Are American Vacation Policies Outdated?

GiorgioG asks: "Am I the only one who sees US vacation policies as outdated compared to Europe? If I have 3-4 weeks of vacation time, why is it that most companies won't allow you to take more than 1 or 2 consecutive weeks of time off - especially if you aren't performing a 'mission-critical' function. I find it quite frustrating, considering I only want to take 1 long vacation a year (to visit family in Europe.)" This depends, of course, on the types of vacation policies found in Europe and those types found here in the US. So what do both sides of the fence have to say about what they have seen on the other side when it comes to vacation time?

Comments

I wish I got paid vacations

[markwelch]

As a self-employed consultant, I don't get paid vacations at all, and when I did get paid vacations I usually didn't use all the days.

When I was a reporter working on a monthly magazine, I got paid vacation (I think 1 week for the first year, 2 weeks per year after that) but guess what, during the month when I took the vacation I pretty much had to write the same number of words.

Later, when I was an attorney, I got paid vacation time but again, my billable hour 'guidelines' for the year didn't really seem to reflect any weeks off. (Later, working for the same law firm, I switched to a straight model of getting paid per billable hour, instead of a salary, and ever since then I've had no paid vacations at all, nearly 10 years now).

Ultimately, paid vacation is just something you negotiate for, and it's part of the equation for how much your employer thinks it can pay. Unfortunately, vesting rules for vacation days often create a perverse incentive for a manager to actually fire someone (just before the days vest).

I suspect that a majority of Slashdot's readers can really pick their own vacation schedules, and if they wanted 5 weeks of vacation, they'd get it, but they'd get paid 3/52nds less than if they just took 2 weeks of paid vacation, all other things being equal. A substantial minority may work for anal-retentive corporations that won't allow any special cases, even unpaid days off during periods when there is no critical need for that labor.

Sigh. Last September, I took my first real vacation in more than 5 years -- and my first-ever vacation to Europe. Surprise! My week-long vacation was extended to two weeks because my original return flight was scheduled for September 12. I'm sure that 90% of employers would be understanding in that extraordinary situation, though it's unclear how many would give extra paid days of vacation.

I must admit that vacation and days off are less important to me, than for many folks, because I don't have a spouse or kids. Trying to book vacations when there are so many schedules to work with, and when so many "personal days" may pop up to deal with kids' medical needs or competitions or whatever, must be a nightmare.

Finally, my understanding is that the way much of Europe deals with those four weeks of vacation, is that everybody has to take them at the same time, and business essentially shuts down during the month of August. Is that the model we aspire to?

In Sweden...

[Kidbro]

...we're more or less encourage to take most, if not all our vacation in one large block, usually during July. This so called "industry vacation" usually means that the entire country grinds to a virtual halt during the summer months. Quite distressing really...

Anyhoo, it's of course up to the employer to accept your vacation request, but I'd be surprised if anybody was denied vacation (even five consecutive weeks or more) unless a project depended on it.

Oh, and btw, five weeks is the legal minimum. I've had two employers so far that offered six week vacation contracts.

Yes....

[twilight30]

they are outdated. I have worked in three countries (Canada, Japan and the UK), and the policies in North America fall somewhere in between Japan and Europe.

Note that there is considerable variation within Europe itself (ie/ the UK was thought the 'workaholic' of the EU -- strange but true), between Canadian provinces and between US states. Moreover, it would make more sense to speak of a spectrum of vacation attitudes and sensibilities.

To generalise though, there is a stronger work ethic in the US than in Canada and Europe. Calvinist Protestantism at one time was thought to be a prime source (cf. Weber), as well as the free-market capitalist orientation. In my personal experience the European attitude is preferable, as I feel that living in a culture goes beyond the confines of just working, working, working all the time. It is much more in tune with how I would like to be. Others may differ, and that's fair enough.

In all honesty, I'm going back the first chance I get. You *can* have the best of all worlds.

Work to live, don't live to work.

[Deagol]

For me, my job is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. As such, I value vacation time. I have a wife and kids, and I prefer to spend my time with them over time in the office.

My current job (at a State University) started me at 3 weeks per year, and if I stick around I'll get to five weeks per year. I can bank up to something like 1040 hours (26 work weeks), then it's a use-it-or-lose-it scheme. I also get 2 weeks of sick leave per year, and that can be banked to 1040 hours as well. It's also pretty lax with flex time. If I work a late night or weekend fixing or installing a machine, it goes into a under-the-table vacation bank (sanctioned by my manager, of course), which I use for extra vacation/sick time.

My last job at a small software shop started at 2 weeks per year and you could only bank 4 or 6 weeks before you lost it. There was no distinction between sick and vacation time, just a generic "leave" bank, which was really lame.

