Why is America the 'no-vacation nation'?

There is a good article from another software developer around here who told his boss he was taking a 3 month vacation. He made the point the business needed him more than he needed it; he was a competent developer and could easily get work, didn't have any living/large financial dependencies. At first I thought it was absurd, but the more I thought about it, he was absolutely correct.<p>Take a long vacation some time. Even if you do have a family, save up enough money and go travel for a while. Take some decent time off work (4+ weeks). Let them fire you if they want. That's (one of my) my goal(s) over the next 2 years: take an extended vacation (I haven't taken more than a week off since I graduated college).

I think this old story is vey relevant here.<p>I have employees that take a lower salary than others, but have up to 7 weeks holiday a year. I'm happy with that. One employee that has 7 weeks holiday has only had 1 day sick in the 6 years I've employed him.<p>-- Sharpen the Saw --<p>Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter ask for a job in a timber merchant, and he got it. The paid was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.<p>The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees "Congratulations," the boss said. "Go on that way!" Very motivated for the boss’ words, the woodcutter try harder the next day, but he only could bring 15 trees. The third day he try even harder, but he only could bring 10 trees.<p>Day after day he was bringing less and less trees. "I must be losing my strength", the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on. "When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" the boss asked. "Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees..."

When I complained to an employer that it was too hard to request my vacation time (it's in my contract, they made it very hard to pick dates by always having an emergency deadline, etc) they replied "It's like that everywhere", as if it was a legit answer.<p>Many employers also lump in sick time with vacation time, as if that's a replacement since you didn't come into work. That would probably be okay, if you had an option to take unpaid vacation time when the time comes. Instead, you're often forced to take a shorter vacation, which doesn't do the job.<p>And forcing you to work while on vacation is unforgiveable. It shows that the company doesn't understand why vacation time is necessary. (I haven't had anyone do this to me, thankfully. It wouldn't have gone well.)<p>If taking unpaid vacations was an option, I would probably end up taking about 4 weeks worth of vacations, instead of 2.

This was one of the major draws for me for moving to Europe in my early 20s (from the US). After working one year in the US and having one week of vacation, it was bordering on surreal to have 6.<p>That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales. While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money.<p>For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spent my 20s bouncing around the world visiting more than 30 countries on 5 continents, with zero gaps in my employment.<p>Now that I'm an employer, I still see it as a great trade: employees are a lot cheaper here, and seem to be happier. But again, while most American software developers would love to have more vacation, I've heard them also repeat ludicrous things about how they can "barely survive on $60k/year".

One result of this is that businesses chuck human redundancy out the window. Often there's only one person who can do a business critical task, and as they can't really be gone from work for that long, the business gets by.<p>From an business uptime perspective, forced "downtime" of employees through vacation is actually a good way to force the creation of backup systems for business process.

It wasn't always like this in Europe. Extended vacation time was one of the many hard-fought rights won by the socialist/trade-unionist movements of the past century throughout the continent. Not even Thatcher dared attacking that right (she dropped a few national holidays here and there, instead).<p>Things didn't turn out quite the same on the other side of the pond, sadly, and this is the result.

Usually the only time Americans can take long vacations is between jobs. I wonder how many actually change jobs just for this reason.<p>I asked for 4 consecutive weeks off to travel Europe once at a previous employer (I had worked there 5 years with no more then a week and a half off) and they denied the request. So I found another job and made sure I had a 4 week break between the two.

The thing I find most interesting about this discussion is that we have not yet seen anyone from the US proudly claiming that by working harder they are more productive than the rest of us. I have seen similar conversations several times on various on-line forums in the past, and there was always a defensive/proud mindset from a significant group, even as those of us outside the US wondered if they realised how much their employers were abusing them.<p>Since the financial mess of the past couple of years showed that US productivity figures that seemed too good to be true really were just an illusion, I'm hoping that the mindset of the average US worker has become a bit more realistic and a bit less willing to accept (by international standards) abusively long hours and short vacations. It will be good for the workers, and I expect for their employers as well in the long run, since working with better rested and happier employees is one of the surest ways to improve productivity known to man.

