
Two Weeks Vacation is only a Recommendation, not a Rule - Sukotto
http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vacation-is-only.html
======
crikli
I've implemented a "get it done" based vacation policy at my company. I.e., as
long as my devs are getting the work done, I couldn't care less about their
seat time, physical location, state of dress, etc. Hell, if you're on a beach
in Cancun and only working a couple hours a day, that's cool, just make sure
you get your code checked in and answer emails within a reasonable timeframe
so we don't miss a deadline. And wear sunscreen. Developers and sunlight don't
usually mix well.

With that said, if one of my guys did what this guy is advocating, I'd have
little choice but to replace them. I have to be able to rely on my guys; I
trust the hell out of them. Bailing for a month plus with little to no
warning...that fractures our relationship of trust, and no relationship can
succeed in that condition.

~~~
jasonkester
Good points, and wow, I didn't expect to find myself defending a four year old
blog post today.

I'm not sure where you get the "little to no warning" bit from what I wrote.
In the examples I cited, I gave about 2 months notice in both cases. The idea
is certainly not to burn bridges or blackmail your employer. Just that it's OK
to take the odd sabbatical.

I eventually migrated to consulting, where I could simply end a contract then
disappear for the rest of the year. And from there, I migrated further to
running my own product company, where you can disappear for 4 years straight
as long as you have a laptop along.

Still, if I had a job today I wouldn't limit myself to 2 weeks vacation.

~~~
simonk
I think the no warming comes from this

"Two days later, ticket in hand, I strolled into the office of my department
head."

Got a ticket and then sounds like you leave on Friday for three months.

~~~
jasonkester
I'm with you. I should have added "... but not actually wheeling a little
suitcase behind me..." to that sentence.

The next sentence is also ambiguous. It should mentally read "...before
heading out 2 months later...".

The funny thing is, this went to page one on Reddit back when it came out and
nobody there misredd it.

------
cstross
I _wish_ I could take a month off! My manager won't let me, unfortunately: he
gets all anxious and irritable after a few days whenever I don't show up at
work.

(I'm self-employed.)

~~~
jakevoytko
I never considered that before - how DO entrepreneurs take time off? Is this
done post-post-/Ramen profitability? Never? Just for a day at a time? Or does
the flexible schedule prolong burnout?

~~~
tptacek
You don't.

This is one of the first things you'll notice being in business for yourself.
It's hard to arrange time off. One of the benefits of working for a company is
that there's a team in place to make sure the train stays on the rails while
you're gone.

You also don't get sick days.

~~~
abstractbill
This may be the median startup behavior, but I've seen plenty of
counterexamples, at some quite successful startups.

------
briancooley
About three weeks ago, I went to my employer to negotiate part-time
employment. I am now working 3 days a week at 2/3 pay, full benefits, and
prorated vacation.

The caveats are that I was prepared to resign, the agreement includes a
stipulation that either side can rescind the arrangement with 30 days notice,
and our HR department was already set up to handle such arrangements.

I wanted to do something like this for a long time, but I was too afraid to
ask.

~~~
mortenjorck
I've been considering negotiating part-time with my employer for awhile as a
prudent middle ground between recklessly jumping ship (a la
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1451175>) and continuing to let my UI
project crawl along at a near-standstill.

Your listed caveats help me form a good picture of what I should be ready to
concede. Any more tips on negotiating? I know there are always a lot of
variables from company to company, but was it hard to keep full benefits?

~~~
briancooley
I wish I could say that I drove a hard bargain to get full benefits, but it
happens to be company policy. I went in to the meeting prepared to increase my
portion of the cost of my healthcare if necessary.

My biggest concerns prior to initiating the negotiations were 1) affecting
morale if someone else is forced to compensate for my reduced hours, 2) the
fact that I occasionally do freelance mobile development on the side, and 3)
possibly being let go as my company is going through a downsizing. So far, it
hasn't been an issue, but it's early.

