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Editorial

Are American Vacation Policies Outdated? 105

Posted by Cliff from the taking-an-extremely-long-timeout dept.
GiorgioG asks: "Am I the only one who sees US vacation policies as outdated compared to Europe?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?
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Are American Vacation Policies Outdated? More

Are American Vacation Policies Outdated?

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  • US vs Socialism (Score:1, Redundant)

    by norwoodites ( 226775 )
    USA is Socialistic Country, it is more of a capilistic country. In Europe the countries set the rules for vacations while in the US, the companies set the polices. Also in Europe, there is a max number of hours you can work per week.
    • in Europe, there is a max number of hours you can work per week.

      I will point out that this is not necessarily a good thing.

      In Europe the countries set the rules for vacations while in the US, the companies set the polices.

      More accurately, vacation policies are determined by the market. Most companies give vacation time in the amount to which it will best increase total productivity (taking turnover into account). If you legislate, you risk hurting the companies, who will then hire fewer people. At best, you get exactly the same results as would occur in the market, so why not just leave it be?

  • Old co-worker of mine told me that when he lived in Australia most people did not leave their jobs, because the vacation time was huge. There are companies that give 3 months per year, after 20 years of service. The average person has 4 weeks off per year.

    If this is true, it is no wonder that the turnover "down under" is next to nil.

    • Re:Australia (Score:3, Informative)

      by cafeman ( 46922 )

      People do leave their jobs here - in many positions, it's hard to get a reasonable raise unless you change roles or companies / departments. However, there are plenty of people who have been with the same company for 15+ years.

      The 3 months off you're talking about would be long service leave, and I believe it's a statutory requirement. I think it might be longer than 3 months though, and I'm not sure it takes 20 years to get it (I think it might be less). I don't know though, as I've changed jobs a few times b/c of changing focus and interest in a pay-rise, so long-service leave doesn't really figure in my decision making process.

      4 weeks per year is the legal requirement, plus public holidays (around 10 a year), plus sick days. Figure we only really work 44 weeks a year normally (8 weeks off between public holidays, sick days, and vacation time). You may get paid more in the US, but you *sure* work for it in comparison. In many ways I think the US is quite backwards - Oz and Europe have similar policies towards work (except I think Europe in general is even better for the employee than Oz).

    • Oddly enough many industries and companies in Australia pay you 17.5% MORE to go on holiday.

      Having worked in Australia, US and Europe, I can say that I am happy to trade the higher salaries of the US for the lifetyle of Europe/Aust. I still earn enough to live comfortably.
  • anything coming out of america having grammar errors, typing mitchmathces and like, are not so "good". and those typo's were in the topic, title...

  • I wish I got paid vacations (Score:3, Interesting)

    by markwelch ( 553433 ) <markwelch@markwelch.com> on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @08:09PM (#3439460) Homepage Journal
    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?

    • Vacation...... is this the same thing as 'outside'??????? I know nothing of these things....... I wold love to learn of these exquisite ideas I keep hearing of.
    • Don't worry about it. I got a supergeek job in NYC doing quantitative finance. Programming computers, running simulations, solving PDEs. In addition to the cool work projects, my work week is officially 35 hours (full-time), I get 4 weeks of paid vacation per year (starting on my first day), unlimited sick time.

      However, like you, I can never actually take a a vacation. I *actually* put in ~60 hours per week and I'm too busy to get sick or take a vacation. The only thing that keeps me going is a shot at a hefty annual bonus. Some people in my department have earned bonuses of 100% of their salary.

    • Negotiating often works. Ferinstance I negotiated for three day weekends, every weekend. (Yes, I only work 32 hours a week). I looked at my salary vs my commission and the fact that Mondays and Fridays were the slowest days for me and discovered that I would only lose out on a couple hundred dollars a month. My boss was happy as he still gets 90% of my 40-hr a week productivity and I'm happy because I get 50% more time off. I do still come in on Mondays once in awhile when we have projects that require it of course, but that's not even once a month.
      So yeah, especially in today's economy, your employer might be more flexible than you'd expect (as long as you do the math and present it in an appropriately business-like manner/perspective :).
    • 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?

      That's more of a tradition thing than anything else: the French and Italians in particular are famous for taking August off and heading for the beach/hills with the wife and kids. However, this certainly isn't mandatory, those of us who don't have kids in school get to take holidays whenever we want them (a week's ice climbing in March? That'll do nicely :-)

      Oh, and when I was a self-employed consultant (rather than, as I am now, a wage-slave for the Man), one of the biggest benefits was that if I wanted a couple of months off at the end of a gig then hey, I took them.