I'm getting paid less here (or at least I was when I left the last job), but I feel far better off now.

My plan is to transition to a more consultant/freelance self-employed state over the next 5-10 years, so that I can spend even more time with my kids as they get older (and before they leave the nest).

I guess it's all about your priorities. I know people my age with far different priorities, who take little time off, have no kids, and easily make twice my salary. I know guys in sales (yuck!) that work pretty much when and where they want to.

So here in the States, you have to taylor your job to fit your life goals. The government won't enforce anything more than minimum wage and safe workplaces, which I suppose is fine (I have too much of a libertarian tendancy to expect/want anything more).

Re:Work to live, don't live to work.

[MrAndrews]

I very much agree with you about spending time with family, but speaking from experience, freelance is not the way to go. I and most of my colleagues work freelance/contract and over the past few years have spent almost every major holiday with last-minute crunches destroying our family time. And with freelance, as opposed to a "job" job, you need to do the time whenever it's required, or you don't work anymore.

The worst part is that no matter how hard you try to be available to go out with the kids on Hallowe'en, you'll get a life-or-death call from a client that afternoon which you have to take seriously.

What you gain in theoretical flexibility, you lose in terms of sanity. Not that it's all bad, but it's definitely a lot harder than it seems from the outside.

Last job was hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Lesse, at my last job, I got 120 hours vacation a year, but there was a catch: you couldn't take it if your function was essential. Since I worked with a lot of morons (must've been morons since I was always called upon to fix others' fuckups while they went on vacation), I was always "essential", to the tune of 60 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, for 3-1/2 years (as a foriegner in the U.S. on an H1-B visa it wasn't all that easy to leave).

The other downside was that days "off" were docked against vacation, but overtime was not recognized, so if you worked from 8:00AM one morning, through the night, to 10:00 AM the next day, and left to get some sleep, you got DOCKED 6 hours against your vacation.

It got to the point where I was not accruing vacation anymore (the use it or lose it rule), except if I pulled an all-nighter and took the next day off: I'd lose a day of vacation, but earn it back that month.

I now work in a better shop (startup as opposed to established company), with saner hours, and smarter people -- heck, there have been days when my boss left after I did (he's no slouch).

As for my former job, I hope all the assholes there die a horrible, slow, painful death. I suppose I could've taken the attitude of not giving a shit, but our customers included major world telcos, and our screwups would've affected tens of millions of their customers. I couldn't do that to the world.

There is no moral for a paid vacation.

[eugene ts wong]

I think that it would be good for employers to give employees longer vacations and more time off. But instead of deducting from their paychecks, they should just give them everything and let them save up for their own vacations.

On a slightly unrelated note, you get a wide variety of vaction plans and coffee break styles, even within the same country.

My brother's wife works for a company that gives her around 5 weeks off, and she works in the payroll dept. Apparently, she's quite good. She gets paid a fairly decent wage too.

On the other extreme, I've had low end retail jobs. One time I asked if I could go on a coffee break assuming that I was entitled to 2 15 paid breaks. But the manager wouldn't allow that. She insisted that it all [30 minute lunch + 2 15s] be done at once, and even tried to reduce it.

"Is it alright if I go on a break now?"
"You have to go?"

That didn't sit well with me. Another employer gave an unpaid 30 minute lunch for each 6 hours of work, and an unpaid 15 only if you worked an 8 hour shift. Another employer gave one 30 minute paid coffee for 4 hours of work, another 15 minute paid coffee if there was another 2 hours after that, and a 30 minute unpaid lunch if hours worked totalled 8 hours. That was a unionized company.

As people go higher up the ladder and to better careers they'll get better breaks and holidays in general.

I believe that it would be best if companies asked employees to come in for approx. 8 hours, and paid them for the expected work. It would be entirely up to the employee to budget the time and money according to the employee's needs. If I need 4 hours of break today, and manage to complete the tasks, then lucky me. If not, then too bad. There are days when I don't mind working longer just to have a sense of acheivement. While there are others when I wish that I could relax a bit more and enjoy life.

Negotiating for a new contract every year would give *both* employees *and* employers a better sense of control, and it would allow them both to adapt to the changing winds of the economy.

contractor lifestyle...

[tachyonflow]

I personally find that the best solution for me is to stick to contractor type positions, and take a lot of vacation time between contracts. This works well for me because I am single and love to travel and work in different cities.

Naturally, working as a contractor is risky and can be tough in a slow economy. If you're a good engineer, save your money, and can live in a relatively cheap area, it's not too bad, though.

I find it exciting to always be doing something new, work on the latest technology, and take a few months off at a time for some kick-ass vacations.

Your milage may vary. ;)