It turns out that my freelance work is a non-issue according to my employment
contract and IP agreement. I didn't really reduce my hours to do freelance
work. Instead, I was doing freelance work to insure some modest income should
I be forced to resign, and I may reduce my efforts there since I can easily
live just on the income from my part-time work. My boss and his boss were cool
about the freelancing, but they told me to keep it to myself, and I wish that
I had been more private about my side interests prior to asking to go part
time.

In your case, I would check up on the IP situation. You don't really want to
be in a position where there are questions about who owns your side project.

As far as negotiating tips, what worked for me - I don't know that this is
great advice necessarily but I had to do it this way because it addressed the
worst case scenario in terms of short-term income - was that I was resolved to
resign, even though it wasn't really my first choice in improving my
situation. However, I have about 1 year's living expenses saved up and I'm
making close to $1K a week doing 20 hours of freelance mobile development and
turning down projects just about every day. That gave me the confidence to
start the conversation by saying, "I am considering resigning." Eventually, I
suggested the work schedule that I was willing to consider. I had researched
the company HR site to know what options were available to me. I also felt
reasonably confident that they want me to stay and that it would be hard to
replace me, at least in the short term.

One thing that is bad about bringing up resignation is that it will likely
keep you from collecting unemployment if your employer plays hard ball. I
never said "I resign," just that I was considering it, but I have been advised
since then that it was probably a bad idea from that standpoint. It probably
didn't matter in my case because I wouldn't be eligible anyway due to my
freelance income.

Also, I have a very friendly relationship with my boss, so that helps a lot.
It seemed that he really wanted to help me, and he played up the cost savings
angle up the management ladder to help me get what I wanted.

~~~
frossie
Having been in a similar situation ("I need to resign or work part time"), I
think the best thing you can do is show awareness of the effect it will have
on your coworkers and suggest ways in which this will work out.

For example: "I suggest I keep the 60% of my job that is the most onerous for
someone else to take and/or requires the most prior experience and/or is best
matched to my skills. As for the other 40%, I suggest task A should go to Fred
- he is ready for more experience, it will be good for him. Task B can be
phased out when the new project is completed anyway. Jane has agreed to roll
in Task C with the similar Task D that she already performs".

I have been doing this for several years, and it has worked out great for
everybody. The only issue is whether the tasks you give up are important for
your career development - sometimes they are, so you will have to make some
serious choices.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
_It is nearly impossible to hire a good developer_

[Sigh]

He's right. And it's getting worse. We have a bunch of open req's right now as
we're staffing up a new project and you'd think with all the handwringing
about the economy and how many great engineers are being laid off it would be
easy, right? Nope. It actually seems like the quality of applicants has gone
_down_ since the last time I was interviewing people.

Out of all the people we've interviewed, there's ONE that I would say is a
good hire (as opposed to just "can probably do the job with some hand-
holding"), and the rest of the interview team is lukewarm on him. And this is
after HR has screened out the bottom of the barrel and our technical phone
screens have filtered out a few more. ONE person who's just a "nice to have"
and there's a good chance we're going to pass on him.

If anyone here threatened to quit, at this point we'd probably chain him to
his desk :-)

~~~
rdouble
You are in Minnesota. I know loads of great developers who left Minnesota
because interesting and well-paid programming jobs were nonexistent.

~~~
jon_dahl
Minnesota is polarized - there are a lot of independent developers and a lot
of Fortune 500 programming jobs. Not a lot in between.

I've hired a dozen programmers here in my day, and so it is definitely
possible to find good developers. But you really have to know the right
communities, user groups, etc. to find them. Of course, I expect that isn't
MN-specific.

------
CaptainDecisive
He's right about two weeks not being the rule; in most western countries four
or five weeks is the rule.

To me the amount of holiday/vacation is a Big Deal. I was lucky when I lived
in the US that my company offered four weeks (and I could earn extra comp days
doing weekend tech support). Although I once had the general manager ask me
point blank how I was taking more time off for a trip to Peru, so I went
through and proved I had enough vacation days left. He still didn't seem too
happy about it though. Perhaps most people didn't use all their vacation days?

Lack of vacation days is one of the reasons I'd be uncomfortable about living
in the US again, so I could definitely see myself taking unpaid leave every
few years like TFA suggests or just quitting my job. Then I could do important
things like visiting family in NZ or getting in some serious skiing.