      • That's more of a tradition thing than anything else: the French and Italians in particular are famous for taking August off and heading for the beach/hills with the wife and kids. However, this certainly isn't mandatory, those of us who don't have kids in school get to take holidays whenever we want them (a week's ice climbing in March? That'll do nicely :-)
        I have had my European coworkers (those from the UK too ;-)) explain this system to me. And while I think this is actually a Good Thing(tm), I am always struck by one point that the Europeans leave out: the process as stated has an underlying assumption that hotel workers, petrol station attendents, garbage collectors, etc (which is to say, people who can't just "stop working" no matter what country they live in) are not classified in the group "everyone". And by extension are not exactly people (?).

        sPh

        • Yeah: traditionally it was factory workers who all got given the same month off because it was easier to close the factory for a month than to try and run it half-staffed. I guess it just grew from that (plus the summer months - July and August - were always a good time not to be working in the factory or, even more historically, in school because you'd be needed to help with the harvest). But I digress.

          And it's unfortunate that workers in service industries get screwed, but that's traditionally been the way it works (when did a burger-flipper ever get put at the top of *any* pile?) Remember that service industries are in themselves (with the exception of the retail trade) a relatively modern development and even, say, the local butcher could until fairly recently close the shop and go off for a week in Brighton.

          Nowadays, of course, if you did that you'd come back to find that your business had been killed by WalMart/Tesco/[include your local mammoth retail chain here] - which is progress, I guess
    • You sound like a workaholic. No family, immersed in work, no vacation in 10 years because you'd rather be at work anyway. A hard-assed attitude that implies vacations are a waste of time.

      I think that having time off of work is good. I really enjoy getting the hell away from work, and I think taking time out to enjoy life is more imporant than piling on the billable hours. So what if it costs me salary to have time off...I'd rather have the time! Money I can make more of.

    • 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.
      Good points, but there are two underlying assumptions that Americans seldom discuss.

      First, there is an assumption that if you work more hours, you will be more productive. Five 9-hour days will be more productive than five 8-hour days; six 9-hour days will be more productive than five 9-hour days; and eventually 52 workweeks of six 12-hour days and one 6-hour day will be the most productive of all.

      But studies have shown that productivity in physical labor jobs decreases drastically after 8-9 hours and 5-5.5 days of labor per week. It is a lot harder to measure productivity in non-physical jobs, but my personal observation is that (for longer periods, say more than a month), five 9-hour days is about all a human can take. After that productivity goes down and sometimes becomes negative.

      The second unquestioned assumption is that of the "vital man". If I don't call in 4 times a day while on vacation, if I don't check e-mail twice a day, if I don't keep my Blackberry running 24/7, I will be "out of the loop", "no longer needed", and of course will be deemed "non-essential" and finally be kicked out on my butt.

      Well, maybe. But I would argue that if an organization is structured this way, it is doomed to failure in the long run anyway, so why worry? A full 2 weeks of vacation with minimal thought given to the workplace has a tendency to recharge people and make them more productive when they return. While all this hurrying and worrying, even when on vacation, tends to burn them out and make them less productive in the long run.

      My 0.02.

      sPh

    • France has mandatory vacation in August, it is not true generally. My bro-in-law is a marketing executive in the Netherlands and has 5 weeks that he takes whenever.

  • I don't know. Are they are?

  • cliff does it again (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    This depends, of course, on the types of vacation policies found in Europe and those types found here in the US.

    Yes, thank you, that dependency was not clear to anyone.

  • Burned out from job hopping (Score:3, Insightful)

    by realgone ( 147744 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @08:34PM (#3439590)
    I dunno, the biggest problem I've had re: U.S. vacation time is that in this "new economy", it's commonplace to spend two or three years at a job then move along to another firm. (This is especially true in my chosen field of advertising.) And this is all well and good, except that many firms' HR depts haven't really adjusted and still base vacation time solely on number of years served at that one company. ("Sure, you might be a VP with 20 years experience, but you've only been with us for a year. Enjoy that one week off, kiddo.")

    Heck, the agency I'm with now doesn't offer any vacation time during the first year; you have to borrow against the following year's allotment -- which amounts to two weeks spread out over two years. Ugh.

