[arsan87]

At my workplace we were hyped up for a special announcement during a company meeting. this is after, literally, years of layoffs, offshoring, cut after cut to benefits, and restructurings. Morale is incredibly low.

The big announcement is they are giving everyone one extra day off around a national holiday as a reward. We already have "unlimited" PTO but of course can't really use it. So their reward is letting us use a benefit we already supposedly had.

[codegeek]

Because of these shitty corporate companies that don't give a shit about their employees, the well is now poisoned for companies that do care especially smaller ones. Employees don't want to give their best anymore because they are burnt elsewhere and they become unemployable at smaller companies. It is a sad state of affairs.

[Aurornis]

I've worked at the full spectrum from great to terrible (and eventually one that went legally fraudulent) companies.

You're right that there can be a problem at small companies when you hire someone out of a toxic company. Some people love the fresh start and are so happy to finally be in a healthy environment that they thrive.

Some people are so broken from toxic previous employers that they can't adapt. We hired a lot of people out of a competitive Big Tech office and it was probably a 50/50 flip of the coin if they were going to be great to work with or toxic political monsters. I had to have so many difficult conversations with people who could only see their coworkers and other teams as competitors who had to be defeated that I nearly had a prepared speech on the topic. The politics and attempted backstabbing was insane. It was also weird that they thought it was going to work at a small company where we knew the people they were trying to backstab for years.

[Der_Einzige]

Stop trying to hire folks from AWS and this won't happen. Micrsoft is famous for "rest and vest" and a far less toxic culture as a result. You could also try hiring from Intel, where the internal "great place to work" propaganda is known as "great place to leetcode" because usually the work pace is so lax that its seem as a stepping stone for further advancement on your own time...

[erikerikson]

Microsoft took a pause in some areas for a moment but has been a brutal dog eat dog environment for a long time and never really stopped. I tried to get the job there once and got back channel on why I was denied: the interviewer didn't believe I'd emotionally handle the psychological environment. They went with somebody far more aggressive.

These companies are not monoliths though. Statistics really matter.

[coffeemug]

Microsoft is no longer rest and vest and hasn’t been for a long time. The expectations and pressure are very high (at least the corner I’m in)

[LiquidSky]

>the well is now poisoned for companies that do care

Because there's no such thing. Or rather, there are until it's unprofitable enough that caring seriously threatens the bottom line, or the nice owners sell off to someone less nice.

[codegeek]

Sure but thats a very cynical way of seeing things. A company cannot exist without making a profit but there are plenty of companies that try and take care of their people. At least the ones that don't have investor or board pressure (smaller private companies).

[mk_stjames]

I have this little insight into PTO that I keep saved, from the book "Algorithms to Live By" by Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths (a nice read). I think of it often when hearing about people and their work schedules in modern salaried positions and these 'unlimited PTO' offers:

  >All employees want, in theory, to take as much vacation as possible. But they also all want to take just slightly less vacation than each other, to be perceived as more loyal, more committed, and more dedicated (hence more promotion-worthy). Everyone looks to the others for a baseline, and will take just slightly less than that. The Nash equilibrium of this game is zero.

[marcuskane2]

> hence more promotion-worthy

Relevant for big companies where people intend to have decade spanning careers with multiple promotions.

But for the tech worker who is going to have a series of 1-3 year stints at different companies, their promotions are more likely to come from switching companies than from showing loyalty or commitment to their current employer.

[therealpygon]

“But you can be lucky to get a lower-than-cost-of-living adjustment each year if you stay and don’t move jobs! Wait, why are you leaving??”

[tavavex]

I don't understand. What is 'unlimited' PTO? And if it's so unlimited, why can't you use any of it? I've only had jobs with very specifically defined PTO that had no ambiguity in whether I could ever use it.

[compiler-guy]

"Unlimited PTO" is a fiction created by accountants that sounds good on paper. When you need or want time off, you work it out with your manager. No debate about how many days you have left this year, or how many you have accumulated. It's undefined and technically you are supposed to work together and away you go.

Accountants like it because guaranteed time-off is a liability that appears on the company's books as a debt, especially in California where the company is required to pay it out when you leave (whether fired or voluntary).