~~~
henrikschroder
Meanwhile, in Sweden, 5 weeks paid vacation per year is the legal minimum, and
everyone has the legal right to get 4 weeks continuous vacation in the period
between June-August if they want it.

(I think you have to spend a few winters up here to understand why we
appreciate summer vacations so much. :-) )

~~~
alaithea
Shouldn't you be enjoying the summer in Sweden, then, and taking vacation in
the winter?

~~~
gst
Here in Europe vacation does not necessarily imply that you're flying
somewhere else. For example, I currently have 3 weeks of, but I'm only
spending one of these weeks hiking. During the other weeks I'll do just
whatever makes fun (maybe going on a multi-day bike ride).

Of course, you can also take less vacation in one year, and therefore take
more in the next year. For example, I only took 3 weeks of vacation last year,
and I've planned 7 weeks of vacation this year. All of them paid. :)

------
demallien
You'd want to be pretty sure of your value to your employer before trying this
stunt. Here's a counter-example: a young guy that reports directly to me tried
to reduce the number of hours he has to work, by threatening to leave if we
didn't reduce his hours (whilst keeping pay at the same level). This
conversation was with my boss, I only gave him work to do, HR stuff was always
handled by my boss. He was out the door of the company 24 hours later.

~~~
dagw
I wouldn't really consider it a counter-example since in your case the guy was
essentially demanding a raise. It's all about how you ask and being
reasonable. Less hours for the same pay is not reasonable. Less hours for less
pay would be far more reasonable, and might even have been accepted.

~~~
roc
Less hours for same pay is an extremely reasonable compromise, in these times
when many companies can't/won't pass out much in the form of direct raises.

 _Explicitly threatening to quit_ during any negotiation is the unreasonable
part. Frankly, it's an implied threat in any conversation about compensation,
just as being fired is an implied threat in any conversation about
performance.

But coming out and _saying it_ , is wildly unprofessional and immature;
there's just no up-side.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Explicitly threatening to quit during any negotiation is the unreasonable
part. Frankly, it's an implied threat in any conversation about compensation,
[...] coming out and saying it, is wildly unprofessional and immature; there's
just no up-side.

If it's implied then making it explicit is simply clarifying one-anothers
position. I can't see how that's unprofessional: Being honest, open and
explicit about your intentions.

Leaving because negotiation didn't work for you when you made no explicit
indication that your staying was part of the negotiation, that seems wrong to
me.

~~~
roc
> _"If it's implied then making it explicit is simply clarifying one-anothers
> position"_

The only reason to state it is to add emotion to the argument: to
_dramatically_ emphasize your resolve. And the problem with that, is the
_next_ negotiation has to go to _at least_ that point again to convince the
other party you really do mean it.

So if you were earnest about having been at the end of your rope in the first
negotiation, you earn only the certainty of being pushed back to the end of
your rope in every subsequent negotiation. It's self-defeating and adds wholly
unnecessary stress to the workplace.

And if you're advocating emotional argument in every negotiation... well, good
luck with that. It adds a tangible degree of stress to everyone around you and
they won't appreciate it.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>he problem with that, is the next negotiation has to go to at least that
point again to convince the other party you really do mean it.

But you were saying that the argument is already at that point but that card
is just being held below the table despite everyone being aware that it is
there.

It's not necessarily emotional - I can say "I'll leave if I don't get these
terms", that's not inherently an emotional demand, nor is it overly dramatic
if that's your intention.

It's pretty much all-in wrt the negotiation so yes I can see that it increases
the stress until terms are agreed. But then the terms from the other side
would have to include something to avoid such negotiations if they found it
too stressful and/or emotional.

Nor does this necessarily lead to future difficulties in negotiation.

For sure someone could attempt to use this sort of situation for emotional
leverage - I guess it depends whether you're talking about negotiation
pay+conditions for a job or negotiating terms of a personal relationship.

------
jamesbritt
At my last "real" full-time job, developers could accumulate vacation time
that was not used in a given year. Sometimes it was on purpose, so as to take
longer vacations later on, often it was required because of deadlines,
staffing shortages, whatever.

Then one day the new company owner declares that vacation time could no longer
be accrued. Use it or lose it. Some folks had many weeks of time saved up.

The owner said that people can use up what they've already saved, but added,
Keep in mind that if your department can afford to do without you for several
weeks then perhaps you're not so essential. He all but winked when he said it.

This was just one of the things that convinced me to just leave and work for
myself.