    End result: it's become yet another item one has to bargain for when going through the experienced hire job hop. And you might find you'll need to trade away more than you expected (in terms of salary, perks, etc.) if time off is really that important to you.

    Well... at least until the job market opens up some; then it's safe to play a bit of hardball again. =)

    • Yes, this is one way companies can ensure a little "employee loyalty". It works out well when you trust your company not to fold or lay you off. But the new economy can be a brutal place. High profit and high risk.

      Personally, I have a great relationship with my business, which is refreshingly part of the "old economy." I show my loyalty through my hard work, and they show me loyalty through sound management decisions and fair policies. In my opinion, it's worth a pay cut to seek out a place that treats workers with some respect.
    • And this is all well and good, except that many firms' HR depts haven't really adjusted and still base vacation time solely on number of years served at that one company.

      This is why I like contracting - no messing around with accumulating vacation time, just "I will not be here from X to Y." I largely get to determine my own balance between money and time.

  • In Sweden... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kidbro ( 80868 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @09:01PM (#3439701)
    ...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.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by twilight30 ( 84644 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @09:04PM (#3439714) Homepage
    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.

    • Strange but true? Yeah, those italians and spaniards, they never stop working ;-)

      OK, the Germans you'd expect to be workahoic, but their holidays are probably compulsory.

  • Work to live, don't live to work. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Deagol ( 323173 ) on Tuesday April 30, 2002 @09:33PM (#3439855) Homepage
    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).

    • 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.
      • 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.

        That depends heavily on the sort of freelance work you do. When I do consulting, I _never_ allow any sort of on-call option. I definitely never let them have my cell phone or home phone number. I also do absolutely zero system admin or web development work, I stick strictly to software development (whether new products, new features, project rescue for failing projects, platform ports, cleanup, optimization, whatever...) with written requirements and I make sure that the contract backs me when it comes to saying "changing requirements==changing time estimates".

        This is not to say I'm inflexible, changing requirements is a good thing as you work with the client to understand their needs (and often what they really want bears little resemblance to what they say they want, and they'll usually be very pleased if you can actually nail down something that helps them). Just that as you get a clearer view of what needs to be done, you also get a clearer view of how long it'll take.

        I'd say 90% of non-web software development work (as opposed to admin work) has absolutely no reason to call the developer in late nights or weekends. You might need to pull some weekends if you're way off in your time estimate, just to meet deadline. But do that a couple times and you start to get good at providing better estimates. And it's usually way more interesting than web dev.

        Sumner
    • Agreed. I would accept a job offer with lower pay and more vacation time over the reverse in a minute (provided the disparity isn't huge, of course). I wonder how many companies have considered using vacation-time-raises rather than monetary raises now that cash flow is at a premium? A lot of people would gladly take a few extra days' vacation instead of the piddly raises they're getting right now, and it doesn't show up on the books as increased expenses. Yeah, you could argue that overall productivity might go down (I wouldn't argue that though, I think I'm much more productive after a vacation), but if you want a way to reward people, it's not a bad plan.

  • Last job was hell (Score:1, Interesting)

    by 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.

    • 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.

      As far as I know, what you described is illegal. Hourly workers are compensated with overtime for more that 40 hours a week or 12 hours a day. Salaried workers can not be required to work 8 hours per day or 40 hours a week.

      • That all depends on the state. Most states do not have daily overtime limits, only weekly and have no limit on how little or much a salaried person works. Even if it is illegal in the state, there may be exceptions to the rule depending on the industry. California has similar laws to what you've described, but I believe the agriculture, film, and computer industries, among others, are exempt from them.

      • "Exempt" workers in Illinois, at least, have no limits on how many hours a day/week/year they have to work. Couple this with a "right to work" state and you can be fired without cause for having the wrong colour eyes, for example, and trivially so for refusing to work insane hours. About the only things you can't be fired for are federally recognized catagories of discrimination.

        Now, there have been cases where so-called "exempt" employees were found to be, in fact, non-exempt, because vacation was accrued on an hourly and not diaily basis (more particularly, it was lost on an hourly basis), but such cases were expensive to litigate. The motive was generally scads of back-overtime.


  • Most jobs, your co-workers can't do without you. someone's got to do what YOU do while you are gone. Business doesn't just get put on hold while you're in Disneyland.
    • Yup. Fuck those employees. Squeeze them dry. Make them squeal. They deserve nothing more than the crumbs we graciously allow them to have. How dare they desire time to themselves when there's critical, pressing company business to be done? Get legal on the phone -- we need to sue these employees back into submission before they organize!