This is crazy from our (Western European) perspective.<p>It was one of my reasons for not taking a job in the USA that was offered me a few years ago. Yes, it paid somewhat more than here in Europe but I'd rather have the benefits such as more free time and better health care than more income.

My employeer recently went unlimited vacation! Which in practice really means no vacation unless you bully your way into it which is very stressful.

I'm a Swedish developer. This year I have 7 weeks of vacation, and I plan to use it all. I normally get the 5 weeks required by law. Last year, I only used 4 of those 5 weeks, so one spilled over to this year. I also got a bonus week of vacation for working a lot of overtime last summer. So that makes 7 weeks.

I've found this is something that really surprises Europeans. But, once, when I was comparing notes with some travelers in a hostel in New Zealand, we asked a South Korean among us for his perspective. He said that he and everyone he knows gets maybe <i>2</i> days paid vacation a year. They work most weekends and get maybe 1 holiday. He said if you want to travel, you have to quit your job to do it, with no guarantee you will get another when you get back.<p>This changed my perspective. The difference between that and the States' 10ish days off is much greater than the difference between us and Europe. It is hard for me to imagine. Can anyone else with knowledge of East Asia chime in? Was this guy's experience representative? If so, it is a bit silly to call America the "no vacation nation." We do get vacation.

America doesn't do vacation because of a mistaken understanding of the meaning of the word "productivity".<p>As long as you have management consultants who specialize in the single metric of productivity (i.e. number of dollars of profit vs. number of dollars spent on people making the profit), you will have miserable people.

Relative to cost-of-living, are wages the same, lower, or higher in countries with mandatory paid vacations? One wonders whether there's a delusive "free lunch" notion underpinning Euro vacation policy, whether governments really can force companies to pay <i>everyone</i> more for the same level of output, or whether Euro economies have discovered an effective way to engineer a more efficient labor force by attempting to outlaw burnout.<p>Because, at the end of the day, the company is buying completed-and-sold widgets for their salary dollar. All things being equal (including widget output), if the company pays you $50k a year and gives you 4 more "paid" vacation weeks, they gave you a raise. You can mandate 2, 4, or 8 weeks of vacation, but --- at least in middle class jobs --- you can't really mandate a salary floor.

No vacation really sucks. I took 2 months between jobs once, but I've always been able to take a week or two weeks at a time. Now, we have the same policy as netflix. Basically you take time off when you want it, and you take as much as you want. It's all paid. Our only designer is gone for 3 weeks to get married. We'll struggle a little bit for those 3 weeks, but I'm grateful that when it's my time to take a week or two off, I don't feel guilty or have to beg for it.

I find it hard to believe that the employer really gains much by offering less than 3 weeks. No one is fully productive 52 weeks a year (or even 50).

Nobody has mentioned the obvious: weak unions.

This topic is covered on a somewhat regular basis in The Economist - usnder different guises. One memorable comparison between Europe and the USA was that Americans work more so they can spend the occasional weekend on their expensive boat while Europeans are happier taking longer vacations on canoe trips.

How many Americans can only afford health coverage via their workplace plan?<p>How many Americans live in right-to-work states and can be dismissed without a reason?<p>Add that together and you have a lot of fear.

I'm wondering how much of it is because people neglect to negotiate their vacation time when changing jobs.<p>Most American workplaces start you out with 2 weeks and then usually add a week or so after so many years of seniority. When you change jobs, how many of you ask for that same amount of vacation time at the new company? Or do you just accept that you're new and don't want to push things by asking for more at the onset? Or is it just forgotten until it's too late to ask?

How many of you treat conferences as mini-vacations? I find that in my field, going to a couple conferences throughout the year makes up for a couple days of vacation, as long as I don't have any work on my plate.<p>Also, I find that being single and having friends that (on the majority), make less than I do, makes it difficult to plan trips to places you'd have to fly/rent a hotel for. Trips consist of ten friends carpooling, getting a group rate at a ski resort, and renting out a condo for next to nothing for a weekend.