But what happens in practice is no one feels like they are entitled to the time they should be entitled to, and negotiations from the employee side always come from a place of weakness. It's a terrible system.

Undoubtedly someone will respond to this post with just how amazing their manager is and that they have never had a problem. But you know when I have never had a problem taking time off, even a long time off? When I could point to the corporate policy that says I have X days, and I was taking those days.

And now I'm not playing manager roulette on whether or not I have the time, or how kind they are feeling. Or how buddy-buddy we are.

It's one of those things that are great in theory, and terrible in real life.

[georgeecollins]

Exactly- sounds great but in practice often not great. Depends on the culture. I once worked for a small but ultimately very successful start up, as a married guy with kids. Unlimited PTO sounded great. Until I planned my second week long vacation in a year and got a lot of side eyes. Two weeks per year of vacation was less then what I got when PTO was "limited". In practice under unlimited PTO you could take a week off but more than that resulted in a PIP for something else.

[superfrank]

> But what happens in practice is no one feels like they are entitled to the time they should be entitled to, and negotiations from the employee side always come from a place of weakness. It's a terrible system

> Undoubtedly someone will respond to this post with just how amazing their manager is and that they have never had a problem.

That me! Except I don't think it has anything to do with my manager or company.

I've worked 5 different jobs over the last 12 years with 8 or 9 different managers and literally never had an issue with taking the time I want while taking 6-8 weeks of PTO a year. I've hit the point where when I'm looking for a new job unlimited PTO is kind of table stakes.

I manage a few teams now with some people in the US where my company does unlimited PTO and others in Canada where our company cannot give unlimited PTO. Looking at my teams, the amount of PTO people take has almost no correlation to whether they have unlimited PTO or a set number of days. I have US employees who take a ton of PTO and Canadian employees who have burned through their entire balance and then some and I have employees in both places who take essentially none.

I get that if you're in that second group it's preferable to be in a place where you'll get paid out for the days you didn't take, but I'm pretty convinced that unlimited vs set days has almost no bearing on how many PTO days someone will actually take.

[cortesoft]

> Looking at my teams, the amount of PTO people take has almost no correlation to whether they have unlimited PTO or a set number of days.

If the number of PTO days taken is the same between the groups, isn't it CLEARLY superior from an employee perspective to have a set amount? That way, you get paid out if you leave or are fired.

I know quite a few people who use their PTO as a sort of emergency fund if they are laid off... they will at least get paid that amount to hold them over until the next job.

[superfrank]

> If the number of PTO days taken is the same between the groups, isn't it CLEARLY superior from an employee perspective to have a set amount

For me, no. I take more PTO than most companies with limited PTO offer. Most big tech companies offer 20-25 days and I'm taking 30 minimum. I take 6-8 weeks a year and the year I got married, I took 10. A normal year of PTO for me is 2 weeks during the summer for a vacation, a week at Thanksgiving, a week in April or May since my family has multiple birthdays in that window, 2-3 weeks in the Christmas/NYE period, and then random days here and there for the rest of the year.

For my team, for the people on the low end banked PTO is probably better. For the people on the high end they often take more than the allotment for CA employees, so no.

Everyone's experience will be different, but in my career I've always found that unlimited PTO often means no one cares how much PTO you take as long as you're getting your work done. I value that freedom. I know it's not for everyone and I'm not saying that every company should be unlimited PTO, but I just hate this narrative that it's a scam.

[BoiledCabbage]

So "unlimited" for you is literally one week more than 5 weeks tech companies cap at?

Why not take 10 weeks or 12 weeks? If it's unlimited?

And how many other employees are only taking half of what they would be taking because they feel silently pressured to - and do all of those missing weeks make up for the single extra week you're taking?

[compiler-guy]

Some people do like it, and I'm glad it's working out for them--I really am.

But adding all that manager and corporate discretion sets one up for abuse when things go wrong at either the manager or corporate level. For some, I suppose the benefit is worth it--but if "unlimited vs set days has almost no bearing on how many PTO days someone will actually take", then people are giving up a lot of guarantees for very little benefit on their side. Especially the payout when you leave.

[superfrank]

> But adding all that manager and corporate discretion sets one up for abuse when things go wrong at either the manager or corporate level

I have never worked at a place where I didn't need manager approval for my PTO. That includes places where I had a set PTO balance.