      </sarcasm>

    • Most jobs, your co-workers can't do without you. someone's got to do what YOU do while you are gone.

      If they can't cope with your absence for a week, they have serious problems. What are they going to do if you get ill, or run over by a bus, or get a better offer?

      Any organization that can't cope with you taking time off it fatally flawed, and you ought to leave before it collapses.

      My colleagues are competent, and I have documented as much of my project as I can. They can do without me for a week. They could even, with some difficulty, pick up the pieces if I quit, or got run over by a streetcar.

  • leave conditions etc are generally worked out by industry/company here in australia, and four weeks is the average. i get six weeks because i don't get any public holidays/long weekends.

    despite that, i think you'd be hard pressed to find a company where everyone used their entitlements every year.

    the lack of leave in the US is really outdated considering the era of 'family friendly' working conditions etc.

    • It depends on how you look at it. The companies assume that since they are going to be flexible when you show up for work, if you have to go home to pick up a sick kid, etc., they will not be as generous with vacation time as they would be if the work place rules were set in stone. They view the little time here and there that you have to do 'family activities' as the same as vacation, but it may or may not be tracked. If they went back to the 'family unfriendly' conditions as before, it may give the employees an excuse to demand more vacation time. Besides, when companies had those policies, most families had one person that would work and the other would stay at home and take care of kids. But that is normally not the case anymore, employers have to give a little to keep married employees with kids, so they expect the employees to give a little when it comes to vacation. Of course, if you are single w/o kids and are at work all the time, this doesn't help at all.

  • Siesta (Score:2, Troll)

    by Deanasc ( 201050 )
    I don't know about vacations but I sure could use a good nap.

    • I sure could use a good nap.

      Absolutely!

      I swear my after lunch productivity is pretty well shot.

      If my workplace would "shutdown" for a 3 hour lunch and provide comfortable places to sleep, I think my overall productivity would increase.

      Unfortunately, I think managements gets tight-assed about the whole concept because "it won't project the image we seek to foster"

  • 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.

    • The break stuff varies from state to state. IIRC, in California for hourly employees, you are entitled to a 10 or 15 minute break for every 3.5 hour shift you work. If you do not receive those breaks, the employer has to pay you an hour's wage. Depending on the industry, if you exceed 8 hours of work in a day, the time over that amount is considered overtime. In other states, the daily overtime limit is at 12 hours or it just doesn't exist and they rely on the 40hrs/week standard. Unless there is a state law mandating it for the type of employee that you are, the company is free to set whatever policy that they want. I don't know of any laws concerning a minimum amount of vacation. If such a thing exists, it will be in California.

    • As people go higher up the ladder and to better careers they'll get better breaks and holidays in general.
      I have a friend who argues that life is backwards. We should start out at age 22 with a salary of $120,000/year and 6 weeks vacation. That should decrease as the years go by until at 65 we are at $18,000/year, 1 week vacation, and we work until we die.

      The same guy also argues that only veterans should get Veterans Day as a holiday. I must say I agree, although I am not a veteran!

      sPh

      • I have a friend who argues that life is backwards. We should start out at age 22 with...That should decrease as the years go by until at 65...


        I'm surprised to hear that. I realize that people make wrong turns in life, but that suprises me. I was under the impression that these high paid 22 year olds, were a phenominom [correct sp?] of the .com era. I'd surprised to see data supporting his view.

        The same guy also argues that only veterans should get Veterans Day as a holiday. I must say I agree, although I am not a veteran!


        I've never heard of anything like that. In Canada, we have Rememberence Day on the same day of the year. Perhaps it would be wise to not make it a day off at all. I don't understand why people need a whole day for this kind of thing. Thanks for sharing this idea.
      • I have a friend who argues that life is backwards.

        That would be cool if life was switched around. You would start off frail and weak and get stronger every year until around 18 or 20. Then life would get more and more fun as people start to care for your and your responsibilities reduce.

        Finally, you would become and infant and instead of dieing a painful death, life would end with an orgasm.

        Maybe that is a better system. :)

        Vanguard
  • 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. ;)

  • For example, if you're a banker or accountant, you are required to take 2 weeks vacation every year and let someone else do your job for you while you're gone. It is not optional and postponements are not allowed--when your vacation time comes, you must go whether you want to or not, and you're not allowed back in the office til the vacation is over.

