[brabel]

I live in Sweden where taking 5 weeks off in the summer is the rule. Never got used to it, I take just 2 or 3 and leave the rest of mu vacations for the winter… but I almost never take the full 5 weeks and end up accumulating it over the years. I think I have over 12 weeks pending even after already having taken 3 weeks in July. I just get too bored and start coding anyway, so why not just work and get paid for doing it !

[zelphirkalt]

If your work projects are as interesting as your free time projects, I congratulate you to having a great job.

[anonzzzies]

From the Netherlands and not having had to work since I sold my first company at 25 (over 25 years ago), I cannot do more than a week vacation before getting annoyed and bored. I like building stuff: programming, welding, soldering, guitar playing, cooking. But I have no patience for doing one thing: normally I code myself and vibe with multiple claude codes on the boil, my electric guitar is on my lap, there is either YouTube presentations from meetups/events or science podcasts on in the background and then there is cooking and soldering when I happen to get up from the desk. Or I go for a run or meet up with friends. When my friends tell me about their vacation, I fall asleep listening to it, let alone having to live through it. It is a Me thing and nothing wrong with them or me and luckily my wife is even worse, so we work almost nonstop generally. Never makes us exhausted though; quite the opposite.

[hattmall]

"Working" but not having to worry about money certainly doesn't sound very exhausting.

[anonzzzies]

Indeed. Saying the working is not the exhausting part sometimes, like the Swedish GP also indicated. You won't mind working a lot if you like the work and your life doesn't depend on it. In the EU (and nordics), depending on your wishes and choices, your life doesn't depend on it.

[hattmall]

He seemed to indicate he was wealthy from selling a company not the social supports of his country. I'm quite sure even most in the EU feel at least some aspects of their life depend on working which makes it more of a chore than a leisure activity.

[moltar]

I also don’t like stereotypical vacations and get bored on day 1.

Vacations don’t need to be stereotypical though. To me vacation nowadays means simply taking a break from my main money earning activity (typically a job, but I had a business before too).

When I travel these days I don’t even plan anything. Just land in the city and let it be. Just wonder around and explore. That’s it.

[yapyap]

Wow, I would like to hear the story of building and selling a company pre y2k

[anonzzzies]

The deal was made before the bubble burst here in the Netherlands and was completed after the collapse; the buyer paid the agreed upon price in cash and went on to be successful with it. It was a sign-of-the-times heavy Java (J2EE/EJB etc) enterprise XML catalogue/content management product.

[brabel]

Amazing that you managed to get set for life so early in life, not least with a J2EE product (though that was definitely the hot thing back then).

I am not quite set myself, but trying to :).

[PopAlongKid]

> I almost never take the full 5 weeks and end up accumulating it over the years.

Companies should have a policy to limit accumulation of unused vacation, such as 3 weeks maximum. The problem with unlimited accumulation is that it essentially allows the employee to assign themselves paid overtime[0] without any business reason or management oversight. For example, if the company policy is to have you work 49 weeks and take paid time off 3 weeks a year, but instead you work 51 weeks and carry forward 2 weeks vacation, you have just assigned yourself 2 weeks of overtime.

I used to work for a large corporation that finally implemented such a policy to address exactly what this person has done: 12 weeks of paid overtime that no one asked for and that the company probably hasn't budgeted for.

[0]I don't mean overtime in the sense of time-and-a-half pay or anything like that, rather overtime in the sense of working more paid hours than you were hired for.

[bityard]

In the US, the only common use of the word "overtime" implies three things:

1. Working outside of your normal shift hours or days on a non-routine basis to meet some deadline or specific business goal.

2. Working overtime is not generally voluntary on the part of the employee.

3. However, most companies acknowledge that overtime is an unwanted burden on the part of the employee and thus usually compensate overtime at a higher hourly rate. This is partially a reward for putting up with that burden, and also discourages managers from assigning overtime on a regular basis.

One of the reasons companies are hiring a higher percentage of their workforce on salary is that they can ask them to work longer hours and occasional weekends without the downside of paying them more.

[PopAlongKid]

This is why I had to footnote what I (didn't) mean by "overtime". The overtime I'm referring to does not meet any of your 3 implications -- it is entirely voluntary and self-administered by the employee. If there is a better term for it, I would like to use it. And yes, it is only feasible for salaried employees, not hourly-paid.

[brabel]

I really don't get the point of doing that. There's indeed a limit on how much you can "carry over" in most companies, but not in the one I work. I've been there for over 10 years. I will eventually take a very long vacation, perhaps 3 or even 6 months. So I am slowly building up (I might take some unpaid time off if I need to) towards that. The idea is to do a kind of sabatical... I've lived in 3 countries so far, and I would like to spend time actually "living" in one of them again, not just visiting for a few weeks. I don't feel like I am doing "overtime" in any way, and my company is getting value from every working hour I put in, I can tell you that.

[balfirevic]

How is it paid overtime, if your salary is the same whether you take that vacation or not?

I can see how it can be paid overtime if company has to pay out the unused vacation when you quit, but I don't know if that's what you meant.

[PopAlongKid]

Yes, paying out the unused vacation time upon leaving the job is what I meant. It is especially pernicious in the case of public employees (police, fire) who spike their pension payments by adding all that unplanned paid time to their final year salary, which distorts the pension calculation.

[ryandrake]

> Companies should have a policy to limit accumulation of unused vacation, such as 3 weeks maximum.

I hate this. My company lets you accumulate unused vacation, but it has a cap of 300 hours, or 7.5 five-day weeks. After you reach the cap, you stop accruing. I'm constantly at the cap, so I just take a Friday off every time another 8 hours accrues, and spend that time putzing around the house doing routine chores and maintenance. I'd much rather just accrue and accrue, and then get all that accrual paid out when I leave or retire.

I understand that companies would rather I not do that, so they implement this "cap" that allows them to stop providing the benefit they promised during hiring.

[MichaelRo]

In Romania I also have some 5 weeks of vacation, but never take more than two at a time. Two in the summer, two in the winter (Christmas - New Year period) and the rest, sprinkled throughout the year, either for errands or bridge days. Like when there's a holiday on Thursday, I'd take Friday off as well.

Honestly two weeks at a time seems enough and conversely, being absent at work for three-four weeks or more, seems excessive to me. I also have stuff to maintain and new developments to meet a schedule promised to customers, two weeks plus or minus isn't affecting those but I couldn't leave for a month and meet the schedule without killing myself with overtime, effectively negating the whole idea of unwinding during vacation.

But ... speaking of Sweden, one colleague is taking 3 months off. Indeed, Sweden is something else :)

[TrackerFF]

I'm from Norway, and we have 25 days a year, which also comes out to 5 weeks. I had 7 extra day transferred from last year, so 32 days this year. This year was the first I took out 4 weeks of summer vacation, but usually 3 is enough for me. Travel is fun, but after 2-3 weeks of traveling I start to get a big exhausted, and want to focus on hobbies, house work, or similar stuff.

My routine has been: 1 week vacation during spring/Easter, 3 weeks in summer, 1 week fall or Christmas vacation.

On the other hand, I've also worked in other countries where there's much less focus on vacation. I like our balanced view very much.

[apples_oranges]

Save it up for when you have kids ;)