In my experience, having banked PTO days doesn't actually give you any real protection from abuse. A manager can still deny every single PTO request or load you up with so much work that taking any PTO will result in you falling behind. The only difference is that the company then needs to pay you out for those days, which isn't nothing, but it's also not a ton of protection from abuse.

[gambiting]

>>A manager can still deny every single PTO request or load you up with so much work that taking any PTO will result in you falling behind.

I was once on a team where the manager thought he was being tough by really discouraging PTO taking in their team, and it was all great until we got to the end of the year with pretty much everyone on the team still having 20+ days of PTO left. HR just made everyone take the entire december off to use those days up, after that once incident no one had any issues booking PTO the following year.

[nly]

I worked at a small firm once where an 18 year old joined and took full advantage of the "unlimited PTO".

He was taking roughly a third of his time off.

Fired inside 6 months, and amazed it took this long.

[aksss]

It reminds me of the Dilbert joke about asking to be put on 4-10’s and the boss replies why would I do that when I already have you for 7-12’s? With unlimited PTO, if you can only take it when there’s no work to do.. well in my business the work is never done. Demand outstrips supply so completely and consistently, it would be an impossible hurdle. I’ve worked in jobs where even limited PTO was near impossible to take beyond the occasional one or two days. Banked PTO was basically considered your severance package. Seems hard to set expectations correctly with unlimited PTO plans.

[marssaxman]

I have worked for quite a few companies with unlimited-PTO policies, with quite a few different managers, and it's always been fine. I've never had any manager at any company give me any trouble about any time I wanted to take off, ever.

Different people have different temperaments. Unlimited PTO works great for me because I am more likely to actually take time off when I don't have to meter it. When vacation days are limited, they feel scarce and precious, so I avoid using them if at all possible - what if something more important were to come up later in the year, after I'd run out? It's stressful. There are never enough PTO days.

When I don't have to count days or worry about whether I have enough left, I'll just take time off, whenever the occasion arises. Taking all the time I want doesn't actually end up being much more than I'd be allowed if I had to ration it out.

[jagged-chisel]

Never quite understood the “negotiation” bit. I, the employee, am offering you, the employer, the courtesy of letting you know I am unavailable for work on $DATERANGE.

Of course, it’s well in advance, and nearly always avoids big company plans.

[jandrewrogers]

You have to manage discretionary PTO. The problem has almost never been people taking too much but taking too little.

At some companies, the directive from the top to management was to make sure people took at least 3-5 weeks of PTO every year. For legal reasons you can't keep official track of this (it will be imputed as accrual) but managers would actively nudge people to take more PTO.

If you proactively manage it, it works pretty well.

[danaris]

> The problem has almost never been people taking too much but taking too little.

The management culture in the US (other places too, but I'm most familiar with the US) is such that any time the employee (particularly ICs/line employees) wants to spend outside of work is automatically considered suspect.

This is because non-management employees are considered to be inherently lazy and constantly seeking to get as much out of the organization as possible for as little work as possible. And when they do work, they're considered to be incompetent and malicious (requiring constant supervision).

[musicale]

Does anyone else remember the people bragging about how they "work" two "full-time" jobs remotely?

I wondered how real those stories were, but that is probably what companies are thinking everyone is like.

[peab]

we have "unlimited" time off, with the recommendation of taking off at least 1 week per quarter. This seems to work pretty well, and I'd rather have this than 20 days PTO. I usually try to take 1 week off, as well as 1 day here and there for an extra long weekend.

[b0rtb0rt]

at my “unlimited PTO” company i just put time off on the calendar when im planning to be out and management deals with it, i don’t ask for permission. i try to be fairly reasonable about the time im taking and no one has ever questioned it or pushed back

[overfeed]

> i try to be fairly reasonable about the time im taking and no one has ever questioned it or pushed back

In other words, it is roughly the same way as regular PTO except "unused" PTO doesn't accumulate, and you won't get paid for any unused PTO at the end of your employment - which is the the whole point of "unlimited PTO"

[DanielHB]

Is it really a financial liability part really pushing companies for these policies? I never heard this argument before and compared to salaries PTO is minuscule liability...

