT

@clowntable
Obviously seems silly in that isolated case, but i guess it's quite tricky overall. If you allow people to waive this, that opens the door for companies to pressure employees into doing so on a regular basis. (See "unlimited vacation" where no one dares to take more than 2 weeks.)

I think if you are at a company where you feel any type of disdain or jealousy for people who take time off, your culture sucks.

If you cannot say something like "Can't wait until next week for vacation to not have to deal with this **** for a week" for fear of being judged by your peers/ managers, your culture sucks.

If you cannot openly look forward to things outside of work, and be encouraged to do so by your peers/ managers, your culture sucks.

It's not just about getting taken advantage of. I had one guy that reported to me that would do occasional all nighters because he hated going home without getting done what he thought he should have been able to do that day.

The problem is that all nighters are rarely that productive and so he'd spend all night working on something and be dead tired the next day ending up getting less accomplished by the end of the 2nd day then if he'd just gone home at a reasonable time on the first day.

People should know their limits, but sometimes its hard to be objective and as a manager you need to step in.

Agreed. I once checked work emails on vacation just so I could taunt my co-workers dealing with ****ty problems. Obviously, depends a lot on specific personalities but any place that considers vacations a taboo is a ****ty place to work imo.

He could have not slept much, even if he did go home and be tired the next day as well. Last year I would pretty much only sleep 5 hours every day except for weekends. Would work random hours because the majority of the year I worked from home and could get away with anything.

He could have, but then the discussion would have been more general about his poor work performance.

Agree with your other points, but if you regularly feel your dealing with **** at work, you may need a job change more than a vacation.

If you're a developer and you're taking less than 4 weeks a year vacation, you're doing it wrong (assuming you want this). The job market is too good right now to worry about vacation days.

Yea I probably said that wrong. What I am trying to say is if you feel pressure to never say anything negative about work, especially in the context of free time vs. work or vacation time vs. work, then it is really a bad culture you have.

Not everyone should have to pretend to love their job 24/7/365 and should be able to be realistic about how nice it is to get away from it for some time.

I'm thinking here of people who feel pressured to conform to the whole "work is love, work is life" mentality.

Where I work, we feel a lot of pressure to never say anything positive about work.

The grass is greener, I guess...

Any thoughts on iPhone 6 for $200 vs Galaxy S5 for $200 vs. Galaxy S4 for free vs. iPhone 5S for $100 vs. iPhone 5C for free?

I upgraded to the iPhone 6 plus from iPhone 5 and the camera is way better.
The phone is way too big but super fast with battery lasting forever.