

We work hard, they enjoy life - agilo
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/we-work-hard-they-enjoy-life/article2135637/

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daliusd
I'm Lithuanian guy working for American company. There is one factual errors
in that article about Lithuanians public holidays: while we might have 13
public holidays but if public holiday matches with Sunday (like Mother's day)
we don't get extra free day on Monday. Therefore we have approximately one
week extra to four weeks of holidays we can take per year. So we have 5 weeks
in total. Let's say in USA people have 3 weeks (2 vacation weeks + 1 week of
public holidays).

Here is why I completely disagree with author's conclusion. We have 52 weeks
per year. 3 or 5 weeks from that perspective is minor amount of work done. US
people just spend 4.4% more time in the office but that doesn't mean they work
harder (it is different for blue collars, of course). I personally never felt
working less than my US colleagues.

Now about enjoyment of life. While I agree that those 4 weeks of annual leave
makes a big difference (e.g. you can disconnect from your work and refresh
your head) it is only small part of enjoyment of life. I will just say that
here in Lithuania we have biggest suicide rate in the world
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate)).

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skimbrel
My employer recently changed to a take-what-you-want vacation policy. So far
it seems to be working well, with my French co-workers leading the way in
using upwards of four weeks off. The part I really like is that they're
tracking our time off with the intent of making sure everyone takes enough
rather than seeing who uses too much.

It's amazing how easy it is never to take time off in this industry. We move
so fast and there's always another problem to solve, so you never think you
have time to take a long vacation. I still have to force myself to pick a week
to go on vacation.

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thaumaturgy
I haven't heard of that before. The ex-business-manager part of me absolutely
freaks out when considering the logistics of it. How do they manage deadlines
and such?

Otherwise, that sounds pretty darn awesome.

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skimbrel
It definitely doesn't mean employees get to unilaterally declare when they're
taking time off, if that's what you're wondering. I still have to go through
the discussion with my manager about "No huge milestones coming up then,
right? Your team and customers are okay with this?", but it removes the
friction of "Well, you haven't actually _earned_ five full days of PTO, so
you'll have to take one unpaid or we have to do the paperwork to treat this as
an advance..." that can make arranging vacations awkward.

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geekam
But in cases where you earn days of PTO, aren't you allowed to take them
anytime you want, because you earned them?

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skimbrel
In theory, yes. But can you name a place you've worked where this was actually
the case?

If push came to shove I could probably take vacation even if my manager didn't
think it was a good time, citing mental health/family issues/whatever. But
that would involve spending the same amount of goodwill as declaring "I've
already earned this PTO so I'm using it whether you want me to or not", and I
would be hesitant to do either of those if I had even the slightest bit of
respect for my company or co-workers. And if I didn't have that respect for
the job, why would I be working there in the first place?

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mbyrne
I enjoy my work. Problem solved.

