I was working in a European branch of a SF based private company. It's a company that tries really hard to have good optics everywhere, from being listed as PBC down to "support and inclusion" talks.
US employees officially had "unlimited" vacation days, European had 25. Plus the company has a practice of giving an extra Friday off once a month, plus few days for Christmas break plus one year there was a week of summer break.
That year with a summer break employees in Europe got over 40 days of vacation. 35..37 without it. Plus bank holidays and sick leaves.
I was freaking out after learning that US employees with the unlimited time off were getting under 20. Whenever an employee was using more than 15 vacation days a year, they were presented with an inquiring interview from their manager trying to figure out why they need so much rest.
US has no work culture, it's exploitation.
A company telling you you've got unlimited off days is actually really bad because it means they will just engage in this judging practise.
If they tell you you've got 25 days then that's great you know how many days you've got, if it's unlimited they start being argumentative around day 10. So in reality people with unlimited time off actually end up with fewer days.
Working for a European company is great, currently I'm being told that I need to take 2 weeks off, in addition to the holiday I've already booked off.
Also you don't get paid out for "unlimited PTO" when you leave. I have something like 45 days of PTO saved up, and if/when I leave my company, I will be paid for those 45 unused days along with any other severance package that is included. Unlimited PTO is a trap.
Unlimited PTO is an accounting dodge because PTO shows up as a liability on the books if it is defined, because if they liquidate the business they need to pay it out in lieu. And number doesn’t go up.
Which is why they also don’t allow carry-over in most cases.
I just listened to a news/information show regarding studies done on millennial and GenZ that found 4/10 of this cohort also worked a side gig in order to hedge against layoffs. Often, many of these side gigs are not glam type.. like influencers etc. Many of these jobs are like working in service -- nannys, retail, food service -- stuff that can't be replaced by AI or a remote offshored employee. So this report was on NPR today...
Charles currently takes work breaks every six months for two weeks at a time, and said he heard about micro-retirements from a friend. “I reward myself by traveling to different countries. Whether it’s Europe during the summer or other destinations, and so that’s a way that I incentivize myself to reach certain KPIs,” says Charles.
FML Charles has discovered holidays
During the pandemic, a large swath of hospital systems, both psych and medical, contracted with nurses to travel to work for them on 13 wk contracts. There were some significantly high contracts in the midst of the pandemic, mainly through a company called Krucial. However, the Krucial contracts were not normal work weeks but five 12hr shifts every week, with significant overtime. Overtime in travel contracts was typically above the standard 1.5x hourly rate most hourly workers are accustomed to. The weekly rates on these contracts made news. I say this so we can move past it to the standard contracts where we can talk about lack of burnout.
The normal travel contract was typically 36hrs a week, a standard work week for the hourly nurse, with elevated OT. Rates were stronger than precovid, which was a strong lure, but the industry at large had not increased staff nurse pay with cost of living, most of the industry not seeing much in hourly rate increases past the years 2000-2008 which was some significantly bad wage stagnation. California was and is, as always, the exception in this practice. Post COVID, many states now pay nurses in keeping with the normal contract rates they originally left their staff jobs for. OT on staff is 1.5x but extra shifts beyond an FTE will often contain an extra $20-30/hr after OT is factored in, or a flat $200-500 per extra 12h shift. As such, many nurses who left for travel are back on staff and not traveling.
Even so, there were nurses who would not leave travel even though hospitals were offering better deals on the financial side, to be staff. More money, less movement sounds good, right?
Not for some. Burnout due to scheduling and lack of time off remains a problem for nursing staff. Meanwhile, travel contracts work like this: 13wks on, with roughly two weeks off in between. If a nurse opts to sign on for another 13wks at the same location, 1-2 weeks off is typically offered in between the old contract and the new. In addition, they can take Christmas off.
Less pay than staff, now, but a swath of nurses stick with travel regardless because they aren’t burning out. Travel nurses don’t typically burn out. Think about why. What would your own hourly work feel like on a 13wks on, 2wks off rotation?
Many people are going to and have to follow money, but this real life experiment has demonstrated how much less money people will take when they can to just not have to work every single week of their lives. There’s a lesson here that corporate America will likely never heed.
I work in educational support on a 10-month contract. I am paid for the built in holidays and I save a little and take the summer off. I think it is a good work/life balance.
Wow, that article is really trying to make vacations "special" and trying to indicate most people want this "new" thing as a benefit, unpaid.
if this becomes a thing we need to make "fire-sale" a euphemism for a literal fire.
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