So, in the field of software engineering where competition for employees is tough, is it really still common to give only 2 or 3 weeks vacation? Would it be considered outrageous to ask for 5 or 6 weeks of vacation when interviewing for a position, in Silicon Valley?

That's really crazy, but it gives employers the chance to hire and retain the best talents not only with salary wars.<p>I still think that the major problem is that the US is one of the three only nations in the world that does not have paid maternity leave. Absurd.

For software companies (and probably to all other industries which hire 'knowledge workers'), it should be very important to give enough of vacation time to their employees (developers).<p>For me that is no brainier, but unfortunately, very few hi-tech companies actually understand that. So you have high-rate of "burn outs" which cause all kind problems (bugs, bad design decisions, etc.). The management mantra is still: The beatings will continue until morale improves.<p>Also, I was surprised how it is very hard to find a hi-tech company offering something like unpaid sabbatical leave or fulltime sabbatical replacement position (i.e., programmer working in sales for one or two months). Some banks and hedge funds do that.

Sad but true.<p>Years back when I was working for an American employer, filing a leave seemed like taboo. I didn't understand it back then but when my wife got hospitalized, I filed for an emergency leave of course, my boss sent flowers with a note that goes something like this: "Hope your wife gets better yada yada...can you work while you're at the hospital?"

No heathcare, no vacation, can get fired with no notice, crap public transport, astronomical crime rate, dubious legal freedoms.<p>Why is it you guys pay your government again?

Move to Norway - the best place to live according to the UN: <a href="http://goo.gl/012ea" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/012ea</a><p>Just be aware that while it might be a good place to live, Norwegians find lots to complain about anyway. Also, it's definitely not the most exciting place to live. You'll earn enough to buy a place to live, have kids and spend your five weeks of paid vacation somewhere warmer.<p>FWIW, I've met Americans who have moved here because of our socialist values (yes, socialist... it's not a curse word where I come from ;)), and are pretty happy about it.

Very simply, this country was founded by people with the Protestant Work Ethic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic</a> and it has become a part of our national identity.

"Century of the Self" is a great documentary on how the American population has been socially engineered by corporations.

in Russia we have approx. 4 weeks of paid vacations which don't expire if you dont use them, people work from 9 to 6 with 45 mins for lunch, and from 9 to 4:45 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (40 hrs work week). If national holidays fall onto workdays, there's an extra day off. Mostly this is observed now, administration tend to force people go on vacation to make accounting simpler. For several years we had Christmas vacations from 1 to 10th of January.<p>now a joke story as it is told in Russia.<p>at one company people worked their asses off very hard, came earlier, left later, sometimes worked until 9 or 10 to meet goals in the plan. and suddenly one man started to appear at 9, leave an 6 and didn't appear on Saturday and Sunday when the deadline was near. colleagues started to look at him with blame, and finally told him, who the fuck you think you are? why you so relaxed when we are tearing our asses? - oh, sorry guys, its a real shame, - he replied, - but i am on a vacation

I know a fair few people who work one month on, one month off (pro rata, of course). Even in London or Hong Kong (not Tokyo) a competent developer can earn enough in 6 months to live on for 12.

Allow me to air a dissenting opinion, since everyone here seems to make fun of those poor US workaholics.<p>I think the low number of vacation days is just a side effect of Americans not having such a strict compartmentalization between "work" and "life". I worked on both sides of the Atlantic and although I settled in Europe now I actually like the US work ethic, the low number of vacation days notwithstanding.<p>For many Europeans work is something they do to have bread on the table and the "real" life is that part you're not working. For many Americans their work is their life and the free time they have gets intermingled with work (they take the kids to the company barbecue! never heard of that happening in Europe).<p>But if most of your waking moments are spent doing something which is not your primary objective than you could say the Europeans are the sad ones.<p>(Side note: I am now in the happy position that I enjoy running my own company, I might feel different if I had a lousy job)

I get 23 days holiday entitlement plus UK bank holidays which this year thanks to Prince William adds on another 9 days.<p>Like some others however, I have dreamt about travelling long term so have handed my notice in, managed to secure some small freelance gigs and leave next wednesday for Bangkok, my holiday entitlement just wasn't enough ;)