~~~
logicalmind
I have a somewhat-related story about the last place I worked. During my first
year there the company was in the process of replacing half a dozen
consultants with a handful of full-time employees. We worked very hard with
limited resources and weren't allowed to take a vacation. Even working on the
end-of-year holidays to complete deadlines before the end of the calendar
year. Our manager kept telling us that we could carry over our accrued
vacation time and be "taken care of" next year. And there was a policy of
carrying over vacation days to the next calendar year.

So the start of the next year comes and my team gets our first paycheck and
for some reason we all have zero vacation time. We are all stunned and quickly
talk to HR. It turns out that employees can carry over vacation days, but
_NOT_ in your first year of tenure. So the team lost all of our vacation days
and restarted at zero. Our manager looked into it and discovered that those
were the rules. He went to his manager to see if we could get our vacations
back but he couldn't get anyone from HR to change their mind as "that was the
policy". Needless to say, we were pretty pissed off.

~~~
loewenskind
If all you were is pissed off then he has good reason to exploit you like this
over and over.

------
rit
I like the message given about taking time for yourself - relaxing, etc. I do
it far too infrequently and every time I do take a real vacation I realize how
badly I need to.

But to walk in with no notice and tell your employer that you're disappearing
for 3 months is unprofessional and unreasonable. You work for a company which
has schedules and deadlines; just as you expect them to pay you on time, they
expect to have at least a little bit of warning before you up and disappear on
them.

3 Months vacation - great. Presumably you expect to get it unpaid (Your
employer probably gives you 2 weeks PAID vacation) and many employers with a
few weeks warning would be happy to accomodate you. But to tell them "I'm
leaving - see ya!" and expect to have a job waiting for you? Come on.

~~~
Periodic
I think he said he had a ticket, which is best bought months in advance.

~~~
dedward
And if you don't bother telling your manager ahead of time - you run the very
real risk of his ire and wrath...

As the trunk poster said - you can only pull this off if you are really good
at what you do, and prepared for the negative consequences if they happen.

------
c1sc0
That's one of the few things I like about our dirty socialist system over here
in Europe: it recognizes that 2 weeks of holidays / year simply is not enough.

------
yason
I don't live in the U.S. and I have five weeks of paid vacation in a year, but
I usually take several weeks of unpaid vacation as well to go with it. My
employer doesn't really care which type it will be, they're more concerned
about schedules etc. In fact, after I've got the time of my vacation approved,
I'll just mark some days as paid and some days as unpaid and they don't mind.

With regard to vacation allocations, I play it safe: if I need anything longer
than a week off, I'll request the absence in good time. This works well
because a) they can project it into the project schedules and b) if I want six
weeks off next fall, they really don't have a practical schedule for next fall
yet, so I get implied priority.

Oh, and I work part time as well. There was more to that when I started it but
basically it boiled down to them saying "we'll rather keep a good guy working
less for us than not at all". I get roughly the same amount of work done as
before, the shorter days just mean that if I want to take a half a day off and
go cycling, that's actually the default mode of operation as nobody expects me
to work till 5 or 6pm.

------
xexers
I work for Microsoft in Ireland. We get 25 vacation days (5 weeks) as soon as
we are hired! Getting an extra week of unpaid leave is common enough with very
little hassle.

Instead of gambling your job, move to Europe.

------
bmj
Fortunately, I work at a shop where I don't need to force this issue. I took
four weeks off this spring to road trip and climb with my family. I had three
weeks of PTO in hand, and my manager, and his manager said go for it, under
the condition that I wouldn't go dark for more than a few days at a time. So,
I checked my email every few days, and I think twice over the course of that
month I actually had to fire up my laptop and spend 30-60 minutes to
troubleshoot an issue. That's a compromise I can live with.

------
davidmurphy
Vacation time is a brutal inhumane joke in America, IMHO. There's no minimum,
and a number of companies provide no vacation time for employees in their
first year. Even when vacation time is provided, sometimes its pretty limited
or the company culture makes it hard to take all the time allowed.

Other countries, particularly in Europe, get it, but we don't. I recommend
reading "Work to Live" (as opposed to 'live to work') by Joe Robinson
<http://www.amazon.com/Work-Live-Joe-Robinson/dp/0399528504> for an overview
of the US vs. European nations.

I'm all for having a killer work ethic, but I believe you're more efficient
when you're refreshed and not burned out. And sometimes your subconscious mind
works well on solving problems that you wouldn't be able to tackle if you keep
down in the trenches without a break.

------
techiferous
I've found that frequent, little getaways (3-day weekend, for example) are
more refreshing and improve my quality of life more than one rare, large
vacation. YMMV.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I need at least 3 days to START feeling like I'm on vacation. 10 days and I
start to forget where I used to work. Something in between is good.