    The reason is obvious: if you've been cooking the books, you won't want to let them out of your sweaty little clutches, so it's a basic security precaution that you be thrown out of the office every so often, letting somebody else take over your work materials so they'll notice if you've been trying to pull a fast one.

    Kind of different from programming, where managers are constantly trying to get you to postpone or skip or shorten your vacations.

    • Really? Which country is this, where bankers and accountants are "required" to take their vacation? My wife is a senior CPA for a Fortune 200 firm in the US, and is not "required" to take time off.
      • Really? Which country is this, where bankers and accountants are "required" to take their vacation? My wife is a senior CPA for a Fortune 200 firm in the US, and is not "required" to take time off.
        Well, I think Enron has fallen down to the Fortune 20,000 now...

        Required time off for key financial personnel is not a law (that I am aware of in the U.S. of A.) but rather a good and strongly recommended security practice. Some companies do it, some don't. The Fortune 50 company I used to work for had a strict policy that everyone in the Data Processing Dept. who worked with financial apps did have to take a 1-week "no contact" vacation every year. They actually flushed out a guy running a nationwide football pool on the mainframe that way!

        sPh

  • outdated indeed (Score:3, Informative)

    by archie ( 26801 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @02:25AM (#3441265) Homepage
    In the Netherlands, about 23 days per year is the minimum by law. I've got 31 days, with an option to buy upto 21 extra days, or sell at most 5 days.

    You're "expected" to take one big holliday of 3 weeks, but you don't have to. You just have to coordinate with your boss.

    When you buy 21 days, you can work 4x9 (instead of 5x8, which is normal), or you can just do 3 vacations of 3 weeks and still take the christmas-week off. :)
    Most IT-jobs are less flexible, just 23 days is often what they'll give you.

    Chris
    • To give an example how things can differ even in the same country I'll reply about my conditions at present at the Dutch multinational I just started to work:
      - 39 days off a year (including 5 obligatory days, e.g. between x-mas and new year)
      - obligatory present between 10.00 and 16.00
      - no overtime (e.g. working on Saturday because of an international meeting, or working late)
      - 5 unused days may be carried to the next year
      - unused days may be paid
      - unused days may be invested in the pension
      - unused days may be put into other things like computers

      That's not a bad system, because it rewards most of the employees who are on average working more than 40 hours a week and at least have the ability to take days off now and then.
      • [is there an edit button somewhere?]

        In addition to my text above:
        - as long as the work gets done and the projects are finished in time you may take several weeks off at once or spread it throughout the year. No set rules.

  • You pay for it! (Score:4, Informative)

    by kruczkowski ( 160872 ) on Wednesday May 01, 2002 @04:03AM (#3441499) Homepage
    In Germany (from what I heard) the gov requiers people to take a 6 week vacation. I recived a job offer from a German company and took it - 6 week vacation, company BMW (with paid 1000km a month for private use) med and dental.

    The downside to all this - I was taxed 55%. I quit after a year becouse I was working for a tax, it was so depressing looking at your statment and seeing all that money go away.

    So the moral of the story, in the end you pay for that vacation with your taxes!
    • The downside to all this - I was taxed 55%. I quit after a year becouse I was working for a tax, it was so depressing looking at your statment and seeing all that money go away.

      And that's probably excluding the 15% VAT, they have i Germany. Must have been a good job to get into that tax bracket.

      I just worked out that with my income and the 25% VAT we have here in Denmark, I pay over 60% in taxes. And I pay those taxes happily because I think I get something back. When I have paid my taxes, I don't need to worry about extra medical costs except if I need medicine. I can walk or drive the streets as I choose because A) they well maintained and clean and B) they are safe. Almost all education is free and of good quality. All this (and a lot more) is what I pay for when I pay taxes.

      As for my own vacation: I work as a contractor so I usually get to decide when and for how long my vacations are. But this wouldn't be worth much if my wife couldn't come with me. So if she had only three weeks off, my freedom would be worthless.

      So the moral of the story, in the end you pay for that vacation with your taxes!

      Actually, you don't. Paid vacation simply means that your employer pays you sligtly less per week but does so 52 weeks (sometimes even 53 weeks :-) a year.

      • You're right in a way. You do pay for it in taxes, and I'm not only talking about the VAT (which is incidentally 16% nowadays). If I add up all the HIDDEN taxes (Gas costs $4.20 a gallon! (1.07 EUR/liter)) and other mandatory expenses like "social security" and "unemployment insurance", over 80% of my salary goes to feed and fatten the state.