Seems much more likely companies just trying to squeeze employees into taking less PTO.

[compiler-guy]

Pretty much every article on a naive Google search lists "reduced financial liability" as one of the corporate benefits. Even the ones that talk about more complicated financial scenarios deal with "unexpectedly short-staffed" rather than, "We have a big financial liability on our books."

A somewhat random example:

https://www.higginbotham.com/blog/unlimited-pto-pros-cons/

"Cost efficiency. Traditional PTO policies can result in financial liabilities due to unused vacation payouts when employees leave the company. With unlimited PTO, these liabilities are eliminated. This can be particularly advantageous for companies looking to manage their finances more effectively."

[DanielHB]

I mean I can understand why an accountant would be happy his one metric is down when the company implements unlimited PTO, or maybe the stock market responds to the (slightly) reduced liability levels.

But surely it can't be a significant amount of make sense to implement this kind of police only for this unless the company has insane turnover (so "unpaid" PTO is not paid out as cash). The reduced amount of PTO staff takes must be the main reason.

Unpaid PTO is (assuming that the employee _doesn't_ leave the company) essentially debt in the company books with 0% interest rate.

[rectang]

From the perspective that a company is an amoral profit-seeking automaton, it's not a "terrible system", it's a successful initiative to reduce compensation.

[cyanydeez]

I pointed out to my boss' boss when they switched to unlimited PTO that they were effectively downgrading my salary and benefits by ~2k$

[AlexB138]

Most companies use the term "discretionary PTO". That means that there is no set limit on PTO. The positive take on it is that this means employees can take time off within reason so long as they're getting their work done. The negative take is that it means you have no guaranteed days you can take, and cultural or managerial pressure will prevent you from taking even a normal amount of vacation.

It also means that employees don't accrue PTO days, and therefore don't have to be paid out for that time when they're fired.

[tavavex]

Does this unlimited PTO still have to adhere to any legally required minimum PTO limits? If not, what prevents them from just not giving their employees any time off ever and bypassing the peer pressure part entirely?

[jandrewrogers]

PTO regulations are created by the individual States. None require PTO to exist. They do regulate accrual of PTO if it exists, sometimes with unintended consequences for employees.

The origin story is that "discretionary PTO" was created to enable people to take longer vacations than was feasible within the regulatory constraints of accrual-based PTO. It can be abused in other ways but the intent of the people that invented it were employee-friendly.

[compiler-guy]

It does not. Nothing.

[yladiz]

Maybe in the US, but in countries with minimum holiday time you get the minimum in your contract (or a bit more) and the employee handbook says you have unlimited. Companies can’t shirk their responsibility here legally by saying they give unlimited vacation.

[compiler-guy]

"Contracted minimum with more at manager's discretion" isn't what people usually mean when they talk about unlimited pto.

[compiler-guy]

The shift from the tem "Unlimited PTO" to "Discretionary PTO" has happened because early proponents realized it wasn't really unlimited, and they didn't want workers to think that way. But the "unlimited" term is still used to sell it, and still often appears in informal recruiting conversations.

It's just so slimy.

[AlexB138]

Yeah, the current reality of it isn't great at a lot of companies. I've been places where it was done well though. For instance, having a mandatory minimum number of days of vacation helps combat pressure to not take time off, and leaders who openly encourage people to take their time helps combat a culture of not taking time.

It started as a positive thing, intending to trust the employees and give flexibility. Unfortunately, like a lot of things, sleazy leaders turn flexibility into manipulation.

[ryandrake]

Reminds me of "Unlimited data" plans from ISPs, which are actually limited, but they just don't want to tell you about them.

Anytime something is marketed as unlimited, it's not.

[musicale]

"Well it's not a deceptive trade practice because no rational person would take such a hyperbolic or outlandish claim literally - much like 'best ISP in the UNIVERSE!' or advertisements suggesting that beer will make you fit and attractive."

[Aurornis]

Normal PTO is earned in increments of hours per pay period. Each person has an accrued PTO balance that they draw down from when they go on vacation. From the accounting perspective, the company is not paying them for work during this time, they are paying the employee out of their earned PTO balance.