~~~
techiferous
That might be a sign that your typical workweek is too stressful. For most
jobs I've had, it took zero or one day to wind me down. My most stressful job
(as a middle school teacher) took me two days to wind down.

------
Nekojoe
It all depends on where you are. One guy tried to get 4 weeks off at a place I
used to work. He needed sign off from a high up manager to do this. The
manager retorted if we can get by without this guy for 4 weeks, why do we
really need him at all? Suffice to say, he didn't take his 4 weeks holiday.

~~~
gst
Honesty, I wouldn't want to work at such a place but rather quit.

------
kylechafin
What typically happens to your benefits (Health insurance?) while taking a
leave of absence? Is it reasonable to expect my employer to maintain them?

~~~
stuff4ben
yeah, this sounds fine for the bachelor developer with no one dependent upon
them. When you have a family things change. I am good at what I do and I have
plenty saved up in an emergency fund, but the risk of potentially losing my
job, benefits, etc. just to take a month off isn't worth it. That being said,
I do get 4 weeks PTO (no sick/vac all is PTO), so I suppose I could take a
month off if I wanted to. But I'd rather split it up during the year.

------
Schmidt
Aah Sweden is good sometimes, 5 weeks paid vacation every year, and you have
to take out a minimum of 3 consecutive weeks. It's the law... :)

~~~
mkramlich
Idea for my fellow Americans: we need to ask our bosses here for a 5-week
leave of absence so we can vacation in Sweden. Once in Sweden start looking
for a job and then citizenship. :)

------
Androsynth
"Cut to 3 years later, and I'm on a small, tight programming team for a little
dot-com startup. I've been there for almost a year, and it's time for a bit of
R&R in Central America. 6 weeks off should just about do it"

Does this remind anyone of yesterdays article about the guy who took a month
off for a honeymoon? It's one thing to take advantage of a large corporation
but if you are screwing your startup for your own vacation, you are being
extremely selfish and possibly detrimental to the company. It's fine if you
need to recharge your batteries, but its another thing entirely to leave your
startup, and your friends, to get more vacation time. If the startup failed,
you lost much, much more than you gained by going to Costa Rica.

~~~
fizx
Slavery (in America) died in the 1800s. Your job doesn't own you.

~~~
Androsynth
I'm not talking about working at a normal job, I'm talking about working at a
startup. At a startup you have a tremendous amount of responsibility because a
large portion of the companies success/failure rests on your shoulders. You
also have other people who have put a tremendous amount of faith in you and
rely heavily on you.

If you would rather take month long vacations to go backpack around exotic
locations, go work for a big company. If you do this at a startup, chances are
you are putting your company, and your co-workers, future at risk.

If you want to work at a startup, especially as an early employee, there are
certain responsibilities that you must live up to. This author, like the
founder of the failed YC company, is selfish. Either life gets in the way of a
startup or a startup gets in the way of life, but its not often you get both.