It's no better in Canada the usual vacation time is two weeks with that increasing to three after maybe five years then after ten years it may go to four weeks but that's it it's extremely rare to see more than five weeks.<p>The years of service are calculated for full-time positions so if you worked at a company part-time for five years and then became full-time only then does the clock start to tick towards more vacation time.<p>In my job the summer is a busy time and vacations are blacked out from July to August the best times to go in a snowy country. The rest of the year the quiet time is used for projects which also mean no vacation.<p>Over six years each year I managed to get a week or two in, barely, but I've got 210 hours of vacation and 200+ hours of sick time (maxed out) that I can't use because I can never get time off. And I'm not allowed to take two weeks in a row either. Time to move on!

My employer gives the usual 2 weeks vacation for the first year of employment. Then, every year after that, you get an extra week up to 4 weeks paid vacation per year. Also, my employer is very vacation friendly in terms of requesting time off.<p>However, the biggest problem I have is actually taking the time off! I feel like I will miss too much work if I take a long vacation so I just take off a day or two here and there to "relax." And just like the article says I am always available via email on my cell phone and although I don't want to admit it, I am usually available on my computer as well.

Taking control of my own schedule is in the top 5 list of reasons I quit being an employee 4 years ago (constant reorganization was number 1). Now I take all of August off, spend time volunteering in my daughters' classrooms during the day, get all of my errands done while the streets and shops are empty, and generally love life a lot more.<p>Anyone with dev skills can go independent or strike out with a group of like-minded souls to take control of their schedule. Sure there are downsides to working on your own, and it isn't all skittles and beer, but overall I find it well worth it.

They might as well call this article Why is America the 'no-union nation'?

Out of curiosity, anyone know if sabbaticals common in Europe?<p>A software developer I know worked tirelessly for 4 years at a large corporation before burning out. He may have taken a week off here &#38; there, but was always answering his emails.<p>He finally requested a sabbatical. Those are rare and very tough to get, but his manager fought for him and off he went. He returned refreshed, though he left the job shortly thereafter (which is a major reason why that company made it tough to request a sabbatical).<p>I'm just curious if the same kind of phenomenon occurs in Europe.

I work at a (bootstrapped) European startup. In june, one of the founders takes a month of vacation. In july, the other does the same. As an employee, I'm entitled to 5 weeks off. Sick leave does not subtract from that. Every American reader probably thinks we will never make it. European readers would consider insane if we did without that time off. That's how ingrained this vacation business is. And if you ask me, we are happier and more productive than we would be without those vacations.

I would not mind a split between paid and unpaid vacation. I see no reason (unless contractually specified) why a company should pay me for not working.<p>I don't live to work. I work to live.

Wow, that really is incredible... I really can't imagine not being able to take a week of vacation for fear of losing my job...<p>Do you guys in the US get time in lieu? My job is 40 hours a week, and if you work longer than that, you can take the time off later. So working fifteen minutes longer every day lets you have another week off (paid) every year, in addition to the four weeks paid holiday you get.<p>And since holiday time accumulates, you are encouraged to take most of it every year.

After seven years with my company, I was finally earning the highest amount of vacation hours per pay check, up to 15 days per year. In my fifteen year career, as an adult, I've never taken a vacation and I don't really have any interest in doing so. I currently have about 300 hours of vacation banked. I'm at the limit, so unless I use some of that time, I won't earn any more. That's okay, because . . . I don't have any use for a vacation. I don't use sick days, either (I know a lot of people use their three or five allotted sick days from their company as personal time).<p>I guess if I was digging ditches for a living, I'd want all the paid vacations I could possibly have. However, I work with computers and technology for a living and I love computers and technology. So . . you know . . . why would I want to take time off from doing something I enjoy?<p>Not to mention, after I die, nobody is going to remember me fondly for the vacations I took, so I could sit in the sun and cook my skin next to a chlorinated pool in another country. They're going to remember me for any work ethic, personality, and accomplishments I had.

