[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.