~~~
mattm
> This author, like the founder of the failed YC company, is selfish

Everyone is selfish.

------
staunch
Just make sure it would take longer to hire and train someone for your job
than your vacation is.

------
tjsnyder
I completely agree. Many Indians here often travel to India for a month or two
and even save up vacation time over a couple years and use it all at once.

------
jamesseda
You have to take this advice on a case by case basis. At my last job they
offered me a 10k raise as I was walking out the door, but also got upset when
anyone used more than 3 sick days a year. At my current job I take 4-8 weeks
of paid vacation a year and probably could take more, but if I asked for a 10k
raise they would tell me to move into sales.

------
utefan001
White Oak Technologies in the Washington DC area has more than 2 dozen job
openings offers 5 weeks Vacation after one year.

<http://woti.com/benefits.cfm> <http://woti.com/jobs.cfm> ___Must be a US
citizen_ __

------
robryan
Depends on your current projects, don't think I would be comfortable coming in
one day and telling my coworkers that what I was working on is going to stand
still for a month or someone else was going to have to pick it all up if a
project is at a key point in development.

~~~
mcantor
There was a big emphasis in the post about making sure your projects are tied
up before you leave. I don't think anybody is advocating leaving your
coworkers high and dry by skipping out on your deadlines at the drop of a hat.

------
jrockway
Yeah, he is right on with respect to "your employer needs you more than you
need them". We have been trying to hire someone for months, and it's just
insanely difficult. If I left for some reason, I would get an instant raise
for going to a competitor, and the department's productivity would be lower
until they could find a replacement, which is very difficult and expensive.

Fortunately, I have never even had to hint at this option.

------
damoncali
I'd wager this gets you fired more often than not. Nobody is so great at what
they do that they can contribute while not working.

When I've people try something similar at work, the request is met with "lets
have a talk". The guy making the request usually leaves the company a few
days/weeks/months later, as it "just wasn't working out".

~~~
mattm
But you're saying the guys are leaving, they're not fired. Maybe after the
talk they realise that their life is more important than being loyal to a
company that won't let them take a little time off.

~~~
damoncali
Absolutely. Most people leave before they get fired in my experience. When
something's not working, you tend to leave. Sometimes for good reason.

------
periferral
totally true. the most valid point being that you have to be good at what you
do. hell, you can do even better if you are really good. I wanted to see what
it was like to live in London so I told my boss I'll be working out of there
is he's okay with it. If not I'll be taking a leave of absence. He agreed to
the work remotely. Tap on 3 weeks on vacation to the end of that and you feel
like half the year is done for.

------
ahoyhere
Lots of Swedes in this thread huh!

In Austria, 5 weeks is also the legal minimum for paid vacation - not to
mention all those holidays…

------
wdewind
I'm not saying we shouldn't live a relaxed, sustainable work-life, but
seriously?

Sounds to me like you abused your leverage. Almost any employee, especially at
a small company, is extraordinarily valuable and, sure, can use that to take
(see: extort) 6 weeks vacation, but it's disrespectful to the organization.
The cost to replace you outweighs the cost of letting you leave for 6 weeks if
you are good. You're right economically.

Ethically it's a dick move (even if you do it "once every few years" 6 weeks
of unannounced leave is really not cool). And if you don't feel like you have
a relationship with your work where you have to respect it you shouldn't come
back from that vacation.

~~~
exit
i strongly endorse employees exploiting their employers as much as employers
exploit their employees.

~~~
ulf
The employer-side of that exploitation-maneuver would be your boss telling
you: "We do not have anything for you to do the next 6 weeks, starting
tomorrow. You will not be paid but if you want, you can come back later."

If that happens at your company, go ahead and take your leave. If it does not
happen, you may be overplaying your exploitation a little.

~~~
TeHCrAzY
This happened to me. I promptly informed them that they hadn't hired me as a
contractor, hand't been paying me the rates I demand as a contractor, and bid
them farewell.