All you folks must seriously consider moving to India. Its a vibrant country with a lot of energy. Software Engineers get above than average market salaries. With a decent salary one can afford a great life style here. It also servers as an excellent laboratory where you can test/prototype and implement your ideas.

We do not live to work, we work to live.<p>At least that is how I see it. I will work to keep me busy doing (hopefully) interesting things and to keep food on the table but in the end I work because I have to. We all do.<p>Wouldn't you rather work 6 months of the year and travel or do whatever you want the rest? I know I would.

I work for a company that doesn't have expiring vacation days. They are payed out at 100% at your current salary the day you quit, get fired, or retire. We have a large amount of employees that use this as an additional retirement account. I can't imagine banking all my vacation time!

In many European countries if you don't take all your holidays, the company must pay you for them. So companies do not financially benefit if you work more, all they get are employees that are tired and overworked. This is why they would be keen for you to take all your holidays.

The flip side of this is that we have Summer vacation for schools (unlike the rest of the world) and have institutionalized Spring Break for college students. Sadly we see the idea of vacation as being for the very young or the very old who retire.

I get 3 paid weeks of vacation per year. More would be nice, but unless I'm going to do something (spend a month in Europe for example) I get tired of being on vacation after a week or so. Also, when it comes to single days here and there my boss just tells me to take them. His way of hoping I pick up the phone on a Saturday when something breaks I guess :)<p>I recently travelled to to the UK and France for 16 days and was happy to return home. I had a great time on the trip, so maybe I'm weird for not wanting to be gone longer? If I actually lived in Europe more vacation might be nice because it's so easy/cheap to visit other countries.

I hear that people take substantially less vacation in East Asia.

I guess I'm in the "lucky" category when it comes to paid time off. I work for a small company though, and I receive 5 holidays, 5 floating holidays, 5 sick days, and 5 weeks vacation. I could find a job that pays 10k more per year but offers not nearly as much vacation time - but I prefer the time off over the additional money.

When I was working for an employer, all I wanted was more vacation time so I could travel. Now that I am self-employed, I just get antsy when I'm on vacation.<p>What I've found works better for me is to take extended vacations every couple of years (a year here, 3 months there). This recharges my batteries for years at a time.

This is one of the reasons I love my technology work at a non-profit. Sure I make lots less, but they are extremely generous with paid time off. Our institutional culture encourages people taking vacations, and while we have serious tight deadlines, people still support a healthy life-work balance.

If the US had the culture of taking off August, it would be far easier to take off 3 weeks since everyone in your company would be doing it. Logistically however I don't really understand how taking August off works in Europe. Where does everyone go? Doesn't it get super crowded?

My employer is hiring and offers 5 weeks of vacation after the first year. Must be a US citizen. No remote work. <a href="http://woti.com/benefits.cfm" rel="nofollow">http://woti.com/benefits.cfm</a> <a href="http://woti.com/jobs.cfm" rel="nofollow">http://woti.com/jobs.cfm</a>

american - working for a company i love, but i find it hard to even write long articles on HN because of the fear of "slacking"..i would love to elaborate more and explain why im slowing starting my own web design co for my traveling laptop days i so dream about....

The corporate overlords don't have time for us to enjoy ourselves. Is there any other explanation?

This is very similar to an article that made it to the first page yesterday: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2573664" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2573664</a><p>Still, the more awareness that this topic gets, the better!

Exactly. I'm bright and awesome, but this one thing puts me off moving to the USA.

Does anyone else here prefer to have shorter vacations and higher pay? I've taken a few vacations in my life and they've tended to be less fun than working (at least after the first 3 days. Before that it's awesome).

Do US employers (especially startups) typically agree to agree to offer unpaid vacations? Or are those 0 to 10 or 15 days really a hard limit?

Why is this on HN? Please, bring back the no politics rule. If you want to talk politics on the internets, there are plenty of other sites out there.

Who linked this piece of crap and why is at the top? Utter nonsense! Whoever shared this, please consider opra winfrey websites or others of those sort.

Well, that's just sad. You do know that the rest of the world is having problems at finding a job at all, or at least getting paid on regular basis? Cry me a river.