
Holidays are good for workers and companies alike - edward
https://www.economist.com/business/2019/08/08/holidays-are-good-for-workers-and-companies-alike
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standardUser
Thankfully, the trend seems to be towards a much greater tolerance of vacation
time and an increased willingness to actually take vacation. I credit the
millennials for this new attitude, as their clout in the workplace gradually
supplants the tedious boomer philosophy that time off of any kind is something
to be avoided at all costs.

And the author makes a good point that giving workers time off can reveal
things about your organization. They mention sussing out a morale-sinking
middle-manager, but you could also view it is a general stress test for your
team/company. It's good to know if one or two absences slow things to a halt,
or if one individual is too indispensable to be gone for even a few days.
After all, people get ill, injured or just quit from time to time. Better to
have periodic absences be a natural part of your organization that you learn
to handle, instead of crisis every time.

~~~
glitchcrab
My company gives us unlimited time off - provided your team isn't going to be
left with too few people then you just stick it in the calendar. It's
incredibly liberating not having to plan your holidays to ensure you stay
within X days, not having to request approval etc.

~~~
alistairSH
Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough
guess is fine.

I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS
vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one
abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm).

Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a
single bucket (for those in the EU, in the US, if you're sick you have to burn
leave, the concept of "you're sick, stay home" doesn't really exist).

~~~
DanFeldman
It's easy to not take enough vacation at companies w/ unlimited vacation.
Anecdotally, most of my peers at companies w/ unlimited vacation take less
vacation than traditionally counted vacation days.

I work at a place w/ unlimited vacation and take about 4-4.5 weeks per year. A
big reason I actually get to take this much vacation is because our founders &
senior leadership also take vacation. I could easily see a world where our sr
leadership didn't take any time off and there was implicit pressure to not use
vacation time.

~~~
gregspies
That 4-4.5 weeks is less than the minimum amount of time I'm allowed to take
off (not sure if it's strictly required but HR would start chasing me).
Assuming weekends are taken off by default, 4.5 weeks is about 23 days, which
is quite far down this list:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country)

~~~
Ididntdothis
Looking at this table the best countries in terms of leave are muslim
countries. Lots of public holidays.

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alkonaut
Just shutting down for a month like many companies in parts of Europe is
great. Means you don’t even have “time off work”, it means _work doesn’t
exist_ because no one else works either. You return after (at least) a month
to an empty inbox.

~~~
pfisch
Almost no tech company could operate like that. What would you do just shut
down your services for a month? Offer no support?

~~~
XenophileJKO
LinkedIn shuts down for 2 weeks a year. These are the best vacation weeks.
Like others say, there is no email waiting for you. No meetings or decisions
that you regret not being involved in, etc.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Nobody is going to complain or lose money if LinkedIn doesn’t work for a
couple days, I wouldn’t lump it in with other tech companies.

~~~
skolsuper
I don't necessarily like it, but a lot of people make their living on
LinkedIn. This is quite an ignorant statement.

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bambataa
Something I’ve always wondered about corporate America: on Apple rumour sites
and so on it’s often breathlessly reported that all staff leave has been
cancelled for whatever dates. What happens if eg you’d promised to take your
kids to Disneyland and had everything booked? Do you just have to lose the
booking deposit and let down your kids? Why do people put up with that?

~~~
SeeDave
It's a totally rational, bigger-picture thought process:

1\. Employer will not tolerate "absenteeism" and will retaliate with
consequences up to termination.

2\. Spouse will not accept lower standard of life via reduced wages. Since
earning power ("a good provider") is a major reason why many spouses chose to
marry their geeky/techie partner... any threat to stable employment is a
threat to the stability of my family.

3\. Housing is almost entirely unaffordable in Bay Area. Miss three payments
and car is reposessed. Miss one credit card payment and score drops 60 points,
interest rate goes up to 29.99%.

It becomes a simple expected value calculation after that. Would you prefer
the 100% chance of losing Disneyland deposit/letting down your kids.... or the
n% chance of becoming a homeless, carless, divorcee with a damaged credit
score for the next 7 years?

To be clear: I'm not pro-corporation/anti-child... but there are reasons why
working parents make the decisions they make.

~~~
bonniemuffin
"Since earning power ("a good provider") is a major reason why many spouses
chose to marry their geeky/techie partner" [citation needed]

That seems like quite a bold statement. Is there any evidence that marriages
involving a tech partner are more likely to be primarily based on earning
power than other marriages?

Overall, marriages involving higher-earning professions and higher education
are much less likely to end in divorce compared to marriages between less-
educated partners, suggesting that "lost my tech job and got divorced" is not
a major contributor to divorce rates overall.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_in_the_United_States#R...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_in_the_United_States#Rates_of_divorce))

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yjftsjthsd-h
Another thing that helps is that having a person out helps you find places
where only one person _can_ do something. There _shouldn 't_ be any processes
that hinge on a single point of (human) failure, but it's easy for them to
sneak in, so it's good to check every now and again: What _would_ happen if
this person were hit by a bus?

~~~
shoo
Provided you're in an environment where information from failures can be
rapidly fed into improvements, and failures are not terminal: fail early, fail
often, fail small.

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mmwelt
For those who need it: [http://archive.is/BAuxl](http://archive.is/BAuxl)