This creates some complications for the company where the accumulated PTO can be a liability on the books. It's a number that represents something they have to pay out with no labor in return. Depending on laws and circumstances they may also have to pay out the PTO balance when someone departs the company.

Some companies skip all of this by switching to untracked PTO, which is often sold as unlimited PTO. Employees don't accumulate a PTO balance and when they go on vacation they get paid normally, not out of a separate bucket. No extra liabilities on the book.

The trick is that PTO is now up to your manager's approval and judgment. At good companies you can actually take advantage of this for a more relaxed and flexible PTO schedule if you get your work done. I have done it and it's great when the company is good.

At bad companies, it becomes a trick where your manager always says "I don't know, now isn't really a good time to take that much time off" and then everyone gets less vacation time than they had before. I have also experienced this and it's very depressing.

[aksss]

How would you characterize the functional differences between the good and the bad companies that allowed for a great implementation of unlimited PTO? For instance, is it more overlap in job responsibility, less silo’d single points of failure? Better project management? I mean, it seems to me it’s never “a good time” since most of us could work 24/7 if just based on demand.

[pixl97]

Its a trick used to avoid financial liability.

https://www.businessinsider.com/unlimited-pto-vacation-scam-...

[davkan]

I have unlimited PTO, called DTO (discretionary time off). The only downsides in my case are that since it’s not accrued hours you are not owed it on termination and we are limited to two consecutive weeks. Otherwise I have never once been denied DTO, even when I’ve had bad overlaps with my coworkers. I would guess I take somewhere around 6 weeks off per year plus holidays. A few vacations and then odd days and long weekends here and there. I’m not really sure though, I don’t think about it, I just take off when I want. It’s absolutely wonderful.

I’ve heard horror stories about unlimited equating to zero. But I’ve also heard plenty of horror stories about PTO and unpaid time off getting denied as well. There is not much for employee protections in the states.

Maybe the hate for DTO in well compensated circles like this comes from people who were already getting 6 weeks of PTO. I would imagine they’re not comparing DTO against the 4 weeks my sister has as a senior dev in a marketing firm with an extra day per year of service or the _3_ weeks my mother had at 65 working as a data analyst for a healthcare company. Or maybe my company is just a unicorn in a sea of companies abusing it with people not being able to get any time off at all.

People are talking about how it’s always busy, there’s never enough time etc. That’s true almost everywhere. The work never stops. There’s always a project, always a critical bug, always a new initiative, always the next sprint. There’s more work than could ever be done with twice the employees. Good culture just mandates that you work around peoples absence and so is fine if people are out. Likewise as a good employee you don’t abuse unlimited and take off half the year.

[willis936]

It's unlimited in that you can request time off at any time with no balance or speed limit. The first order justification is that it saves some money from having to pay out unused time off balances at the end of the year / tenure or have people burst time off at random synchronous periods. However the second order effect is that the "how much time off is too much time off" is never defined and is a moving target. "If I take four weeks this year and things get tight next year will I show up on a filtered list for layoffs?"

It's uncomfortable for employees but employers tout how comfortable it is.

[sitkack]

No written rules is fascism.

[lbrito]

Its a way for US companies to avoid paying money. When employees get real PTO, companies have some legal and tax obligations. With fake "unlimited" PTO, they just pretend the person is working as usual.

[nsxwolf]

If you tell me I have "Unlimited" PTO, I'm taking 5 weeks, because that's what I've had at every regular PTO job in the last 20 years.

[jasondigitized]

Unlimited is 3 weeks. If you go over, people will start questioning your commitment to the company.

[thefourthchime]

I work in the media industry, there hasn't been any hiring in years, since before covid and certainly not after. Sometimes there are layoffs and they shake up middle management, but my boss doesn't even want to be come a SVP because those are the ones they axe when they restructure.

We're all just hunkering down.

[dabidab]

Yikes. Talk about a slap in the face. Who let them even propose that?

Maybe next they’ll give you housing from the company property, and sell groceries from the company store, and see a company doctor.

[rboyd]

I've found it's always best to calibrate around expecting something like the ice cream sandwich episode of The Office. Never feel too much of a letdown this way.

[hylaride]

"It's the least we can do, so it's the least we will do..."

[deterministic]

"The whipping will continue until morale improves"