[MattGaiser]

This depends on whether the field is an arms race. In plenty of areas, common advice is quickly implemented by most competitive participants. See college admissions or even getting jobs after university.

At one point founding a charity was considered evidence of leadership. By my graduating class for high school, half the class had a charity. The person I know who has been the best at admissions has founded 4. But now there is nothing special about charity creation.

Same with getting jobs after university. It used to be that you earned your degree and a good job awaited you. But then lots of extra people went to university and you started needing better grades, an internship, and now several internships to be competitive.

In those cases you need something novel to stay ahead.

Or consider unlimited vacation for developers. At one point that was a fairly novel perk. Now, everyone has that. I would be surprised to work for a company with fixed vacation ever again.

It was once a perk that would win you staff. Now, it is just being competitive for certain kinds of people.

[nicoburns]

> Or consider unlimited vacation for developers. At one point that was a fairly novel perk. Now, everyone has that.

I would argue that nobody (or hardly anyone) has this. Otherwise you’d find most developer only working 6 months a year.

[MattGaiser]

Fair, it is not truly unlimited, but for plenty of people (at least where I have worked) it has still ended up being 5-8 weeks a year.

In contrast to the more traditional employers who say that you can start with two weeks and after 3 years of loyal service with no real raises, you can have three.

[nicoburns]

Ah, I guess that makes sense from an American perspective. For context, 5.6 weeks (28 days) is the legal minimum for absolutely every full time employee here in the UK, and I believe that’s one of the lower legal minimums in Europe. Higher allowances are not uncommon here.

My employer considered introducing unlimited holiday, but we said no once they admitted that they were hoping it would result in us taking less holiday in practice. I’d rather have my 5 weeks guaranteed, no guilt, than be worrying about whether I’ve taken too much unlimited holiday.

[mc32]

Indeed. It’s a wolf in sheeps clothing.

It’s like letting the kids mind the house by themselves while you go on holidays.

If they take too much liberty, they never get that privilege again. If they do it within implied constraints they get to have the house more often.

If you have power (not necessarily managerial) you can exploit thus and be okay, if you’re mediocre and you take the same advantage, you could very well have signed your own pink slip.

Now if you have a minimum everyone takes, then even as a mediocre worker, you’re not an outlier.

[simplestats]

People I know take about four weeks a year. 8 weeks seems nuts. Do their managers push back all the deadlines related to their projects since they take a lot of vacation? I'd imagine managers don't even consider it and plan deadlines according to a typical (e.g., 50 weeks a year) worker output.

[MattGaiser]

I haven't ever worked for a company with hard deadlines. Always enterprise software, so delays are of seemingly no consequence.

[fvdessen]

The managers indeed push back the deadlines or hire more people

[_jal]

> Or consider unlimited vacation for developers.

Is there any evidence that developers (or anyone else with "unlimited vacation") take more time than they did previously?

I've assumed that was more akin to "open offices" - selling a cost-cutting measure as something hip.

[milkytron]

My company recently switched to unlimited, and everyone has been consistently taking more than we were offered prior, which was a generous amount compared to previous places I've worked for.

So far in the 4 months we've had unlimited, I've taken 40-50% more time off than I would have otherwise. I think many employees know of the issue you mentioned, and we're collectively taking steps to prevent that from happening. It mainly has to do with culture and not have too many key person dependencies.

[MattGaiser]

I only have anecdotes from the two companies I have worked for with it, but developers taking 5-8 weeks off is not uncommon.

And whether or not you do take it, you can if you need/desire to do so.

It stands in contrast to more traditional companies that offer you two weeks to start and an extra week after three years of service without a raise.

[jacobr1]

I too only have anecdotes from myself and friends/colleagues, but a few experiences stand out:

* The accountability culture really matters. Are teams responsible for their own commitments/deadlines? If you think you might get fired, or at least a lower performance review for taking vacation (because you shipped less while out) then you are less likely to take vacation. Of course the problem here isn't the PTO policy, but unlimited PTO in a company like this is worse than a defined amount of time.

* Are senior leaders work-a-holics? If so, that might breed a culture where, even these same leaders always say the right things about everyone needing to recharge and take advantage, the ambitions see those above them, and ape the behavior of working more. This trickles down, though it might be inconsistent across the company.

* As time has gone on with these being more common, some strategies have emerged to take advantage of them more effectively. Such as being more aggressive with 3 day weekends, or flex schedules, or remote work, or vacation hybrids (like going abroad for a 6 weeks and working every other week). Taking a bunch of multi-week vacations may or may not work in your company, but figuring out the broader category of "flex work" seems to be getting a ton of experiment.

[namelessoracle]

Best of both worlds is guaranteed vacation with unlimited sick in my experience. People for sure take their vacation, and people slip in days to not be around when they need a break and need an extra 3 day weekend.

[rocqua]

I have vague memories of stories that it leads to less time off taken. Something about people feeling more guilty taking vacation when they have to pick their own limit.