

Adobe Shuts Down for a Week - mcav
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12716554

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danbmil99
I've been interviewing at Adobe (strange but true) -- my interviewer said the
shutdowns force people to use up their vacation pay. In CA, when you lay
someone off, you have to pay them all their accrued vac. pay, which could add
up to several months. The issue is that this is a liability on their books,
which can affect their earnings as a public co.

No idea if this is really the reason or just what the top brass say to the
worker bees.

~~~
jcl
I'd guess it's only part of the reason. The company has other ways to limit
liability that don't constrain employees as much; for example they could limit
the number of days that you are allowed to roll over each year.

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ojbyrne
Since people are still getting paid, according to my reading of the article,
it's almost European. By that I mean that many companies in France and Spain
generally shut down in July or August all at once. There's probably is an
overall benefit to just about everyone (not just the company, but the country)
taking their vacation at the same time.

~~~
davidw
> probably is an overall benefit to just about everyone

Disagree: the roads are packed, the hotels are packed, airlines raise prices a
lot, and there's nothing you can do about it if you're forced to go then. I've
always taken my vacations in July or September and remained in Padova during
August, which is great - it's empty and has a relaxed, easy going feel which
is absent during the rest of the year.

Also, if you're running a company that for some reason wants to stay open (by,
say, letting your employees choose their own vacation time and having them not
all go at once), you might still have a hard time of it because your suppliers
and clients are all closed too.

Long vacations are good, but I don't care so much for the mass exodus in
August.

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ojbyrne
It's good to hear the opposite arguments, and they're good ones, though those
all seem to be specific to employees. From the company viewpoint often having
employees leave for vacation individually is disruptive. Especially in so
called knowledge based industries. I'm not really wedded to my theory, just
kibitzing.

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davidw
> having employees leave for vacation individually is disruptive.

Yes, but less so than closing the company down for a month.

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andreyf
The fair comparison would be 12 months of ~1/12th of the company team not
being there, or 1 month of the entire team not being there.

I think it's pretty obvious that in a workplace where each member adds more
than a constant value, the latter is favorable.

Edit: woah, I can't respond to your post, probably to prevent those back-and-
forth chains. But you're right, it's only obvious in a simplified model of a
workplace I had in my head when writing it. In real life, nothing is obvious
:)

~~~
davidw
I don't think it's "obvious". If the company's completely closed, nothing at
all is happening, no work is getting done, no one is available to cover
emergencies. A better comparison might be to look at 1/3 of the company being
gone in July, August and September, which, if you work with people to plan
things just a bit, means that things keep running during those months. Also,
what starts to happen here (Italy) _in practice_ , is that in July not a lot
gets done because everything is going to shut down soon, so no one starts
anything new (no new projects, no hires). Things already start to slow down in
June. September is reasonably productive, but it takes a bit to get things
turning over again.

Staying open conserves momentum and provides some continuity.