        But... then again... I don't really work. I slack off and so should you.
    • Sorry, but this is inaccurate, not informative, but it does bring up a good point. The reason that vacation policies are so different outside the US is because business is the strongest force in government policiy.
      In Europe, the trade unions are much stronger and the governments more democratic, hence more people-centered economic policies.

      The reason that taxes are high has little to do with taxes per se. Because the trade unions and political left parties are much stronger and hence the welfare states are more expansive.

      Personally, i wouldn't mind the taxes to enjoy more security, almost no crime, little poverty and those long vacations
  • After reading though some of the posts, I really started thinking about our labour law.

    We get overtime for any hours worked beyond eight (8) in a day, or fourty (40) in a week.

    I'm not sure about a standard vacation package, but so far, every company for whom I have worked provides two weeks to start, and increase the longer you work for the company.

    We get seven general holidays per year. If we work on the holiday we get time and a half.

    Admittedly, our dollar is not nearly as high as the U.S. dollar, but the regulation of the labour rules really makes a difference to my sanity.

    At least what I call sanity. ^_^

  • In Australia (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dregs ( 24578 )
    At my place of employment, a University I get 4 weeks leave, which can be banked up to 8 weeks, at which point it sits there and wont go any higher.

    I get 15 days sick leave a year.

    After 10 years I get long service leave which is 3 months at full pay or 6 months at half pay off.

    I can also cash in 4/52th of my pay and have an extra 4 weeks giving me 8 weeks leave per year.

    As well we work flex time, and I can flex up to 1 day a week per fortnight (= 2 weeks in Australian)
    i.e. work 9 days in every 10.

    I do get payed significantly less (approx 25% excluding Super which when added in makes the difference about 10%)
    than I would in an industry job, but with 2 young kids, and a Doctor for a wife (who works for her self, and get no paid
    leave, its great to have such a flexable job.

    Dave...
    • G'day matey! You should check out your grammar. There may be subtle differences between Australian and American English but I doubt that Australians are payed for flexable jobs while Americans are paid for flexible jobs.
  • Here in Canada, the legally required minimum is two weeks, plus 5 sick days (plus public holidays). That's what most companies offer around Toronto.

    Quite pathetic, when most countries around the world offer 2 or 3 times that.

    • Quite pathetic, when most countries around the world offer 2 or 3 times that.


      Yes, we should all be like France, with 35 hour work weeks and something like 6 weeks off as standard. Oddly enough the business community opposed the 35 hour work week and their economy has been in the toilet for quite a while. Surely it's a coincidence.
    • That's what most companies offer around Toronto.

      The software company I work for in Ottawa gives us 17 days plus the week of between Christmas and New Years. And this is for brand-new employees.

      Just becuase the Canadian labor law says 2 weeks doesn't mean that there aren't companies in Canada that don't recognize that a couple of extra weeks of vacation is cheap compared to the benefits it provides to your employees.

  • I work for a state gov't, and we get a pretty liberal amount of vacation time.

    We accumulate one workday (7.5 hours) of vacation per month, plus up to seven bonus days (1 your first year, 2 your second, etc) and can accrue up to 300 hours a year. You get 11.5 hours a month after ten years. Then you get a week of personal time and 5.5 hours of sick time. If you accumulate 1200 sick hours over the course of your career, you can use that banked time to pay for your health insurance when you retire.

    The policies for taking time off vary, in some groups its very hard to get large blocks of time, in others its very easy.

    People always consider gov't jobs to be low pay, but that really isn't true, if you consider the time you get, the excellent health benefits and great retirement program, you're actually making out pretty good in the end, esp for IT people.
  • it depends on the company and your manager. I work in a fortune 500 tech company and i routinely see people taking 1 or 2 month long vacations a year. of course this may explain why this company is about to self destruct...
  • Over here in Germany I get the pretty much standard 30 days paid time off which I can take in .5 day fragments. Last year I took four consecutive weeks off. What's more: I work 35 hours a week. Every hour of overtime on top of those 35 hours I get as paid time off or recompensated in cash at a substantially higher rate.

    I suppose, with 2 weeks of vacation time a year, most employees in the US call in a lot more sick time and slack off at the workplace.
  • Welcome to the modern version of slavery. You work 9 to 5, giving the best hours of the day to your master during the week. You spend the weekends recovering from the stress and BS from the week. Then, you might get to take off for a week or two.

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